Many of you won’t have heard of Italian composer Domenico Zipoli. Despite living a life so unfeasibly bizarre and Walter Mitty-esque, he is virtually unknown. Inspired by an odd confluence of events in 2012, myself and others decided to create a show that would try and tell his remarkable life story, from the few fragments of information we have tried to bring together.

So how did it all begin in 2012? Well, firstly a Google search for the derivation of the word Baroque (perola barroca or 'imperfect pearl' describing – and not favourably I would add – an opera by Rameau, and its horrible dissonances); a purchase from an antique market of a necklace made of imperfect grey and cream pearls; the witnessing of an opera directed by Emma Rivlin; and an interest in the music which was coming out of a time of intense scientific development and geographical discovery of the 17th and 18th centuries. We were searching for interesting musical material with which to present a show of contemporary and Baroque music from South America.

Zipoli was the driving force behind the musical development of South America in the 18th century, through Baroque music delivered via the Jesuit communities. This was a whole new world I was totally unfamiliar with. What fascinated me was that this had echoes of the current musical drive in South America today. And this man, a wonderful keyboard player who died like Chopin of TB and at a similar age (in his late 30s), was so little played, his scores difficult to locate; certainly an enigma, but possibly a myth? Confusion abounds through the 200 years of his apparent ‘disappearance’, but streets are named after him in Bolivia and Paraguay – but of his Italian lineage and works, virtually nothing.

Thus started spinning my world of The Imperfect Pearl. Zipoli himself an imperfect pearl, a soul finding solace perhaps through his teaching of music and composition to indigenous Indians of South America between 1717 and his death in 1726 (just passed his 37th birthday), rather than his whirlwind life in the salons of the wealthy in Rome.

Our story will start on the cramped boat during his journey from Cadiz in April 1717 to a new, dangerous and unknown life in the jungle of South America. We find out his passions (and perhaps a love affair) and try to imagine what drove him to such an extreme change of his life and fortunes. We listen to the music he knew, some of which he composed, and the influence of the new people he was to meet in the Settlement of Paraguay, sandwiched between the two dangerous and violent forces of Spain and Portugal, fighting for dominance and wealth. We listen to the music he composed in his new and strange home, music for tilling the fields or Christian celebrations, where everyone sang because they loved to do so. And finally we hear of the destruction of the Jesuit communities, which were too independent and too commercially and socially successful.

This project has enabled me to ‘keep a hand in’ music, since six or so years ago I began to lose the use of my hands as a result of Dupuytren’s disease to the point now of not being able to stretch an octave. Also, having over the last decade undertaken a dozen or so Arts Council-funded projects covering all areas of cross-arts, it has been THE most fascinating of journeys putting this part theatre, part opera, part concert together totally from scratch. Impossible without the immeasurable assistance of the Arts Council but especially the endless talents of my wonderful cohorts in this; William Towers, Eloise Irving, Miles Golding, Charlotte Fairbairn, Emma Rivlin, Eliot Giuralarocca and especially my long suffering wife and amazing producer, Heulwen Phillips. Mille grazie regazzi, as dear old Domenico may have said… 

We kick off this tour at Newbury Spring Festival on May 13, then on to Cornwall, East Anglia, Wiltshire and Herefordshire. Visit perolabarroca.com for the full schedule.