Naples, 1979. The mayor was Maurizio Valenzi, a veteran communist who had been a courageous opponent of fascism, suffering long years of exile, prison, and torture, before becoming a key figure in our country's democratic rebirth. He served as a Senator of the Republic and, in Naples, for many years as a city councilor on the opposition benches. The city was experiencing one of its recurring periods of optimism, a civic and cultural reawakening, following years of decline that culminated in the brief but shocking cholera epidemic of 1973. Only a year later, in November 1980, a new scourge, the earthquake that devastated Campania and Basilicata along with Naples, would once again disrupt the situation... Forty years later, we borrow the words spoken at the time by Maurizio Valenzi: "Any discussion of culture in Naples, its organization, and its dissemination must henceforth take into account the positive experience... achieved between June 28th and mid-September under the name of Summer in Naples." It was true, and it still is: Summer in Naples represented an extraordinary innovation in the city's cultural life, it still occupies an important place within it, and it is right that we look back on these forty years to return to the reasons that dictated its birth and that, without interruption, have given it meaning.
“That Summer in Naples was the sign of a true cultural revolution. This year marks the 220th anniversary of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, which we remembered with the Maggio dei Monumenti dedicated to Filangieri and the right to happiness. The Summer in Naples, even in its festive dimension that builds communities and abolishes territorial and social hierarchies, reconnects us to those values and pushes us to affirm once again that “the future has an ancient heart”. Forty years ago, the Summer in Naples opened with the performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a sign of Naples' European vocation. The “fortieth” edition opens with two events dedicated to hospitality and the theme of immigration to reiterate that Naples is a world city of neo-humanism. “Whoever saves one life saves the entire world”” declares the Councilor for Culture and Tourism Nino Daniele.
The exhibition Estate a Napoli 18-29. The politics of entertainment during the time of Maurizio Valenzi will be held at Maschio Angioino from 1979 July to 2019 September. Curated by Maria Savarese with the collaboration of Gianni Pinto, the exhibition tells the story of this initiative that is so important for the city through documents and unpublished photographs taken from the archives of the photographers personally involved during the events. Estate a Napoli started in 1979 with the aim of de-provincializing the city's cultural and entertainment activities, of creating moments of social aggregation, of rediscovering and enhancing the urban cultural, environmental and architectural assets that are still little enjoyed by people. This exhibition aims to tell all this through archives intended as living memory, thanks to documents, posters, invitations, playbills, programs, newspaper articles, correspondence, books, etc. and thanks to the archives of some Neapolitan photographers, Luciano D'Alessandro, Fabio Donato, Luciano Ferrara, Pressphoto. In keeping with the values of promotion and enhancement of the city's historical, artistic and monumental heritage, the shows will take place in the cloister of the Convent of San Domenico Maggiore, at the Real Casa Santa dell'Annunziata, in the church of San Severo al Pendino, where a concert hall has recently been set up in the ancient Sacristy, in the Courtyard of the statues of the Federico II University, in the Church of Saints Marcellino and Festo, at FOCUS - Fondazione Quartieri Spagnoli, at the Botanical Garden, in the Galleria Umberto I, in the garden park of King Ladislao in via San Giovanni a Carbonara, in the municipal park of Poggio, in some representative squares of the city and in many other well-known and lesser-known places.
Above all the others, the symbolic place of the city's summer programming has always been the Maschio Angioino, with its courtyard that for forty years has hosted shows every summer evening, changing its function over the years: initially a moment of entertainment for those who remained in the city in the heat, now also open to the numerous tourists who invade Naples even in August, changing its face, the empty and desolate city of the past years no longer exists.
With a prologue dedicated to the right to migration, hospitality and peace, on the 29th the Maschio Angioino will be illuminated in blue, the colour proposed by UNHCR as a celebratory symbol of World Refugee Day.
