The Scarpetta Legacy”, Act Two. With “La donna è mobile”, a musical parody comedy by Vincenzo Scarpetta, the mini-review of the Trianon Viviani continues, under the patronage of the Eduardo De Filippo Foundation.
After “Titina la magnifica” – original text by Domenico Ingenito and Francesco Saponaro, freely inspired by the biography of Titina De Filippo written by her son Augusto Carloni, with Antonella Stefanucci and Edoardo Sorgente – this comedy – musical parody of Scarpetta in four acts is now being staged (Friday 13 and Saturday 14 May, at 21 pm; Sunday 15 May, at 18 pm), again with the direction and design of the stage space by Saponaro.
The Trianon is linked to the figure of Vincenzo Scarpetta, because it was the leading actor who inaugurated the Forcella theatre on 8 November 1911 with his father's successful comedy Miseria e Nobiltà, in which he made his debut in the role of Don Felice Sciosciammocca, thus marking the passing of the baton to his father Eduardo.
La donna è mobile was first staged in 1918. In it Francesco Saponaro glimpsed «echoes of Petito and Marulli, the vibrant lyricism of Viviani and some nuanced complexity with Pirandello-like overtones».
"Juggling a swarm of characters, which echo the most famous Scarpettian dramaturgy – continues the director –, Vincenzo Scarpetta offers us a refined and humorous critique of the society of his time that in reality is not at all distant from ours. Playing with equivocations and misunderstandings, disguises and class struggles, chasing love and money, it is the peaceful and shrewd social redemption, all stage art and theater, that prevails. The last ones fool the bullies who lose their unfortunate and foolish enterprises. At least in the theater it is like this".
The action is supported and enriched by monologues, duets and trios set to music and sung, presented as parodies of famous opera arias. The musical panorama of the romantic nineteenth century is extensively revisited thanks to the comic-grotesque rewriting and reworking of the texts. This is an original and particular musical-dramatic texture that, although starting from the canons of the traditional Scarpettian style, is distinguished by its strongly choral structure.
Here the dialect comedy meets the parody of the opera, thanks to the ability of the author, playwright and musician, to cross different registers and essential canons of the Neapolitan theatrical tradition of the time. It goes from Rigoletto and La Traviata by Verdi to Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni, from Guglielmo Tell by Rossini to La Bohème by Puccini.
There is no shortage of delightful quotations from operetta and parodic reworkings of great successes from the early twentieth century, ending with marches and ballets composed by Vincenzo Scarpetta himself.
"Thanks to the partnership with the artists involved and with the maestro Mariano Bellopede, the music guides, in a pyrotechnic game, the emotional fabric of the staging and releases suggestions that travel well beyond the Neapolitan border. – concludes Saponaro –: Vincenzo Scarpetta was a refined artist and, following him, we discovered that the score can be contaminated by the nomadic flair of the curious Neapolitan, from the States to South America, from the Mediterranean to the Far East”.
In Naples in the 1920s, the old nobility is experiencing its twilight and the upper middle class is in full economic crisis after the stock market euphoria of the early twentieth century. The noble Giulietta, scion of the Sazio family, aspires to marry a rich and high-born man.
Don Ignazio, her father, tries to indulge her whims and lets her play with the feelings of the penniless Eugenio Fiorillo, a foundling supported by the baron Don Ambrogio, and of the rich but not at all attractive baron Turzi.
Giulietta, prey to her careerism, gives in to Turzi's flattery and prepares to settle down as a baroness. Thanks to some letters found in an old armchair, Eugenio discovers that he is the legitimate son and universal heir of Don Ambrogio. To get revenge, he pretends to be the very rich Indian prince Kitikuti, making the pleased Giulietta understand that he wants to marry her.
With the help of Ferdinando the doctor, Luisella the greengrocer, Pascale the fishmonger and the three servants Felice, Vincenzo and Salvatore, he organizes a mock party to the detriment of Giulietta and all her companions.
On stage Luigi Bignone (Eugenio Fiorillo), Giuseppe Brunetti (Baron Procolo Turzi), Viviana Cangiano (Giacinta, daughter of the Marquis Cornacchia), Salvatore Caruso (Vicienzo, Don Ambrogio's waiter), Elisabetta D'Acunzo (Filomena, the loan shark), Tony Laudadio (Marquis Cornacchia), Ivana Maione (Luisella), Davide Mazzella (Salvatore, the baron's cook), Biagio Musella (Felice Sciosciammocca, Eugenio's waiter), Serena Pisa (Giulietta, Ignazio's daughter), Marcello Romolo (Ignazio Sazio), Luca Saccoia (Dr. Ferdinando Saraca), Ivano Schiavi (the fishmonger Pascale) and Federica Totaro (Rosina, Ignazio's waitress).
Live music performed by pianist and arranger Mariano Bellopede, who also takes care of the musical direction, with Arcangelo Michele Caso, on cello and plectrums, and Giuseppe Di Maio, on clarinet. Costumes by Anna Verde, lights by Gianluca Sacco and sound by Daniele Chessa.
Article published on May 10, 2022 - 18:00 pm
