[NEohioPAL] Music and Mental Health - Saturday night in Cleveland Heights

[Malina Rauschenfels]

Burning River Baroque Presents:
"A Mad, Burning Desire"

Join us for engaging music and dialogue about the ways mental illness was
portrayed in early modern England and to think about the ways we can
address the mental health crisis in contemporary society.

The first English actresses to legally take the stage capitalized on early
modern society’s fascination with mental illness and catapulted themselves
to fame by portraying characters who descended violently into lovesick
madness on the Restoration stage. Women were legally permitted to take the
public stage in England in 1662, but this gigantic advancement for women’s
rights was fraught with immense political and sexual tension. From those
who decried the immorality of women performing in public to those who
fetishized, courted, and even raped them, nearly everyone had an opinion
about the women who were putting themselves on stage. Concurrently, English
philosophers and medical experts alike began to think of psychological
maladies as medical conditions requiring treatment by doctors rather than
as spiritual deficiencies to be handled by religious authorities. At the
visual epicenter of London’s cultural fascination with madness was
Bethlehem Royal Hospital (Bedlam), which was transformed from a dilapidated
hospital into a sprawling mental institution with space for over 200
patients in 1676. The tradition of wealthy individuals paying to observe
Bedlam’s residents began in 1610, and by the end of the century, visitors
regularly came to Bedlam to be entertained by those society deemed insane.
This cultural phenomenon of making a spectacle of the mentally ill
converged with spectacular mad scenes that were brought to life by the
first English actresses in the Restoration theater. “A Mad, Burning Desire”
features mad songs by Henry Purcell, John Eccles, Godfrey Finger and John
Blow that captivated London’s theatre-going audiences in the 1690s.

Malina Rauschenfels, soprano
Paula Maust, harpsichord

Saturday, October 19, 2019 ~ 7pm
Arrive 7pm, Music at 7:30pm
Blank Canvas CLE
2174 Lee Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
Suggested Donation $10-$20

More info here: https://www.burning-river-baroque.org/current-programs
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.burning-river-baroque.org%2Fcurrent-programs%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2LqV00h5pSocmu4CLEvdPirpmQ5MSLEwfIm3IdFggTp3t3rjwZD7IYieE&h=AT1wpdcrkb1WVWFJ9nUxeSlFPrTCqdgz5s8Y155RL7mWx0RKlvIG44msZcignvprGLNA1G71_nP6Gnb5C7jeUs-3qyukL_tyW2LKzG_RB6fQrciniRRyLz4vaFWE1vS9AHDa7rU>.
For all questions, contact directors at burning-river-baroque.org.
This event will also be live-streamed on our facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/BurningRiverBaroque/> page Saturday at 7:30pm

"Burning River Baroque left an indelible imprint on my psyche."
-The Boston Musical Intelligencer-
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