A fascinating look inside a composer's mind. Sciarrino's world is so strange and foreign to me, yet it is exactly this that makes it interesting. The story of this opera is based on Gesualdo, the renaissance composer of exquisitely chromatic and thorny madrigals, who murdered his wife and her lover. The music is mysterious, archaic, modern and intense. The vocal lines create a world of angst and passion. The casting of the guest, who becomes the duchess' lover as a countertenor (Kai Wessel) with the typically emasculated sound, is particularly efficacious. You listen to this a while and you know you really need to go out for a nice jog in the park and sweat it away, but still, it is worth it.