2015 programme - Fondazione Carla Fendi

PROGRAMME TEATRO CAIO MELISSO SPAZIO CARLA FENDI
Bernard-Henry Lévy
HOTEL EUROPE
by and with Bernard-Henri Lévy
June 27th at 19.00
Closed in a hotel room in Sarajevo, which he had already stayed in 20 years earlier, beset by memories of the past, a man, “probably an author,”
thinks out loud. He only has two hours to prepare a speech for the commemorations of the outbreak of the war in 1914. 100 years have passed
since the great world conflict, and only 20 since the much smaller war which the Balkan city witnessed and of which it was a martyr.
But inspiration is slow to come and doubts on what to say about Europe and its contradictory values, often not too courageous in the choices
it makes, prevent him from finding the right words. A straightforward plot, on the verge of being simple, and two hours of intense monologue
tackle great topical issues: this is how the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy decided to talk about Europe in a play which is a long reflection on the Old Continent’s identity, demons, contradictions, but also highest aspirations.
Robert Wilson· Mikhail Baryshnikov
LETTER TO A MAN
July 8th at 21.00 / July 9th at 20.00 / July 10th at 12.00 / July 10th at 16.00 / July 11th at 16.00
Conceived and directed by Robert Wilson
with Mikhail Baryshnikov
based on the Diaries by Vaslav Nijinsky
text by Christian Dumais-Lvowski
upon concession by The Vaslav and Romola Nijinsky Estate
project by Baryshnikov Productions and Change Performing Arts
commissionedby CRT Milano and Spoleto58 Festival of Two Worlds
The production that sees Mikhail Baryshnikov and Robert Wilson join forces once again, in their second artistic partnership since the successful
“The Old Woman”, is based on the Diaries written in 1919 by Vaslav Nijinsky, deemed the greatest dancer and choreographer of the last century,
the talent behind Sergej Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.
“Nijinsky’s diary says a lot about writing. It is the writing of a man who is part lucid, part mad. It is a communication so revealing and desperate that it is unique. We are facedwith reality and it is almost unbearable. Had he not gone to the asylum… Nijinsky’s writing would have
been equal his dancing,” wrote Henry Miller in reference to the Diaries published for the first time in 1936.
Mikhail Baryshnikov is the sole performer in Letter to a Man, forgoing Nijinsky’s choreographies yet being the only one capable of representing
him. As with all of Robert Wilson’s work, it is hard to distinguish the various levels of this work, as movement, words, lights, staging and music
all equally coalesce into a global creation where, as Wilson himself puts it, “all theatre is dance”.
SURPRISING EVOLUTIONS
Restoration completed
July 12th at 11:30
With an intervention by Professor TomasoMontanari
Visual surprises, imaginific flights, acrobatic musical fantasies and fluctuating effects characterise the portrayal of the final stage of restoration
works.By revealing hidden treasures, returning friezes to their original splendor, renovating decorative films, recovering wonderful backdrops with
ancient splendors, restructuring hallways, and rationalising all functions in addition to creating new ones, the “Noble Theatre,” as it was called, was
finally returned to the City of Spoleto, to its public and to its artists following a complete restoration financed by the Carla Fendi Foundation.
CARLA FENDI FOUNDATION AWARD
At 12.00
Fourth edition of the Award created by the Carla Fendi Foundation. With this recognition, the Foundation intends to honour personalities of
high value in the fields of art, culture and creativity, as eminent witnesses of our time and examples of excellence for our future.
Events
Manna d’Oro Church
Former Civic Museum
Sunday June 28th at 11.30
Performance – Installation
In Search of Lost Time
Visconti – Proust
On the Trail of an Imagined Film
Places
People
Artistic direction Quirino Conti, Text Théâtre Minute by Enrico Medioli with Loredana Scaramella, Literary Advice Daniela Bonanni,
Image Maker Fiorenzo Niccoli, Graphic coordination Cristiano Guerri, Assistant set designer Michele Della Cioppa, Musical research Giordano Corapi, Light Designer Vinicio Cheli, Iconographic revisitations Stefano Ciammitti, Staging Tecnoscena and Emaki, Image technology
Videogamma, Theatre Installations P.M.A. Tecnologie IndustrialiS.r.l., Iconographic documentation Gramsci Institute Foundation, Bibliothèque Nationale photographique de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.
A special thank you to Caterina D’Amico and Piero Tosi.
On stage at Theatre CaioMelissoSpazio Carla Fendi, in aThéâtre Minute, Giorgio Ferrara will present two installations.
Andrea Boscatells the story of the imagined film following a text by Enrico Medioli.
Professor Alessandro Piperno, a great connoisseur of Marcel Proust’s works, will also be present.
With new and surprising material, the installations will take viewers on a journey through the images and documents which Luchino Visconti
was collecting to bring Proust’s novel to the silver screen.
Also thanks to the crucial contribution by di Caterina D’Amico, who provided the original screenplay written by her mother Suso Cecchi D’Amico,
with notes by Luchino Visconti, and to the great cultural value of the Visconti Foundation archives at Rome’s FondazioneIstituto Gramsci, precious
traces of a film which was imagined and never created will finally come back to life. Indeed, the evening before filming was set to commence, Visconti
decided not to go ahead with the film: that film which he had held dear to his heart his whole life, since he had first read the novel.
The double installation curated by The Carla Fendi Foundation aims to shed light on some of the mysteries surrounding the film which was
never made and to answer some of the questions regarding the possible causes of this decision.
Under the guidance of two exceptional witnesses, Giorgio Ferrara – who collaborated closely with Visconti- and Alessandro Piperno, a great
scholar of French literature, the journey will start from the Theatre CaioMelisso Carla Fendi Space and take viewers through the former Manna
d’Oro Church, where the director had chosen many film locations, all the way to the former Civic Gallery, inhabited by a series of unforgettable
characters and performers, in a melting pot of real and imaginary lives.
The exhibition will continue on at the two venues until July 12th.