GENERAZIONI DEL CIELO
“Generazioni del Cielo” (Generations of the Sky) is a contemporary musical work in the form of an oratorio; it stems from an evolution of the musical language gained through a multitude of experiences, ranging from classical composition to the production of wide listening music. The subject originates from the desire to tell an unusual story – a story without actual events but with truly felt emotions – drawing from contemporary literature and inspired by sacred texts.
In staging, the classically designed music is projected into a technological and multimedia environment, where ancient and modern can converse, interacting and debating.
The costumes have a timeless design. Functional bandaging was used where the fabric follows the body’s topography.
The scene is not an urban place or the pure landscape of the wanderer, it takes place alongside and inside an archetype: the Ark as “keeper of life,” archetype of all the future cities. It is also the topoc of the regeneration of a humanity that is “punished” through its salvation, with the burden of its responsibilities and its regrets. The scenic design, removed from a specific physical location, represents the music according to an analogic process, as a body placed next to the soul. For this reason, an archetype was chosen: the Ark. Revealing its interior was meant to be an invitation to look within ourselves and observe things with our inner eye, eliminating any distances between the object and the person.
GENERAZIONI DEL CIELO
“Generazioni del Cielo” (Generations of the Sky) is a contemporary musical work in the form of an oratorio; it stems from an evolution of the musical language gained through a multitude of experiences, ranging from classical composition to the production of wide listening music. The subject originates from the desire to tell an unusual story – a story without actual events but with truly felt emotions – drawing from contemporary literature and inspired by sacred texts.
In staging, the classically designed music is projected into a technological and multimedia environment, where ancient and modern can converse, interacting and debating.
The costumes have a timeless design. Functional bandaging was used where the fabric follows the body’s topography.
The scene is not an urban place or the pure landscape of the wanderer, it takes place alongside and inside an archetype: the Ark as “keeper of life,” archetype of all the future cities. It is also the topoc of the regeneration of a humanity that is “punished” through its salvation, with the burden of its responsibilities and its regrets. The scenic design, removed from a specific physical location, represents the music according to an analogic process, as a body placed next to the soul. For this reason, an archetype was chosen: the Ark. Revealing its interior was meant to be an invitation to look within ourselves and observe things with our inner eye, eliminating any distances between the object and the person.
TRANSARMONICA
Music composed on a text taken from “De Rerum Natura” by Tito Lucrezio Caio, for soprano and counter-tenor. Instrumental group consisting of violin, viola, cello and two keyboards. Scenic project and images by Roberto Masotti.
Commissioned by “ATERFORUM” Festival in Ferrara in 1988.
In 1992 “Transarmonica” opened the Festival of Villa Arconati in Castellazzo di Bollate, during the opening evening dedicated to Roberto Cacciapaglia.
From the window of a train everything passes quickly: houses and trees lag behind while the beholder’s eye gazes into space, near and far, up until the horizon. A line unravels into the night while everything is moving, changing, along a path of exploration through the country of harmony. There is so much to see: mountains, sea, trees, cities, neighborhoods, harmony pervades everything. How not to take account of all these areas? It is like a plain where a pentagram or a hasty road passes through major and minor tones, triads, intervals, perfect chords which have the power to tell a story of relationships, suggestions and impressions which help us be in touch with our emotional world.
The idea of crossing, searching, leaving, wandering: harmonic movements. It is much more than a geographic space, they are out-and-out worlds: beat and upbeat, sunrise and sunset, inhale, exhale. A journey with no stops, because stopping is dangerous, it can chain you to a language, to habits, to nostalgia or to rules that allow everything to be solved through mental and theoretical processes without taking into account that perception is also physical and emotional. Moving means not being caught, changing, breaking away from the scheme of things, attempting a stay from the mechanisms of musical codes.
Perception depends on one’s mood and receptiveness. It is likely that during a journey our senses are more awake and auditory impressions which touch our memory stand out to our attention in the attempt to go beyond a harmonic code. No, let us not stop, rather let us look and observe along the way, allowing opposite musical conceptions to meet and use these elements, these expressed energies in their most varied forms, to achieve greater intensity. Let us not refer only to the tradition of “sophisticated” music, but let us look at those musical phenomena which facilitate changes in culture and tradition and are symbols of generational turning points, in the hope that the quest will breach the boundaries that divide music into categories and that, at sunrise, this line of flight will lead us beyond the frontier.