Starting June 27, artist Giovanni De Gara will mount a golden flag on one of the towers of the Maschio Angioino, as part of his artistic project “Eldorato” that has been crossing the main Italian cities for months. The project consists of gilding the portals of churches, covering them with isothermal blankets, normally used for first aid in the event of accidents and natural disasters and which have entered the collective imagination as the “garment of migrants” rescued at sea. The artist's goal is to promote a profound reflection on the theme of openness towards every individual, without distinction of race, gender and creed.
On the towers of Castel dell'Ovo, the icons of “Santi Migranti” will be exhibited, an artistic project by Massimo Pastore that tells the stories of all those who have been forced, for one reason or another, to leave their homeland to find refuge elsewhere. Men and women, inspired by classical iconography, are portrayed with evocative isothermal blankets. The aim is to raise public awareness by inviting it to a gentle reflection through the vision of people who have dedicated their lives to humanity.
Tonight 28 June Live JAZZmigr_ACTION, Luca Signorini cello, Bruno Persico piano, Gianni Stocco electric bass, Enrico Del Gaudio drums – Readings by Enzo Salomone – Testimonies by Pietro Migliaccio volunteer doctor in Africa and Lampedusa, Sandra Mouaikel French-Lebanese actress.
Saturday 29 June musical show Music beyond borders – Music beyond the borders of a courageous all-female collective, Les Amazon D'Afrique, born in 2015 in West Africa, and more precisely in Mali. They sing about equality, the rights of peoples and women who have come together to give voice to a single protest song and make it heard by the world.
On stage with them will perform Pulcinella and Mamma Africa by and with Brunello Leone and Ibrahim Drabo, La Zero, Orchestra dei Braccianti di Terra! Onlus, Marzouk Mejiri and his Fanfara Station.
Music will be the protagonist of many evenings with a varied program that ranges from classical to traditional to popular.
More international music with the preview of the Ethnos Festival. Young people and classical music will be at the center of the first edition of UniMusic - Festival of Music and Culture in the monumental university places with evenings also at the Maschio and on the outskirts at San Giovanni a Teduccio curated by the Nuova Orchestra Scarlatti.
Women will be at the center of the Femin'Arte exhibition: Flò, Sesè Mamà, Ebbanesis.
Jazz with international stars in the VIII edition of the Live Tones festival: CAMERA SOUL quartet, Leonardo De Lorenzo & vesuvian jazz society, Yakir Arbib-Roberto Giaquinto-Francesco Ponticelli Trio, JasevoliI | Salis | Del Gaudio trio featuring Daniele Sepe, Ricci-Sorrentino-Tucci trio.
Lots of theater in August, with the 'Ridere' review, now in its 2020th edition, which will bring guest stars such as Massimiliano Gallo, Simone Schettino, Rosalia Porcaro, Francesca Marini to the Maschio stage and which is preparing to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary next year, XNUMX, with a special edition dedicated to this anniversary; with the Alan De Luca comedy review; with evenings dedicated to the theater companies that participated in the XNUMXst edition of the Gennaro Vitiello Award; that of author theater curated by Il Pozzo e il Pendolo; with an evening dedicated to Massimo Troisi on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, Troisi poet Massimo, on Massimo's artistic and private life with unpublished works, autobiographical texts, poems, interviews, songs, photos and videos. A reconstruction of his magnificent career, of his extraordinary poetics applied to his cinema, his stories, his monologues and the historic group La Smorfia.
And by a great of the theatre, who is instead turning eighty, Mariano Rigillo, two evenings of King Lear by William Shakespeare are performed.
