written and directed by Antonio Vergamini
with Nicanor Cancellieri, Irene Geninatti Chiolero, and Franca Pampaloni
Between melodrama and clownery,
an impassioned and delirious tribute to the greatest opera arias –
from Donizetti to Mozart, from Rossini to Verdi.
A production of Associazione Longuel and Trio Trioche (Italy),
in co-production with Mirabilia Festival and Spazio Circo Bergamo (Italy),
in collaboration with Théâtre de Colombier (Switzerland)
Three penniless, wandering musicians cannot find a better trick to approach an audience more famished than themselves than by enacting the sale of slaves on stage. They carry the opera around the world with their arsenal of juggling equipment, tap shoes, and hearts made of sponges filled with raspberry syrup.
A show dedicated to a fascinating moment of street artistry in which small theater companies, performers and wandering musicians try to make ends meet by bringing the most famous opera arias to the four corners of the globe.
actress in creation: Silvia Laniado
costumes: Lisa Rufini, Sartoria SlowCostume
scenographer: Lisa Foletti
photographer: Viviana Cangialosi
video: Atelier Sievi
technicians: Luca Carbone and Elia Origoni
Artistic residency in Mirabilia Festival
“Aldina left the Duchy of Parma to follow the Savoiardi, whom she heard playing the bagpipe as a child.
She left for Provence and to make her day as a bearded lady, but was gifted with a soprano tune, so great to give skin goodebumps.
On his side, Urbano was wandering through France, walking since he could remember, masterfully playing the flute, but with empty pocketts. Me, I’m Caterina. When I met them I pretended to be devoted to dance, but I was only waiting for someone to invent the accordion.
We immediately got that music wasn’t earning us enough groceries, and so we use our pocketts leftovers and bought two trained bears, four monkeys and, most important, a camel, who earned us all by itself half of the salary, for nobody could resist the children’s pleas about getting to try a camel ride for two coins.
But then we discovered the opera. I remember that instant as if it happened yesterday: at the end of the show we went back on the cart, it was raining and we spent the night imagining the future and drinking good old Barolo. The morning after, we sold the beasts and bacome acrobats and coster musicians again. We try hard to give opera a mumm touch, and we tour the world with our jugglings, sponge hearts filled with berry syrups, tapper shoes and the bears’ jails we couldn’t sell…”
Acknowledgments:
Odino Artioli, Isabelle Bonillo, Maria Bonzanigo, Raffaella Bordonaro, Alexis Bowles, Esther Buser, Manlio Casali, Anna Casari, Mona Chibout, Daniele Finzi Pasca, Giovanna Demeglio, Olivier Forel, Gianni Gandini, Hugo Gargiulo, Sandra Gerber, Julie Hamelin Finzi, Léonie Keller, Fabio Lecce, Monica Marazzi, Amal Meroni, Tanja Milosevic, Ciril Noto, Lorenzo Ortelli, Elisa Perna, Marzio Picchetti, Walther Sievi, Teatro Trebbo, Teresa Larraga, Yvonne Tissot.