The Opera di Roma returns to Caracalla with Bernstein’s “Mass”. Directed by Michieletto

A concrete-colored wall lowered on the stage between the ancient vestiges of the Caracalla’s thermal baths as a powerful symbol that carries within it the images of all the barriers of separation in the world. Including those of the very recent massacre of migrants who died trying to enter Spanish territory from Morocco through the barrier on the border with the enclave of Melilla, added to the last by the director, among others, in recent days, in mounting a show born for rehearsals. fifty years ago in memory of the Kennedys, amidst suspicions and uproar in the States of President Nixon, but who in Italy to date does not record any precedent in stage form, although performed for the Jubilee of 2000 in the Vatican by the will of John Paul II. IS Mass: A Theater Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers (Mass: a play for singers, musicians and dancers) from Leonard Bernsteinbased on a text by the same American composer, with additions in verse by Stephen Schwartz and singer-songwriter Paul Simon, commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy, with the first performance and ribbon cutting at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, on September 8, 1971, as well as great challenge with which the Rome Opera Houseengaging all the internal artistic teams and entrusting the unpublished direction to Damiano Michieletto, has chosen to inaugurate the new summer bill. Also returning, after two years spent at the Circus Maximus, at the Baths of Caracalla, on Friday July 1st with reruns on Sunday 3 and Tuesday 5, again at 9 pm.

«Return to Caracalla – declared the superintendent Francesco Giambrone at the opening of the press conference, convened in the gray room of the Costanzi to present Bernstein’s work – it seems to me a beautiful sign. There will be all our internal resources in the field and several firsts: for the director Michieletto, now to be considered “at home” and yet on his debut at the Terme. And so for the conductor Diego Matheuz, for the choreographers and it will be, of course, for the Bernstein of Mass. It is a great work or, better still, a great score which, by virtue of some very strong directorial intuitions of Damiano, tells a lot about our contemporaneity. The main idea of ​​the wall – explains Giambrone – recalls the many walls that exist in the world. Made of bricks, barbed nets or simply metaphorical but which, in any case, equally prevent, separate, do not welcome. And the images of those walls, including those bounced in the show by the chronicle of these very last days as an artistic urgency, among the various values ​​of Art also return that of living historical testimony. This is not the world, the Europe that we want. He said it Mass of Bernstein fifty years ago, Michieletto says it today with all the artists who compete in this immense production ».

Therefore, a global and incredibly complex work for the modern synthesis between heterogeneous languages ​​(Latin, English and a Sanctus in Hebrew), classical, pre-recorded, jazz and rock, polyphonic style, late-romantic suggestions and musical backbone. Also, the dance plus the solo performance. Therefore, in the field, an orchestra of over one hundred elements, a jazz band, a group of street singersone marching banda singer-actor in the role of the Celebrant (the baritone Markus Werba), the team of dancers, mixed choir and children’s choir. In fact, alongside Michieletto they are busy Paolo Fantin for the scenes, Carla Teti for the costumes, Alessandro Carletti for lights and Filippo Rossi for the videos, the Orchestra of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and the Chorus instructed by Roberto Gabbianithe Corps de Ballet directed by Eleonora Abbagnatothe choreographers – among the most interesting of our latest generation contemporary scene –Sasha Riva And Simone Repeleone Street People Chorusconsisting of 21 performer Italians from musicals selected from over 80 auditions, the students of the “Fabbrica” Young Artist Program and of the Foundation’s Choral Singing School.

Beyond the notoriety of the musical par excellence, West Side StoryMass– he added to follow Alessio Vlad, artistic director of the Capitoline Foundation – is perhaps Bernstein’s most significant work. Contrasted in time with him and, perhaps, not even understood. I believe that, like Mahler’s era, the time has come today for this work capable of bringing out all the surprising contemporaneity of him. It has the overwhelming energy of a musical but it has none of the entertainment like that. “

Similarly for the teacher Diego Matheuz, also present at the table of the meeting with the press, “this title by Bernstein constitutes a singular bench of union between the genres in the staff, reaffirming the absence between borders and attesting, rather, the difference between good music or not . And especially, Mass it goes to show how much the composer was ahead of his time ».

And then of course, in connection, the words of the director Michieletto. “Was it a fiasco the first time?” But who cares, too Carmen And Barber shop, even in the poster for Caracalla, were contested. What matters, rather, is the force of cohesion and impact between many heterogeneous pieces, closely connected yet always perfectly recognizable by number, as well as emerges from the splendid choreographic identity of Sacha Riva and Simone Repele, artists with whom I had the joy of being able to work for the first time ». Then, he details his directorial vision. «To some extent, from the basic point of view of Bernstein’s work, which not by chance escapes a precise structure and a true definition of genre, mine was an ecumenical work with many things inside. In summary, here is my idea which started, naturally, from the good secret of a great teamwork. In the center there is a wall which, in video projection, shows a map of all the walls that have been built in the world to divide peoples: from Mexico to Palestine, passing through Hungary. Those who have to defend their wealth build walls. But we also carry the walls within us: they are our fears, our prejudices, they represent the impossibility of communicating, the will to steal from the eyes what is on the other side, to close ourselves in our own security. The wall, in this case, concretely separates a community intent on embodying the spirit of a mass. It is not a liturgy, according to what the composer himself intended, but the grafting of liturgical elements to give the sense of a community that seeks a God and does not know where to find him. As if to seek a spirituality without being able to delegate it to dogmas, to labels. And so the question remains burning: where is God in a world that seems to have renounced God? That is, where to find a spirituality in which the coordinates seem to have all jumped?
Here the wall divides, dramatically, what it would like to be a sharing. On the rubble of this wall, however, there is the prospect of hope. In dramaturgical terms – he continues and concludes – him street singers they therefore represent the contestation against the celebrant, towards the one who works for unity and the sharing of faith: they mock him, provoke him, put him in crisis. We then created passages by physically reliving some moments of Christ’s crucifixion. They put a crown of thorns on him, they challenge him. Equipped with masks and symbolic costumes that make their identity and humanity indistinguishable, it is precisely the street singers who constitute the destructive part of the context. They divide the altar table around which the community gathers and raise a barrier which, however, will eventually be destroyed by the bodies of the dancers themselves.
An almost happy ending? Let’s say it is, as can be the moment when you hit bottom and try to get up. With Paolo Fantin we thought of a painted image, which we inspired and followed in the final vision: The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, with his group of desperate men, with some bodies already dead, at the mercy of the sea. At the bottom we glimpse a small light of hope. It is far away, but it is on the horizon ».

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The Opera di Roma returns to Caracalla with Bernstein’s “Mass”. Directed by Michieletto