The show “1979-2019. The artistic-cultural scenario in Naples” will help us relive this fortieth anniversary of Estate a Napoli. On stage, many witnesses of this experience: Gianni Pinto, former Coordinator of the Work Group of Estate a Napoli 1979 and theatrical producer, the Caccavale family of the Teatro Augusteo, the brothers Massimiliano and Gianfranco Gallo, the director Edoardo De Angelis and the artists Paolo Caiazzo, Nadia Basso, Domenico Sepe, Carlo Faiello with Marcello Colasurdo, Fiorenza Calogero with Antonella Morea, Ottavio Lucarelli representing the press, the publisher Diego Guida, Maurizio De Giovanni, Maria D'Elia President of the Mondragone Foundation, Olga De Maio and Luca Lupoli of the Teatro San Carlo. From a format by Lorenza Licenziati and Laura Bufano. The vocation of the cloister of the Convent of San Domenico Maggiore as a stage for cultural events is consolidated: the folk festival curated by I guarracini, the philosophy festival of Magna Grecia, of dance curated by the Consorzio Coreografi Danza d'Autore, the music and theater festival curated by Alan De Luca, the sixth edition of the Classico Contemporaneo festival curated by the Teatro dell'Osso, the Mamma Napoli Mood festival, the Solo festival by Jesc Sole, the Morsi di teatro 2.0 festival by Teen Theatre and the shows by Inbilicoteatro and film and the Yoga Napoli festival (third edition).
Between August 10 and 20, for the second time this year, a review of traditional Neapolitan music and theatre will be held in the ancient heart of the city, in the courtyard of the Real Casa Santa dell'Annunziata, recently made even more accessible with the restoration and opening of the sixteenth-century gate.
From July to September, a busy program for children and families curated by I teatrini I luoghi delle fiabe that will take place between the Garden of King Ladislao, the monumental complex of the Annunziata and the Municipal Space Piazza Forcella: workshops, theater, games, books and nature.
Even the suburbs in the program of Summer in Naples as an integral part of the city program. A proposal of excellence curated by excellences who have been working for years in complicated contexts: States of Grace and Emergency Festival of the Suburbs
Theatres – Communities – Territories, 2nd edition, this is the title that gives a good idea of the festival, the places and the realities involved in a program that runs from mid-July to early September.
Five historic theatre collectives, TAN Teatro Area Nord, nts Nuovo Teatro Sanità, Beggar's Theatre, Nest Napoli Est Teatro and Sala Ichòs, who have chosen the Periphery as a place to stay to build, are taking action and relating, giving life to a travelling art festival that, like an ideal bridge, will cross the entire city, from San Giovanni a Teduccio to the Area Nord passing through Sanità. Many places have been chosen to be inhabited as heterogeneous and interconnected spaces for meeting and gathering, through which to renew the alliance between art, culture and citizenship: Area Nord of Naples (Teatro Area Nord, Parco Corto Maltese, Parco Eco della Filanda, Marianella, Campo di calcio Arciscampia), Area Est (Teatro Nest, Centro Asterix, Forte di Vigliena, Sala Ichos) and the Rione Sanità (Cimitero delle Fontanelle and Nuovo Teatro Sanità). About twenty days of shows, recitals, dance performances, exhibitions, readings and workshops that are part of the Cultural Programming of the Municipality of Naples. In continuity with the theme chosen by the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Naples for the event Estate a Napoli 2019, there will be various creative initiatives and artistic and playful exploration dedicated to children and young people. Through intensive drawing workshops and creative manual workshops, we will give voice and body to the expressive needs of the youngest, using laboratory practice as a "place of doing and building together, of making room by welcoming, finding one's own place by being welcomed".
An integral part of the summer program are the exhibitions: at the Pan|Palazzo delle Arti Napoli, at the Maschio Angioino, at Castel dell'Ovo, at San Severo al Pendino, at San Domenico Maggiore, in the city squares. After the incredible numbers of this winter and this spring, the intense exhibition program continues that make Naples one of the main destinations for those in search of art.
As part of the 2019 Universiade to be held in July in the city, the international exhibition by Chinese artist Liu Ruowang: Wolves Coming will be inaugurated on the 12th. One hundred sculptures of iron wolves, approximately two and a half meters long and weighing over 200 kilos, will be the corpus of an installation that will invade Piazza Municipio to represent with great elegance the threat to the status quo of common life. The use of allegory derives not only from an artistic choice but also from a political choice of subtle denunciation that is an expression of freedom and independence of his artistic work that transcends nations and flags and pillories fears in favor of cooperation.
