La Pasqua Rosada
15th Annual Pentecost Joust at the Court of Charlemagne
Rediscovering MATTEO MARIA BOIARDO
Onward to France, where Charles the Great
reviewed and counted the noble knights,
and every Christian prince, each lord
and duke, displayed himself to him
to take part in a tournament
the king had planned for Pentecost.
(Orlando Innamorato,1.1.8, trans. Charles S. Ross)
While the debate about the conservation of the Puppet Theater tradition continues in an artificial way, we carry on the staging of our plays based on content. Our program, in addition to traditional plays, contains new titles that take up typical themes from the Teatro dei Pupi.
Sicilian Puppet Theater was a dramatic theater for adults. It was so dramatic, in fact, that it was necessary to add a farce at the conclusion of the plays to cheer up the public. Our work based on content respects this context. Stage settings up to eight meters in length, a polyphonic chorus of around thirty vocalists, erudite music, epic songs, medieval music with period instruments. Our theater laboratories are meeting places where Boiardo and Ariosto, Pulci, Forteguerri, Cielo (Cieco) di Ferrara are material of daily use, as are the scenes, costumes, and puppets. As a customary practice, the puppets, costumes, and everything that serves in the staging of a puppet play is exhibited in the laboratory prior to each performance.
For fifteen years our season concludes with the Pentecost Joust, in which other companies participate with plays and other events related to chivalric content and theme. This was named the Pasqua Rosada because it took place in May, the month of roses, and Charlemagne organized a tournament for the day of Pentecost in which the greatest knights from around the world participated. They arrived in Paris from all parts of the globe in order to test their valor in the most prestigious arena in the world. Hundreds of knights that spoke dozens of different languages: Arabs, Tartars, Indians, Moors, Christians, whites and blacks, great ladies and young princesses, kings and grand dignitaries. But above all knights! It was never clear who won because, in addition to valor and courage, a determining role was also played by enchanted weapons, bodies charmed to be invulnerable, magic, and wizardry. Even the protection of the Saints carried its weight along with arms and valor. In any event, common to all was the sense of chivalric honor.
This year our Pasqua Rosada is dedicated to the Magnificent Count Matteo Maria Boiardo, to celebrate the occasion of the rediscovery of his mortal remains. This news had all of us running to Scandiano to the castle and the nearby church, jumping over barriers, TV reflectors, journalists and commentators.
Now Matteo Maria Boiardo can rest in peace and we who nourish ourselves daily on his Orlando Innamorato finally have a fixed place where every once in a while we can go to find him, if for no other reason than to have him tell us how he would have finished his romance epic.
Onofrio Sanicola
15th Annual Pentecost Joust at the Court of Charlemagne
Rediscovering MATTEO MARIA BOIARDO
Onward to France, where Charles the Great
reviewed and counted the noble knights,
and every Christian prince, each lord
and duke, displayed himself to him
to take part in a tournament
the king had planned for Pentecost.
(Orlando Innamorato,1.1.8, trans. Charles S. Ross)
While the debate about the conservation of the Puppet Theater tradition continues in an artificial way, we carry on the staging of our plays based on content. Our program, in addition to traditional plays, contains new titles that take up typical themes from the Teatro dei Pupi.
Sicilian Puppet Theater was a dramatic theater for adults. It was so dramatic, in fact, that it was necessary to add a farce at the conclusion of the plays to cheer up the public. Our work based on content respects this context. Stage settings up to eight meters in length, a polyphonic chorus of around thirty vocalists, erudite music, epic songs, medieval music with period instruments. Our theater laboratories are meeting places where Boiardo and Ariosto, Pulci, Forteguerri, Cielo (Cieco) di Ferrara are material of daily use, as are the scenes, costumes, and puppets. As a customary practice, the puppets, costumes, and everything that serves in the staging of a puppet play is exhibited in the laboratory prior to each performance.
For fifteen years our season concludes with the Pentecost Joust, in which other companies participate with plays and other events related to chivalric content and theme. This was named the Pasqua Rosada because it took place in May, the month of roses, and Charlemagne organized a tournament for the day of Pentecost in which the greatest knights from around the world participated. They arrived in Paris from all parts of the globe in order to test their valor in the most prestigious arena in the world. Hundreds of knights that spoke dozens of different languages: Arabs, Tartars, Indians, Moors, Christians, whites and blacks, great ladies and young princesses, kings and grand dignitaries. But above all knights! It was never clear who won because, in addition to valor and courage, a determining role was also played by enchanted weapons, bodies charmed to be invulnerable, magic, and wizardry. Even the protection of the Saints carried its weight along with arms and valor. In any event, common to all was the sense of chivalric honor.
This year our Pasqua Rosada is dedicated to the Magnificent Count Matteo Maria Boiardo, to celebrate the occasion of the rediscovery of his mortal remains. This news had all of us running to Scandiano to the castle and the nearby church, jumping over barriers, TV reflectors, journalists and commentators.
Now Matteo Maria Boiardo can rest in peace and we who nourish ourselves daily on his Orlando Innamorato finally have a fixed place where every once in a while we can go to find him, if for no other reason than to have him tell us how he would have finished his romance epic.
Onofrio Sanicola
Navigation
