by Natalia Di Bartolo – World premiere at the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, “The rattles hat” in diptych with “The Magnifying Glass”, by Marco Tutino.
From the novel of Giovanni Verga in the collection "Life of the fields" (1890-97) At the stage of the Opera House: the story of the Vergian Lupa to be transported to music, controversial and debated without outcome by the same Verga librettista with Puccini in 1894, who gave birth to the unfortunate booklet of Federico de Roberto fiddled by Job, represented only once and forgotten, a monotonous form was judged and at all suitable for musicability even by Pietro Mascagni.
However, the raw and blood fascination of the Verchian short story, however, continued to hover, until time and authors came to finally make it a work.
The time was The end of the 80s of the last century. Many water had passed under the bridges of the opera theater, a lot of music of new genres (leaving aside the evolutions of the classic), popular and different had been created: from jazz to pop, to light music songs, to rock. Evidently the times were ripe, but obviously two artists were needed, a musician and a librettist, capable of synthesis and innovation with the courage to resume what the Puccini and Mascagni themselves had rejected. So you breathed new air, with a new booklet of Giuseppe Di Leva and the music of the Milanese Marco Tutino, class 1954.
Another cultural time, a new way of feeling, the freedom to transpose the events of the Vergian fields into an Italian metropolis of the 60s. The booklet it is concise, sharp, of few words, because the facts had to make them first. Yet it is very well cared for, the booklet, sometimes in verse, senari or decasillabi, that are hidden inside a musical inspiration of absolute crudeness and strength.
The temperament of the she -wolf speaks with "The temperature" (the author's terminology) of music, the story is simplified, but not trivialized. In those already modern years, The magnifying glass It must no longer justify anything in front of the world, on the contrary, it shouts its condition as a victim who became executioner.
“A punch in the stomach " This work, to use the same definition of the author musician. Incandescent music, great use of percussion, no concession to tradition, not even to the green one: “The Magnifying Glass” of Tutino It is truly a unique piece.
Staged for the first time a Livorno, with the big Viorica Cortez as the protagonist, in 1990, the work was then resumed a Palermo, but remained "suspended", so to speak in the world of melodrama, precisely for its uniqueness and sound peculiarity, rich in contaminations, from the song "It's not a sin" by Peppino Di Capri to a quote of Lasca grandparents “Long live the sparkling wine (…) "And Cavalleria Rusticana. You can see well -hidden or obvious traces of even in -depth study of the sounds jazz and above all rock, of the "hard" one, from the late 1980s.
Blood, without rhetorical veils nor, it is reiterated, justifications to be offered or obtained, "The magnifying glass", works in an act and two paintings, now has a work partner and has been combined in diptych with this: always written by Marco Tutino After more than thirty years from "La Lupa", "The sonagli cap", in an act with interlude, freely taken from the comedy of Luigi Pirandello, was recently commissioned to the Milanese musician from Massimo Bellini Theater in Catania, particularly in the person of Artistic director of the Etneo Theater, Fabrizio Maria Carminati, who knew Tutino from the beginning and which is always very open to new experiments in the opera theater.
The work "The sonagli cap", staged in diptych with "The magnifying glass", precisely, in the world premiere, at the Catanese theater day 1 Marzo 2024, has shown that the work is still a lively and well -being genre, whether the style, inspiration, tutino's abilities have evolved and transformed and not only to adapt to the theme very different from that of its first creature in order of execution.
Deliberately, however, the two works in diptych were united by the leitmotiv of the violence against women.
Come The magnifying glass He was herself a victim of violence and vented her anger giving free free to instinct, Beatrice Fiorica, the protagonist of "The Sonagli cap" of Tutino He was the victim of the constraint and violence of the recent mafia that appeared around the 1930s in the last century in the Sicilian areas and beyond.
All this, of course, is not in Pirandello, but it's a "Freely drawn", not only chronological, but modifying the plot. Librettist he is the young and talented Fabio Ceresa, capable of putting his hands in the writing of the Pirandello, keeping the fundamental data of the "Three ropes": the "civil", the "serious" and the "crazy", but also transforming, with admirable overall synthesis capacity, the character of Ciampa In an emerging mafia boss. This is a decidedly great courage of this, with excellent use capacity in the booklet of poetic stylistic elements, such as the rhyme.
