Tosca and Roma Sinfonietta:
Tribute to Ennio Morricone
with Javier Girotto sassofoni conductor Paolo Silvestri
Tosca and the Roma Sinfonietta pay homage to Ennio Morricone with a monographic concert on the first anniversary of his death. The programme is inspired by the album Focus, which Morricone composed for the Portuguese singer Dulce Pontes, featuring songs and new arrangements from his most famous soundtracks. The Roman composer also wrote for Tosca, contributing songs for her album Incontri e passaggi, and collaborated with the Roma Sinfonietta over the course of fifteen years, recording and conducting around the world. Paolo Silvestri, jazzman, multi-skilled musician and composer for film and stage, will be on the podium conducting such prominent soloists as saxophonist Javier Girotto.
Tribute to Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) for the 100th anniversary of his birth
Rocca Brancaleone |
Available from 20th December 2021 to 19th January 2022
Tribute to Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) for the 100th anniversary of his birth María de Buenos Aires
Opera Tango music Astor Piazzolla text Horacio Ferrer
Martina Belli mezzosoprano Ruben Peloni baritone Daniel Bonilla-Torres El Duende
with the Orchestra Arcangelo Corelli Davide Vendramin bandoneon Jacopo Rivani conductor
Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballettodance production coordination MM Contemporary Dance Companyperformers Michele Merola choreographer
directionCarlos Branca assistant director Rosanna Pavarini lighting designer Marco Cazzola set designer Giulio Scutellari and Carlos Branca sketches of costumes Carla Mellini costumes realization Nuvia Valestri head tailor Isabella Franzoni makeup Tobias Tran stage assistant Chiara Cattani light designer Mattia Mazzini stage manager Turchese Sartori technical directionandproduction Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Ferrara and Fondazione Ravenna Manifestazioni
new coproduction Ravenna Festival and Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Ferrara Italian premiere
with the patronage of Embassy of Argentine Republic in Italy
In the sordid slums of Buenos Aires, Maria, a factory worker, is seduced by the music of the tango and lured into an evil trap that makes her first a tango singer and then a sex worker. She dies, but her spirit walks the city among wastrels, thieves and criminals until she is miraculously reborn to give birth to a daughter, also named Maria, who could be herself in a new life, condemned to the perpetual cycle of things. Latin-American magical realism, ruthless and poetic, infuses Piazzolla’s tango operitamasterpiece, premièred in Buenos Aires in 1968. The wok combines the sacred, the profane and the fantastic in a world where the ill-omened are “born on a day when God was drunk”. And where the tango, hypnotic and irresistible, marks the pace of life and death like a strict judge.
music composed and conducted by Timothy Brock live music performed by Orchestra Arcangelo Corelli
in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna
Restaurato nel 2020 dalla Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna e Cohen Films presso il laboratorio L’immagine Ritrovata nell’ambito del Progetto Keaton
From South to North, from North to South, using the same track both ways: in a frantic search for his beloved, a young man, heedless of the battle raging around him, stages two long chases back to back in the midst of the American Civil War. For this comic epic of the silent screen, Buster Keaton arranged exact replicas of period locomotives, as well as 4,000 military uniforms: “It’s got to be so authentic it hurts”, he told his staff. Timothy Brock’s score was inspired by the songs of the American civil war, by their lyrics, rhythm and bite, drawn directly from 1860s sheet music. And if the current health restrictions make it impossible to perform the original 2005 score for a large orchestra, the reduced orchestration helps keep the momentum going and provides a framework for several solos.
Milano Marittima, Arena dello Stadio dei Pini |
25 July 2021 | at 9:30 PM
Ravenna Festival in Cervia – Milano Marittima
Il Trebbo in musica 2.1 Convivio. Dante and the Folk Singers with Ambrogio Sparagna and Peppe Servillo
Ambrogio Sparagna portative organ and vocals
Peppe Servillo vocals
Erasmo Treglia hurdy-gurdy, trumpet violin and shawm
Clara Graziano portative organ
Raffaello Simeoni vocals, guitar, and folk winds
Marco Iamele zampogna and shawm
Alessia Salvucci tambourines
Anna Rita Colaianni vocals
Mario Incudine vocals and guitar and with the children choir Libere Note led by Catia Gori with the participation of Marco Pierfederici keyboard
with the contribution of
It is known that Dante’s greatness extends well beyond the bounds of the “educated” élite to reach into the “popular” world. It is also well known that, over the centuries, his verses have influenced and entered the oral tradition of poetic production, inspiring, for example, the meters and themes of the precious practice of improvised poetry in ottava rima, which still survives in central Italy. And thus, a seven-century-long thread connects the songs and music of this Dante-inspired Convivio: Ambrogio Sparagna, along with some valiant travelling companions and an expert, multifaceted ensemble, will orchestrate the narrative, from the episode of Paolo and Francesca to the stories of Ulysses and Count Ugolino, punctuated by music “in the old way”.
Teodora
scalata al cielo in cinque movimenti
Basilica di San Vitale |
Available until December 31, 2021
Teodora climb to the sky in five movements
Chamber opera for soprano, actress, dancer, choir, and instruments (Edizioni Curci, Milan)
music by Mauro Montalbetti libretto and direction by Barbara Roganti
Roberta Mameli soprano
Matilde Vigna actress
Barbara Martinini dancer
Altrevoci Ensemble
Andrea Berardi organ
Choir of the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “Giuseppe Verdi” choirmaster Antonio Greco
Ravenna Festival’s commission for the performance in the Basilica of S. Vitale in coproduction with the 30th International Sacred Music Festival of Pordenone
world premiere
For almost fifteen hundred years, Empress Theodora has stared sternly at the faithful and visitors of the Basilica of San Vitale, her purple chlamys embroidered with the Magi, a jewelled chalice in her hands. Now, at last, the Basilissa that Frank Thiess described as “revered as a saint and cursed as demon”, leaves her wall of mosaics to take shape, body and life as the protagonist of Mauro Montalbetti’s Teodora.Una scalata al cielo in cinque movimenti. This new chamber opera, based on a libretto by Barbara Roganti, will be premièred right under the golden vaults of the basilica and the glittering mosaic of the Empress and her retinue. Not a mere biography—the authors explain—but rather a musical itinerary through the labyrinth of her existence.
