Applause on the open stage and also at the end of the show with a final encore sung together with the audience Raffa in the Sky, the opera dedicated to Raffaella Carrà, premiered last night at the Donizetti Theater in Bergamo. The show’s stated aim (in terms of its theme) was to expand the audience of melodrama and to unite the low and high, popular and scholarly registers. The composer Lamberto Curtoni transformed Tanti Diritti, one of his biggest hits, a quintet with references to Bach and Rossini in the finale, into a game of references that ran through the entire show: from Swan Lake to Furore, without the indispensable Tuca Tuca forgotten, all included in the libretto by Renata Ciaravino and Alberto Mattioli.
The mix of genres (musical and opera) was already evident in the choice of voices (Raffaella, unlike the rest of the cast, is not an opera singer), but also in the composition of the orchestra under the direction of Carlo Boccadoro, which consists of elements of the opera composed Donizetti Opera Orchestra and Wild Paths, with accordion and harpsichord. Also on stage are the choir “I piccolo musici”, the dancers of Fattoria Vittadini with choreographies by Mattia Agatiello, scenes between the hardback book and the “silver fringes” of the TV variety shows of the 60s by Edoardo Sanchi and costumes by Alessio Rosati. The idea of Francesco Micheli, director of the Donizetti Opera Festival, who conceived and directed the show, was a mix of science fiction (whose look is more similar to that of the Rockets than Star Wars) and the baroque opera Make Raffaella (played by Chiara Dello Iacovo, finalist of The Voice and actress of the Turin Stable) becomes a creature of the art planet Arkadia who descends to Earth and, throughout her career, accompanies the changes in society through her shows and her songs, helping Vito ((Haris Andrianos) and Carmela (Carmela Remigio) to face them: female emancipation, couple crisis, the sexuality of her son Luca (title of the song of the same name, performed here by Gaia Petrone).
A hagiography of Raffaella without nuance and a stated criticism of the grotesque cultural snobbery of the Arcadians (Apollo, they are trying to “bridle” Raffaella), because “art is of no use if only a few people enjoy it,” as the booklet says. And the spectators (many wearing the legendary Carrà helmet, which could be installed in the theater with prior reservation), including the Undersecretary of Culture Gianmarco Mazzi and the mayor Giorgio Gori with his wife Cristina Parodi, had fun.
Read the full article on ANSA.it