TRANSARMONICA
Music composed on a text taken from “De Rerum Natura” by Tito Lucrezio Caio, for soprano and counter-tenor. Instrumental group consisting of violin, viola, cello and two keyboards. Scenic project and images by Roberto Masotti.
Commissioned by “ATERFORUM” Festival in Ferrara in 1988.
In 1992 “Transarmonica” opened the Festival of Villa Arconati in Castellazzo di Bollate, during the opening evening dedicated to Roberto Cacciapaglia.
From the window of a train everything passes quickly: houses and trees lag behind while the beholder’s eye gazes into space, near and far, up until the horizon. A line unravels into the night while everything is moving, changing, along a path of exploration through the country of harmony. There is so much to see: mountains, sea, trees, cities, neighborhoods, harmony pervades everything. How not to take account of all these areas? It is like a plain where a pentagram or a hasty road passes through major and minor tones, triads, intervals, perfect chords which have the power to tell a story of relationships, suggestions and impressions which help us be in touch with our emotional world.
The idea of crossing, searching, leaving, wandering: harmonic movements. It is much more than a geographic space, they are out-and-out worlds: beat and upbeat, sunrise and sunset, inhale, exhale. A journey with no stops, because stopping is dangerous, it can chain you to a language, to habits, to nostalgia or to rules that allow everything to be solved through mental and theoretical processes without taking into account that perception is also physical and emotional. Moving means not being caught, changing, breaking away from the scheme of things, attempting a stay from the mechanisms of musical codes.
Perception depends on one’s mood and receptiveness. It is likely that during a journey our senses are more awake and auditory impressions which touch our memory stand out to our attention in the attempt to go beyond a harmonic code. No, let us not stop, rather let us look and observe along the way, allowing opposite musical conceptions to meet and use these elements, these expressed energies in their most varied forms, to achieve greater intensity. Let us not refer only to the tradition of “sophisticated” music, but let us look at those musical phenomena which facilitate changes in culture and tradition and are symbols of generational turning points, in the hope that the quest will breach the boundaries that divide music into categories and that, at sunrise, this line of flight will lead us beyond the frontier.
AUREA CARMINA
When approaching an extraordinary and meaningful text such as “The Golden Verses” one has proof that Pythagoras had the kind of knowledge and wisdom that delve deeply into the essence of things. He blended and equated, with fully unifying sense and meaning, knowledge and disciplines extremely diverse from each other.
Pythagoras is contemporary and in tune with the sensitivity and psychic and emotional perceptions of our age, divided in its choices and traversed by different and distant musical influences. Today it is necessary to follow a path, to recover forgotten links and values, along with many not considered, or even avoided, aspects of music.
In this journey of the soul towards perfection, a primary role is entrusted to music. If, at a cognitive level, music constituted the model to organize the structure of the world, in an ethical dimension music is the instrument with which to organize human behaviour in accordance with knowledge.
The practice of music and its related activities, such as dance, is an education to both mind and body, because it teaches the values of harmony and rhythm, which are essential for the development of each person. Listening to music is however also the direct route through which the intimate voice of reality reaches the soul, without the precarious and deceptive mediation of matter. Music is perception and expression of feelings and since these, like any phenomenon in reality, connect their essence to numerical ratios, it is possible to produce certain psychic effects through the succession of intervals.
If music and soul are the same thing, one will have to look for the soul’s nature in the laws of music, to discover the secret of its aspirations, confused and concealed by the trauma of matter. Music and number – in a symbiosis which reveals itself as identity in the deep essence of reality – claim the supreme value of proportion, which the harmony of universal life complies with.
