Breath of Truth

The Moment of Truth (Il momento della verità), from director Francesco Rosi, is a visceral plunge into the life of a famous torero – played by real-life bullfighting legend Miguel Mateo, known as Miguelín. Charting his rise and fall with a single-minded focus on the bloody business at hand, the film is at once gritty and operatic, placing the viewer right in the thick of the ring’s action, as close to death as possible. Like all of the great Italian truth seeker’s films, this is not just an electrifying drama but also a profound and moving inquiry into a violent world – and it’s perhaps the greatest bullfighting movie ever made.

For a Breath of Ecstasy is seven-movement work for chorus, strings, and oboe that is based on texts by Sara Teasdale. This major work for chorus, strings, and oboe features settings of the poetry of Sara Teasdale, commemorating the centennial of her winning the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her Love Songs, Northwestern State University commissioned this work.