AMG Review of Corteo

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Cirque du Soleil's show Corteo sounds from an initial description like a somewhat forbidding production. "Corteo" means cortege in Italian, and the story line of the production concerns a clown's fantasy about his funeral. Of course, when such a plot is invested with the Cirque du Soleil approach, something suitably spectacular results. For the music, the producers opted for a pan-European approach, bringing in five composers -- Maria Bonzanigo, Jean-François Coté, Daniele Finzi Pasca, Philippe Leduc, and Michel A. Smith -- and setting them loose on the whole of European music old and new. The result is a varied score that ranges from klezmer music to tangos, performed on traditional instruments and more contemporary ones, with singing in Italian, Spanish, and French. It may be a pastiche meant to accompany constantly changing visuals, but it is consistently interesting to listen to on its own terms, and like the weather it keeps changing.