But, to return to music, Tutino talking "The sonagli cap" He really exceeded himself. He felt like that music there was a lot of experience of listening and composition, there was even much Puccini, yet he felt only in a very short musical quote from Tosca, to say the delegate Spanò All’ Notice the cat: "(...) Let's try to solve this other Camurria. Comparis? How did we do with Dr. Curria".
There was today all the tutino today in that absolutely original music, equipped with a interlude Very valuable, in which the high musical "temperatures" of the wolf occasionally re -emerged, but with conscious compositional wisdom and measured expression. No longer the almost violent meaning of the percussion in the entire score, but a wider one orchestral breath, despite their almost constant presence, also with the xylophone, the rattles and the sound of an electric bell from the front door, which broke the pathos of the action at the right time.
On the podium, with great identification, Maestro Fabrizio Maria Carminati He directed both works with an experienced and satisfied essay, after having also tried with the author (which is precious and very rare today) and driving an absolutely iron and prepared orchestra. Excellent sound result, of course, by Bellini's professors, while the interpreters moved on the scene, led by the registry elegance of Davide Livermore, of which it will be said later.
In the part of the Forget the Georgian mezzosoprano Nino Surguladze, of adequate attractiveness and excellent vocal and scenic rendering.
At his side, Lasca grandparents it was the Spanish tenor Sergio Escobar, together with some components also of the cast of "The Sonagli cap", such as the soprano Irina Mongu in the part of Mara. All the other interpreters are corrected.
To review "The magnifying glass" Just remember the definition of the same author and report that he has been subjected to listening to a high rate of emotions; But, after the interval, the spectators were galvanized by the waiting of the world premiere by Pirandello.
Something similar was expected to "La Lupa", musically; instead the Tutine He had the ability to transport the viewer not only in another setting and another era, but also in a condensed of decidedly less violent, but always engaging emotions: certainly never "comic", such as, by choice of Angelo Musco, it is used to the events of "The sonagli cap". Il Tutine He managed to return the original drama to the Pirandellian subject, who was to conception anything but comic, and to offer it to the bystanders dragging them to himself with very refined music, with short elegant melodies and of few notes that were repeated, fleeting intimistic sensations, in a whole exalted both by the orchestra direction of the Maestro Carminati, than from the interpreters.
Beatrice Fiorica, the aforementioned excellent soprano of Russian school Irina Lungu, it was the main interpreter, no longer the Ciampa: after all, the one who decides in the work of being crazy to save himself, victim of violence no less than the she -wolf, of a subtle and perfidious violence, linked to the bourgeois conventions and the nascent mafia, well represented by the Ciampa authoritative and skillfully Mephistophelic of Alberto Gazale.
The other interpreters are also excellent, including the tenor Escobar In the role of Fifì the beauty.
An overall fascination, therefore, for the spectators, enhanced by the Director appropriate and refined of Davide Livermore, which, making use of Scene by Eleonora Peronetti, strong of the pregnants and suggestive D-Wok digital scenography and gods Costumes by Marianna Fracasso, he made this world premiere cap in Catania, a real jewel.
Talking "The magnifying glass", the red passion/blood of the virtual scenography was the masters, both in the first picture in the autorimess, and in the second, set in a gray and snowy metropolitan city; With a surprise ending in which the guilty Nanni Lasca died, not the she -wolf, with red shoes, symbolically multiplied at the end of the work by the directorial intervention.
Instead nevertheless “The sonagli cap, Livermore "Maneuver" the characters with a capable hand and, in the whole, he had them as if they had been Rossinian interpreters, because they seemed to be, especially starting from the booklet. The scenic and digital atmosphere, of’interlude In particular, he aroused emotions felt in the public.
Great turnout of spectators, equally great the appreciation, especially for "The sonagli cap", applause convinced and heard for everyone, including, of course, the Tutine; with implied, repeated applause to Superintendent Maestro Giovanni Cultrera of Montesano ed al Artistic Director M° Fabrizio Maria Carminati of Massimo Bellini Theater in Catania, who came to the end of the decidedly courageous modern musical enterprise of high artistic value, which marks a moment of innovation and renewal of the Italian melodrama.
Natalia Di Bartolo ©
Photo by Giacomo Orlando ©
