As seen in Asheville Citizen Times / Scene, Nov. 15, 2024
In 2002, in a small town on the outskirts of Florence, Italy, American violinist Brad Repp walked into a quaint cafe and met pianist and aspiring actor Aldo Gentileschi. At the time, they couldn’t have possibly anticipated what the next 22 years would bring — tours around the globe to some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, under the spotlights of which they’ve kept the centuries-old European theater tradition of Commedia dell’arte, combining clownish characters and physical comedy with impeccably played chamber music, alive.
But as Gentileschi began to play on the small cafe’s piano — despite its broken and off-tune keys — they knew their musical and comedic chemistry was something special. From then on, “every Saturday, at that cafe, we would put on a show,” Repp explained. “And it was always full of people, so we had a chance to practice in front of an audience all the time.”
At the very beginning, the musicians — now known professionally as Duo Baldo — would invite a guest pianist to perform a seemingly serious set alongside Repp.
After a few songs, “we pretend that he falls ill or injured himself, and Brad was without a pianist,” said Gentileschi. “I was in the audience, and I would propose myself to fill in. ‘I can play!’ And then we would just make a mess,” dialing up the comedy by taking on over-the-top personas until the two musicians were engaged in a slapstick-style musical fight.
“In the end, we realized people liked the second half more than the first half,” Repp added. “So we decided to develop our own show around these two different, almost opposite characters — the soloist who is kind of a prima donna” and the pianist who was hired to accompany him, but quickly grows defiantly tired of his partner’s theatrics.
In the town where they formed, Duo Baldo became an instant hit. Then, in 2004, they were invited to perform as a trio with Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, and additional distinguished engagements around Italy and Europe soon followed.
“It was difficult in the beginning, because the mentality, especially in Europe and Italy at the time, was that anything that makes people laugh can’t be of high quality,” Repp explained. “If you play classical music, you go in the classical music box. And if you do comedy, you go in the comedy box. You can’t combine things — or you couldn’t. But a lot of (prestigious classical venues and festivals) that snubbed us in the beginning, once they saw us perform with their own eyes, they started to change their minds.”
Two decades later, the duo has long since proved itself among the classical music world, having been invited to perform at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria, all without losing the laughter.
“I think about our roots in that little café where people were drinking and burping — and suddenly we find ourselves in the National Concert Hall in Taipei, which is one of the top 10 concert halls in all of Asia, where we had the pure honor to step on the same stage we’ve seen all these big names perform on television,” Repp said. “And then, as he was walking out (to perform), Aldo broke the door. The doorknob came off in his hand, in front of the audience. And of course he played it off really well. But then I went down to the dressing rooms during intermission, and I broke the doorknob on my dressing room too. I was thinking they were never going to invite us back — the guys who broke everything — but they had us back the next year.”
Unplanned antics of that evening aside, Repp and Gentileschi have found that their unique blend of comedy and chamber music is great for opening doors to new audiences.
“We’ve received so many messages from people who had no previous relationship with classical music, who fell in love with it because they saw it presented in a way that it wasn’t too highbrow,” Repp said. “And we’re really looking forward to sharing that with Asheville, too.”
IF YOU GO
Who: Duo Baldo
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov 21
Where: Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave., Asheville
Tickets: $22-45
