Civil Engagement

GIUSEPPE PENNISI discusses operas representing
intrigues which couldn't be discussed in public

Many operas have strong civil engagement content. Cavalli and Monteverdi showed the intrigues of the Gonzaga Court in Mantua and the Inquisition in Venice on stage, intrigues that could not be discussed in public. Many German operas of the nineteen thirties were simply forbidden by the Nazis because of their civil content. More recently, in the United States there is a full category of operas dealing quite openly with political issues in a rather critical way.
In Italy, stage direction often gives a contemporary political slant to operas even of the seventeenth century, but civil engagement operas as such are few and far between. For this reason, it is quite remarkable that two operas of this kind are presently on stage.
The first opera is Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo ('Falcone, the time suspended in a flight') by Nicola Sani and Franco Ripa di Meana. It has currently on stage in Berlin at the Staatsoper under den Linden from 28 April to 13 May 2017 in a new production sung in German and with a new instrumentation.

Andrea Macco in 'Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo' in Berlin. Photo © 2017 Gianmarco Bresadola

I saw a previous production in Reggio Emilia a few years ago. The new production features new sets and, as protagonist, Andreas Macco, a well-known German bass. The conductor is David Coleman.
The other opera, touring several Italian theatres, deals with freedom and love of nature during the last few years of fascism. Because it is to move from place to place, it involves only a reader and a quartet. Its title is L'aria della libertà: l'Italia di Piero Calamandrei ('The air of freedom: the Italy of Piero Calamandrei').
The authors, neither of them musicians, are Nino Criscenti and Tomaso Montanari. Criscenti collected sections of Calamandrei's writings, and Montanari (an art scholar) reads them. The music consists of a selection taken from masterpieces by Stravinsky, Casella, Shostakovich, Hindemith, Messiaen and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, ranging from the nineteen twenties to 1945. I saw this piece of musical theatre at the Teatro Olimpico in Rome on 8 May 2017.

Tomaso Montanari in 'L'aria della libertà: l'Italia di Piero Calamandrei' in Rome. Photo courtesy of Accademia Filarmonica Romana. Click on the image for higher resolution

This Spring, L'aria della libertà: L'Italia di Piero Calamandrei is being staged in Rome, Foligno, Montepulciano and Reggio Emilia, but there are rumors that, due its success, next Fall it will be seen in Palermo, Milan, Venice and Padua.
Calmandrei (1889-1956) was an Italian author, jurist, soldier, university professor and manager (as Rector of Florence University after World War II) as well as a politician. He was highly critical of Italian fascism; he signed, for instance, Benedetto Croce's 1925 Manifesto of Anti Fascist Intellectuals and was linked to the Florentine journal Non Mollare! ('Don't Give Up!') published between January and October 1925. After the fall of the fascist regime in 1943, he became Rector of Florence University. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1945 and, as a Social Democrat, to the National Assembly in 1948.
L'aria della libertà: L'Italia di Piero Calamandrei deals with the years immediately before World War II when, every Sunday, Calamendrei used to take trips to the countryside with other intellectuals sharing his feelings. This was both to get away from the city and from fascists' funereal parades and to enjoy the landscape, the antiquities and the village people of the 'real Italy'.

Piero Calamandrei and two friends in Siena in 1938. Click on the image for higher resolution

The sets consist mostly of period photographs shot by Calamandrei himself as well as newsreels of massed fascist rallies. The beauty of the countryside and of small artistic cities is juxtaposed with the sinister look of the rallies. The chamber music pieces are carefully and skillfully selected and well played.

Nino Crescenti, Tomaso Montanari and the quartet (Valeriano Taddei, Francesco Peverini, Luca Cipriano and Marco Scolastica) in the final applause of 'L'aria della libertà: l'Italia di Piero Calamandrei' in Rome. Photo courtesy of Accademia Filarmonica Romana. Click on the image for higher resolution

The main indication of success is that the tour will continue next year.