The soul recognizes in proportion the harmony of which it is part and through this identification process fulfils its authenticity. The end goal of mankind is the knowledge of itself and this can be achieved thanks to the sense of beauty, which springs from the experience of proportion. Numbers are also the norm of truth and thus beauty and truth coincide, to the point that differences between rationality and intuition are erased, categories of thought which separated themselves from the reality of the whole, of which music is a mark, in that it is part of both. The acts of men are also part of the universal harmony, according to the concrete unfolding of their actions. Complying with that measure of being is the duty, and reward, of human life. “Know the rhythm that hath men” the poet Archilochus said, sometime before Pythagoras. That solemn warning becomes the main line of his ethical doctrine. Devotion to the Gods and understanding men even when they err, temperance in the necessary things of life and firmness in pain, respect for one’s own dignity and justice before the world, meditation on one’s own acts and purification of the interior, are the great precepts in which Pythagorean wisdom identifies the way to achieve the balance between the human condition and the order of the universe.
AUREA CARMINA
When approaching an extraordinary and meaningful text such as “The Golden Verses” one has proof that Pythagoras had the kind of knowledge and wisdom that delve deeply into the essence of things. He blended and equated, with fully unifying sense and meaning, knowledge and disciplines extremely diverse from each other.
Pythagoras is contemporary and in tune with the sensitivity and psychic and emotional perceptions of our age, divided in its choices and traversed by different and distant musical influences. Today it is necessary to follow a path, to recover forgotten links and values, along with many not considered, or even avoided, aspects of music.
In this journey of the soul towards perfection, a primary role is entrusted to music. If, at a cognitive level, music constituted the model to organize the structure of the world, in an ethical dimension music is the instrument with which to organize human behaviour in accordance with knowledge.
The practice of music and its related activities, such as dance, is an education to both mind and body, because it teaches the values of harmony and rhythm, which are essential for the development of each person. Listening to music is however also the direct route through which the intimate voice of reality reaches the soul, without the precarious and deceptive mediation of matter. Music is perception and expression of feelings and since these, like any phenomenon in reality, connect their essence to numerical ratios, it is possible to produce certain psychic effects through the succession of intervals.
If music and soul are the same thing, one will have to look for the soul’s nature in the laws of music, to discover the secret of its aspirations, confused and concealed by the trauma of matter. Music and number – in a symbiosis which reveals itself as identity in the deep essence of reality – claim the supreme value of proportion, which the harmony of universal life complies with.
The soul recognizes in proportion the harmony of which it is part and through this identification process fulfils its authenticity. The end goal of mankind is the knowledge of itself and this can be achieved thanks to the sense of beauty, which springs from the experience of proportion. Numbers are also the norm of truth and thus beauty and truth coincide, to the point that differences between rationality and intuition are erased, categories of thought which separated themselves from the reality of the whole, of which music is a mark, in that it is part of both. The acts of men are also part of the universal harmony, according to the concrete unfolding of their actions. Complying with that measure of being is the duty, and reward, of human life. “Know the rhythm that hath men” the poet Archilochus said, sometime before Pythagoras. That solemn warning becomes the main line of his ethical doctrine. Devotion to the Gods and understanding men even when they err, temperance in the necessary things of life and firmness in pain, respect for one’s own dignity and justice before the world, meditation on one’s own acts and purification of the interior, are the great precepts in which Pythagorean wisdom identifies the way to achieve the balance between the human condition and the order of the universe.
IL SEGRETO DELL'ALBA
Pantomime in two parts based on texts by Giada Manca di Villahermosa, music by Roberto Cacciapaglia, scenic design by Gabriele Amadori. Commissioned by the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and performed in March 1989.
This work is about a character loosely based on Christian from the “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan and his quest into the labyrinth of the contemporary world. The narrative scheme takes inspiration from the literary tradition ranging from Homer’s and Joyce’s Ulysses, to Parsifal and Lohengrin in the tales of the Holy Grail.
Through the mechanisms of the initiatory tale, the hero’s mythological figure is adapted to the model of a metropolitan civilization where the protagonist must overcome obstacles and escape situations which take on the different forms of the sick and psychotic society that embroils him in its spiral of madness.
