Storie e cartelli dellOpera dei Pupi catanese
Alessandro Napoli. Il racconto e i colori: Palermo: Sellerio, 2002. Pp.420.
As the subtitle indicates, this volume explores two aspects of puppet theater in Catania: the illustrated cartelli that regularly announced puppet performances and the storie that comprised the episodes dramatized on stage. Since the sources of the puppeteers storie include classical epic poems, medieval and Renaissance romance epics, and various continuations and rewritings in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this study takes us through several centuries of literary history as it examines how these narratives are translated into pictorial and dramatic form.
The first half of the book is dedicated to the cartelli, painted scenes serving as publicity posters for the individual puppet shows. Napoli addresses the function of these cartelli, the pictorial techniques, the process of selection and elaboration of the probable source materials, as well as the criteria for choosing particular episodes to illustrate and the corresponding compositional choices. He bases his analysis primarily on two extensive collections of cartelli, that of the Marionettistica dei fratelli Napoli, and that of Antonio Pasqualino conserved at Palermos Museo Internazionale delle Marionette. This section is historical as well as analytic in nature: Napoli identifies the characteristics of artistic schools and individual artists, providing a profile whenever possible.
The second half of the book is devoted instead to the stories that comprise the epic repertory of the Catanese Opera dei Pupi. While much of the epic material was common to both traditions, Napoli conducted extensive interviews with puppeteers in order to identify a series of stories/cycles that were native to the Catanese tradition and scarcely known in Palermo. Napoli gives briefer notice for the stories that were dramatized throughout Sicily, since these were treated at length in Pasqualinos publications on Palermo puppet theater, and he devotes greater space to the stories/cycles that were particular to Eastern Sicily.
In addition to providing a useful summary of the stories, Napoli examines the ways in which the various narrative elements were combined in these stories. Directing his attention to the choice of particular stories/cycles on the part of the Catanese puppeteers, he argues that the puppeteers adapted the medieval stories of war and adventure that most expressed and confirmed the cultural models and value system shared by the Opera dei Pupis public.
Conducting extensive research on the literary background, including archival material and publications at the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette in Palermo, interviewing puppeteers, drawing on the stories, scripts, and cartelli of his own family, Alessandro Napoli has provided a window into a world to which we can no longer return.
JoAnnCavallo
ColumbiaUniversity
[estratto da una recensione che apparirà nella rivista Italica]
Alessandro Napoli. Il racconto e i colori: Palermo: Sellerio, 2002. Pp.420.
As the subtitle indicates, this volume explores two aspects of puppet theater in Catania: the illustrated cartelli that regularly announced puppet performances and the storie that comprised the episodes dramatized on stage. Since the sources of the puppeteers storie include classical epic poems, medieval and Renaissance romance epics, and various continuations and rewritings in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this study takes us through several centuries of literary history as it examines how these narratives are translated into pictorial and dramatic form.
The first half of the book is dedicated to the cartelli, painted scenes serving as publicity posters for the individual puppet shows. Napoli addresses the function of these cartelli, the pictorial techniques, the process of selection and elaboration of the probable source materials, as well as the criteria for choosing particular episodes to illustrate and the corresponding compositional choices. He bases his analysis primarily on two extensive collections of cartelli, that of the Marionettistica dei fratelli Napoli, and that of Antonio Pasqualino conserved at Palermos Museo Internazionale delle Marionette. This section is historical as well as analytic in nature: Napoli identifies the characteristics of artistic schools and individual artists, providing a profile whenever possible.
The second half of the book is devoted instead to the stories that comprise the epic repertory of the Catanese Opera dei Pupi. While much of the epic material was common to both traditions, Napoli conducted extensive interviews with puppeteers in order to identify a series of stories/cycles that were native to the Catanese tradition and scarcely known in Palermo. Napoli gives briefer notice for the stories that were dramatized throughout Sicily, since these were treated at length in Pasqualinos publications on Palermo puppet theater, and he devotes greater space to the stories/cycles that were particular to Eastern Sicily.
In addition to providing a useful summary of the stories, Napoli examines the ways in which the various narrative elements were combined in these stories. Directing his attention to the choice of particular stories/cycles on the part of the Catanese puppeteers, he argues that the puppeteers adapted the medieval stories of war and adventure that most expressed and confirmed the cultural models and value system shared by the Opera dei Pupis public.
Conducting extensive research on the literary background, including archival material and publications at the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette in Palermo, interviewing puppeteers, drawing on the stories, scripts, and cartelli of his own family, Alessandro Napoli has provided a window into a world to which we can no longer return.
JoAnnCavallo
ColumbiaUniversity
[estratto da una recensione che apparirà nella rivista Italica]
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