Lights from the Divina Commedia before and after Dante
Luci dalla Divina Commedia prima e dopo Dante
Teatro Alighieri |
27 July 2021 | at 9:30 PM
Lumina in tenebris
Lights from the Divina Commedia before and after Dante
by and with Elena Bucci and Chiara Muti
based on the Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri
lighting design Vincent Longuemare sound design and dramaturgy Raffaele Bassetti
production Ravenna Festival in collaboration with Compagnia Le belle bandiere
In the dark backstage, in the wings, behind the backdrops, cracks, openings and gaps are disclosed and hidden… A light flashes, disappears, is transformed: apparitions are evoked by the voices of two white figures mirroring each other. Guardians, ghosts, souls. Two actresses who have already and repeatedly crossed paths. Now, again, they meet in the grandiose theatre of Dante’s Comedy, a map of lights designed to guide us through the darkness caused by discord and ignorance, arrogance and greed. Big lights, small lights: useful tools to push our way through the “forest dark”.
Lights that inspired Dante, and were inspired by him: they invite us to listen to the spirit of hope that dwells in each of us, a spirit that creates but does not destroy, welcomes but never rejects.
The Night of Prog UNO nel Tutto
Russi, Palazzo San Giacomo |
24 July 2021 | at 9:30 PM
The Night of Prog UNO nel Tutto
dedicated to Danilo Rustici
Stefano Pilia (Afterhours) guitar Roberto Dell’Era (Afterhours) bass and main vocals Enrico Gabrielli (Calibro 35) keyboards, flutes, and vocals Enzo Vince Vallicelli (Uno) drumkit and vocals and Sara Zaccarelli vocals
Italian premiere
“Is there a drummer in the house?” This was the question Danilo Rustici asked after Tony Esposito stormed off the stage where two former members of Osanna were trying to launch their new project, Uno. It was a life-changing moment for Vince Vallicelli, the Romagna-born drummer of Hellza Poppin, who had learned the tricks of the trade with Secondo Casadei and was now ready to join the big league of Italian progressive rock. The experience of Uno was short-lived and resulted in just one album, but generated legions of enthusiastic fans. Among them is the extraordinary composer and multi-instrumentalist Enrico Gabrielli who, with two other members of Afterhours, now enthusiastically re-proposes the music of Uno, not to “slavishly” repeat it, but rather to start anew from its creative energy and build a completely new project, in step with the times but deeply respecting the legacies of a mythical past.
music by Guiraut de Bornehl, Arnault Daniel and other authors
The journey of the Micrologus Ensemble starts from afar, but leads right into the heart of the Comedy. A journey that revives the sounds of the Middle Ages, combining a rigorous study of the ancient manuscripts with a meticulous attention to folk music and iconographic sources. And thus, the sacred songs collected in the “Laudario di Cortona” combine with the dance music and love poems of such troubadours as Arnault Daniel, whom Dante met in Purgatory, or Bernart de Ventadorn and Marcabru. Moving from the trumpets, bells, drums and shawms evoked in Inferno, we get to the songs expressly mentioned by the Poet—like the famous “Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona”—and to the songs of praise echoing in Paradiso. Finally, we get back to earth with the madrigals and ballads popular at the court of the della Scala family, in Verona, where Dante found refuge.
Music and cinema Inferno 2021 a movie by Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan and Giuseppe de Liguoro (1911)
music and sound design Edison Studio visuals Salvatore Insana with Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli
Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani live electronics
restored version by Cineteca di Bologna
Hordes of bat-like demons wielding sharp pitchforks; legions of Heaven’s pure souls floating in the sky; Paolo and Francesca gliding down from on high and then suspended in mid-air; Bertrand de Born holding up his severed head, and a gigantic soul-devouring Lucifer. In 1911, two pioneering directors adapted Dante and Virgil’s journey into the first full-length feature film in the history of Italian cinema, and they certainly spared no expense on special effects. Inspired by the famous engravings by Gustave Doré, the film was an unprecedented colossal: 3 years to make, a cast of 150, 100 sets and a huge box office success in Europe and the US. Edison Studio have now put their skills, expertise and live electronics technology at the service of a “perfect” soundtrack for the most visionary of Italian silent films.
organisation and communication Maria Donnoli artwork Marco Smacchia
coproduction E Production / Menoventi, Ravenna Festival, Operaestate Festival Veneto
To this day, Vladimir Mayakovsky’s death probably remains the most exciting cold case in Russian literature. On April 14, 1930, the leading poet of the Russian Revolution shot himself through the heart, for reasons that were never clarified. Political pressure? Intellectual isolation? A broken heart? Serena Vitale, one of the most important Italian Slavists, has written a successful book on this mystery, The Deceased Hated Gossip, whose title quotes a famous line from the poet’s suicide note. Vitale’s complex investigation has inspired Menoventi, who now adapt for the stage the poet’s mysterious end. They will propose a very peculiar work, based on the interplay of noir and crime story, where hypotheses, perspectives and testimonies reflect one another in a fantastic game of mirrors.