Through a journey between the paradoxes of contemporary society and those of the men who inhabit it, the story unwinds between two different and seemingly opposite levels: the first is every day and social, the second of a metaphysical and psychological nature. Each character is a mood, a feeling; every situation is a psychological aspect. The allegory – and the ultimate sense of the story – is revealed at the end when the hero emerges from the vortex having been taught a great lesson.
IL SEGRETO DELL'ALBA
Pantomime in two parts based on texts by Giada Manca di Villahermosa, music by Roberto Cacciapaglia, scenic design by Gabriele Amadori. Commissioned by the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and performed in March 1989.
This work is about a character loosely based on Christian from the “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan and his quest into the labyrinth of the contemporary world. The narrative scheme takes inspiration from the literary tradition ranging from Homer’s and Joyce’s Ulysses, to Parsifal and Lohengrin in the tales of the Holy Grail.
Through the mechanisms of the initiatory tale, the hero’s mythological figure is adapted to the model of a metropolitan civilization where the protagonist must overcome obstacles and escape situations which take on the different forms of the sick and psychotic society that embroils him in its spiral of madness.
Through a journey between the paradoxes of contemporary society and those of the men who inhabit it, the story unwinds between two different and seemingly opposite levels: the first is every day and social, the second of a metaphysical and psychological nature. Each character is a mood, a feeling; every situation is a psychological aspect. The allegory – and the ultimate sense of the story – is revealed at the end when the hero emerges from the vortex having been taught a great lesson.
UN GIORNO X
Libretto by: Roberto Cacciapaglia and Giada Manca di Villahermosa
Direction: Gabriele Amadori
Vocals: Gianna Nannini-Giuseppe Zambon-Giulia Olcese-Silvia Chiminelli
Choir Director: Antonio Eros Negri
Conductor: Pierangelo Gelmini
Keyboards: Michele Fedrigotti. Computer: Marco Zangirolami
The STORY OF ODYSSEUS REPEATES ITSELF IN EVERY MAN By Dario Del Corno
The Traveler comes from far away, from the remote age in which the man from the myth invented poetry. Ulysses is the model of the eternal wanderer and, once again, his story revolves around two distinct and complementary themes: the journey and the return. As happens to all archetypes through the centuries, where artists are entrusted with the task to raise awareness to what men can express only through behaviour, Ulysses has taken on different meanings and values. His reality is however never exhausted, because the myth presents a new truth each time it is told.
Thus it can happen that the bewitching eye of the Cyclops, the monster that devours those who close themselves in his cave, is the TV screen; that the misleading seduction of the Sirens, by whom men are led to forget themselves, become the obsessive formulas of advertising and the festive decorations in shop windows; that the potions with which Circe deprives her victims of their human condition become the deadly trap of drugs. The X day has ended: the past is nothing but dust and the Traveler finds himself on an airplane, excluded from the world of individuals as if in a dream. The sun rises, and in the time of nature and its eternal cycles, what has occurred must occur again. As does the story of Ulysses, which repeats itself in every man.
UN GIORNO X
Libretto by: Roberto Cacciapaglia and Giada Manca di Villahermosa
Direction: Gabriele Amadori
Vocals: Gianna Nannini-Giuseppe Zambon-Giulia Olcese-Silvia Chiminelli
Choir Director: Antonio Eros Negri
Conductor: Pierangelo Gelmini
Keyboards: Michele Fedrigotti. Computer: Marco Zangirolami
The STORY OF ODYSSEUS REPEATES ITSELF IN EVERY MAN By Dario Del Corno
The Traveler comes from far away, from the remote age in which the man from the myth invented poetry. Ulysses is the model of the eternal wanderer and, once again, his story revolves around two distinct and complementary themes: the journey and the return. As happens to all archetypes through the centuries, where artists are entrusted with the task to raise awareness to what men can express only through behaviour, Ulysses has taken on different meanings and values. His reality is however never exhausted, because the myth presents a new truth each time it is told.
