Across the Centuries: Medieval- and Renaissance-Themed Events

By Troy Segal

In our information-overloaded world, things become dated very quickly. Yet, oddly enough, culture and literature from hundreds of years ago still speaks to us across the ages — sometimes in their original state, sometimes adapted. These upcoming NYC performances and lectures prove that art and artifacts dating as far back as the 1100s can be new again.

To be a priest or nun in the Middle Ages wasn’t as repressive as one might think — these godly folk were often at the forefront of arts and sciences, knowledgeable about everything from medicine to music to food. “Closed In, But Not Closed Out: Medieval Religious Life”, an Aug. 23 gallery talk at The Cloisters, elaborates.

Raise your voice in song — scores will be provided, if you don’t have one of your own — alongside the New York Choral Society in its performance of Carmina Burana, Carl Orff’s rollicking cantata set to 12th-4th century monks’ musings about life, love and, of course, fortuna, Aug. 27 at Symphony Space.

Photo: Lesley Leslie Spinks

Composer Rufus Wainwright and director Robert Wilson discuss their 2009 collaboration, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a surrealistic opera in which 25 of the Bard’s poems are set and performed to a variety of musical styles, ranging from rock to German medieval ballads, Oct. 8 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

BEMF Vocal & Chamber Ensembles

Book Eight (Songs of Love and War) of the dramatic madrigals of Monteverdi, the Italian composer whose work marked the transition from Renaissance to Baroque music, is being performed by the Boston Early Music Festival ensembles on Oct. 10; there’s also a pre-concert talk, within the elegant confines of the Morgan Library & Museum.

What becomes a warrior most? A suit of armor. Learn about these feudal fighting fashions — both the real ones on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (from a Met curator), and those designed for the fictional world of Game of Thrones (from the show’s costume designer) at this panel discussion, Dec. 2.