About This Song
About "L'Orfeo / Act III : Monteverdi: L'Orfeo / Act III: "Possente spirto"" by Anthony Rolfe Johnson
Monteverdi’s 'Possente spirto' is Orpheus at the gates, Rolfe Johnson’s tenor a plea of astonishing ornamentation. The music is both prayer and seduction, each trill a key to the underworld. Tension coils between desperate hope and the silence of death—power and vulnerability in one breath.