Thus it can happen that the bewitching eye of the Cyclops, the monster that devours those who close themselves in his cave, is the TV screen; that the misleading seduction of the Sirens, by whom men are led to forget themselves, become the obsessive formulas of advertising and the festive decorations in shop windows; that the potions with which Circe deprives her victims of their human condition become the deadly trap of drugs. The X day has ended: the past is nothing but dust and the Traveler finds himself on an airplane, excluded from the world of individuals as if in a dream. The sun rises, and in the time of nature and its eternal cycles, what has occurred must occur again. As does the story of Ulysses, which repeats itself in every man.
LE MILLE E UNA NOTTE
A musical fairy tale in two acts and ten scenes for soprano, tenor, ten instruments and narrators. Music by Roberto Cacciapaglia. Scenography by Achilles Lualdi and Maurizia Dotti. Costumes by the Colla acting company’s costume shop. Written and directed by Eugenio Monti Colla.
The East has always found a precise place in the marionette repertoire: a remote and unreachable place where lovers presumed lost meet again, Caliphs are dispensers of justice and Sultans are prone to forgiveness; an environment of actions and rediscovery of clear operatic origin. Among the nineteenth-century texts of that genre represented at the Teatro Gerolamo until 1957, a place of privilege has been reserved for “Cruel Zamira”, or “The woman enemy of men, or, the misfortunes of Prince Alimut”, better known under the title “The Arabian Nights” applauded over and over again by the Milanese audience. It is a story of love and death inspired by Carlo Gozzi’s fairy tale “Turandot” which premiered in 1867, when Carlo Colla and Sons was still a touring company.
In presenting a new edition, Eugenio Monti Colla emphasizes the fairytale aspect, transforming the original comedy play into a musical spectacle, where words, gestures and song complete the marionette show, enriching the plot with spectacular elements, with a great number of puppets, musicians and singers, tricks and stage effects. Thus revisited by a fantastic reading, the East does not reject allegories and symbolism, but inclines, above all, to the magnificence and the charm of the show.
LE MILLE E UNA NOTTE
A musical fairy tale in two acts and ten scenes for soprano, tenor, ten instruments and narrators. Music by Roberto Cacciapaglia. Scenography by Achilles Lualdi and Maurizia Dotti. Costumes by the Colla acting company’s costume shop. Written and directed by Eugenio Monti Colla.
The East has always found a precise place in the marionette repertoire: a remote and unreachable place where lovers presumed lost meet again, Caliphs are dispensers of justice and Sultans are prone to forgiveness; an environment of actions and rediscovery of clear operatic origin. Among the nineteenth-century texts of that genre represented at the Teatro Gerolamo until 1957, a place of privilege has been reserved for “Cruel Zamira”, or “The woman enemy of men, or, the misfortunes of Prince Alimut”, better known under the title “The Arabian Nights” applauded over and over again by the Milanese audience. It is a story of love and death inspired by Carlo Gozzi’s fairy tale “Turandot” which premiered in 1867, when Carlo Colla and Sons was still a touring company.
In presenting a new edition, Eugenio Monti Colla emphasizes the fairytale aspect, transforming the original comedy play into a musical spectacle, where words, gestures and song complete the marionette show, enriching the plot with spectacular elements, with a great number of puppets, musicians and singers, tricks and stage effects. Thus revisited by a fantastic reading, the East does not reject allegories and symbolism, but inclines, above all, to the magnificence and the charm of the show.
LAMENTAZIONI DI GEREMIA
Five elegies written for the destruction of Jerusalem, probably by different authors.
In the Hebrew texts they are from the Megilloth (scrolls) and were read in the synagogue on the anniversary of the fall of the city at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar on the 9th day of the month of Ab. In Christian liturgy the grief for the destruction of the city becomes the pain of Our Lady of Sorrows for the death of Christ on the cross and it is performed at Easter.
LAMENTAZIONI DI GEREMIA
Five elegies written for the destruction of Jerusalem, probably by different authors.
In the Hebrew texts they are from the Megilloth (scrolls) and were read in the synagogue on the anniversary of the fall of the city at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar on the 9th day of the month of Ab. In Christian liturgy the grief for the destruction of the city becomes the pain of Our Lady of Sorrows for the death of Christ on the cross and it is performed at Easter.