Performance, presentazione
Rome - a stage for the world
A celebration of Queen Christina of Sweden’s (1626-1689) 400-year jubilee, with an artistic performance and two short lectures, as an interpretation of the cultural academies founded by Queen Christina, joining art and science.
The evening starts with two short lectures by contributors to the newly published anthology of current research on Queen Christina of Sweden (Christina of Sweden in Context: A Celebration of Seventeenth-Century Queenship 400 Years in the Making, ed. by Theresa Kutasx Christensen, Camilla Kandare, and Ylva Haidenthaller, Brepols 2026). As one of the most brilliant, outstanding and erudite women of her time, she invited artists and philosophers, like Descartes, to her court in Stockholm, creating an “Athens for the North”. But Christina wanted more. After she abdicated her throne, Christina's conversion to Catholicism sent shockwaves through Europe, since her father King Gustavus Adolphus II had fought and died for Protestantism. Christina created her own private court in Rome, and was a prolific patron of artists, composers and musicians. She is also one of few women buried in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
After the lectures we present a new contemporary performance with sounds and images echoing Rome in the 17th century, with baroque dance and video projections. Original and new musical compositions, side by side, incorporating electroacustical techniques based on music by Francesco Cavalli Queen Christina herself might have appreciated in Rome. An ambiance of timeless sounds that surrounded her at the time, formed by an analysis of the sound spectra of the church bells in Saint Peter’s Basilica, the fountains of Rome and the constant mix of different languages heard on the streets of Rome – just like today’s visitors encounter them.
Curator, composer, videoartist: Carin Bartosch Edström
Electroacustical composer: PhD Paulina Sundin
Baroque dance, choreography and Queen Christina scholar: PhD Camilla Kandare
Mezzo-Soprano: Katija Dragojevic Nylander
Baroque violin: Eva Lindal
Lectures: Valentina Burgassi, Politecnico di Torino, Turin: "Accogliere una regina. Cristina di Francia, Cristina di Svezia e l’architettura dell’ingresso trionfale a Torino (1656)"
Jaroslaw Pietrzak, University of the National Education Commission, Krakow: "Maria Kazimiera Sobieska as an emulator of Queen Christina’s life and deeds in Baroque Rome between 1699 and 1714."
Duration: ca 60 minutes (no interval)
Limited availability – reservation needed
L’11 novembre, presso l’Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici a Roma, si celebreranno i 400 anni dalla nascita della regina Cristina di Svezia (1626–1689) con una serata che intreccia storia, arte e musica.
L’evento inizierà con due brevi interventi dedicati alla figura di Cristina e alle più recenti ricerche sulla regina, straordinaria mecenate di artisti, filosofi e musicisti. Dopo l’abdicazione e la conversione al cattolicesimo, Cristina scelse Roma come centro della propria vita culturale, dove creò una corte privata e sostenne le arti.
La serata proseguirà con una nuova performance contemporanea ispirata alla Roma del Seicento, che unirà danza barocca, immagini e proiezioni video a composizioni musicali originali ed elaborazioni elettroacustiche. Campane, fontane e voci delle strade romane diventeranno materia sonora, evocando l’atmosfera della città che Cristina conobbe e contribuì a rendere uno dei grandi centri culturali d’Europa.