The exhibition, promoted by the Department of Culture and Tourism, is organized by Lorenzelli Arte and Alfred Milot Mirashi with the curatorship of Ivan Quaroni and the collaboration of Federica Minesso.
The exhibition is a tribute to the Chinese representation present in the city to collect the torch that will be carried to China for the next edition of the Universiade.
In the Palatine Chapel at Maschio Angioino from July to October over fifty paintings of the nineteenth-century School of Posillipo will be the focus of an extraordinary exhibition curated by Isabella Valente entitled The School of Posillipo: the light of Naples that conquered the world. Giacinto Gigante, Pitloò, Carelli, Pratella, Dalbono, Smargiassi, Fergola are some of the names of the authors of the paintings that will be exhibited, coming from private collections.
From July to September, the Pupi will arrive at the Convent of San Domenico Maggiore with the exhibition entitled THE CRUEL HISTORY. Characters of the Opera dei Pupi and the guarattelle. Of the three traditions of the Italian Opera dei Pupi (“the Puppet Theatre of Southern Italy”), the Neapolitan, the Palermitan and the Catanian, the Neapolitan one is probably the oldest, although today less known. After the success of Ravenna and Rome, the exhibition on the Neapolitan Opera dei Pupi is presented for the first time in Naples. They are guappi, paladins, popular characters, mythological animals, video fragments, photographs from the Families of Art Furiati, Perna, Di Giovanni and Buonandi, with original examples that belong to the IPIEMME Museum of Castellammare di Stabia. The exhibition is curated by IPIEMME (International Puppets Museum)-Compagnia degli Sbuffi. The exhibition is accompanied by many other activities for adults and children: guided tours, workshops, meetings with historical representatives of the ancient theatrical art of puppets and guarattelle.
At Pan, Elio Washimps' solo exhibition continues and the summer festival, now in its fourth edition, Art Performing Festival, is about to open. The exhibition on Tato Russo continues until the end of July at Castel dell'Ovo, and at San Domenico Maggiore, Marisa Laurito's photographic exhibition on the environment entitled Transvantgarbage. Terre dei Fuochi e di Nessuno.
The open-air cinema at Parco del Poggio is highly anticipated and confirmed again this year with a program that satisfies a heterogeneous audience by including auteur films, the season's great successes, animated films for children and some national previews.
More cinema, in this case in the Spanish Quarters, at FOQUS which hosts an interesting festival on Spanish auteur cinema curated by the Oficina Cultural of the Spanish Embassy in Italy.
The festival, now in its twelfth edition, presents, over five days, in the original language, the best of recent Spanish cinematographic production.
In September, for the fifth consecutive year, Imbavagliati” is scheduled
International Civil Journalism, a unique format in the world, conceived and directed by Désirée
Klain, which has given voice, since 2015, to courageous journalists/witnesses from all over the world, who work in nations where dictatorial censorship prevents free expression or where the social context puts them in constant danger of life. The fifth edition will be held from 20 to 24 September at PAN | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli. The choice of PAN is highly symbolic because it houses the Mehari of Giancarlo Siani, the Neapolitan journalist murdered by the Camorra in 1985 and who over the years has become the symbol of the initiative for freedom of the press. With the slogan “Whoever forgets becomes guilty” the appeal to ask for truth and justice for Giulio Regeni and Ilaria Alpi is renewed at Imbavagliati.
The event will have as a prologue the fifth edition of the “Pimentel Fonseca Award”, which
will be awarded to a well-known female figure who has distinguished herself internationally in the defense of civil rights. The award is dedicated to the memory of Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca, a Neapolitan patriot and founder of the newspaper “Monitore Napoletano”, who was executed on August 20, 1799 in Piazza Mercato.
An anniversary edition of the summer in Naples 2019: in September at the Mercadante theater, in an exceptional evening, the first forty years of Gino Rivieccio's career will be celebrated.
The graphic campaign was developed from an original 1979 drawing by Maurizio Valenzi created in June for the printing of the first poster for Estate a Napoli, which opened on June 28, forty years ago.
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