THE MALTINGS is set to be transformed into a crime scene for a theatrical and music experience like no other.

Betrayal: A Polyphonic Crime Drama has been commissioned by the Barbican Centre and will be performed during Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival.

This murder mystery experience is set to the music of Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo and fuses unaccompanied singing with contemporary dance in real-life urban locations, on this occasion a multi-storey car park.

Beyond a police cordon, the audience become detectives and are encouraged to piece together the intersecting stories.

I Fagiolini and director John La Bouchardière present their long-waited follow up to The Full Monteverdi.

Music director Robert Hollingworth said: “The Full Monteverdi is a tough act to follow, so we have taken time with John La Bouchardière to develop our next project together.

“Gesualdo’s music holds a fascination for us both: polyphony built on shifting harmonic sands, by far and away the most extreme example of a school of composers that depicted poetic images by extreme gestures.

“More than 400 years after it was written, it still surprises and shocks. And just as norms only partly apply with Gesualdo’s music, I hope that pre-conceived rules and ideas that an audience may have about madrigals and motets will be re-thought after this production too.”

Director John La Bouchardière added: “As in The Full Monteverdi, the audience will be immersed in the music and action, but this time they’ll be in a car park, and be able to follow the performers around.”

The urban setting of The Maltings car park serves as a crime scene, re-lived in dance, drama and virtuosic ensemble singing.

Betrayal: A Polyphonic Crime Drama runs on June 3 and 4, from 8pm, and June 5, 7pm and 10pm.