It will not be an exegesis, nothing popular or literary in the strict sense: it will be a journey through Dante’s verses to reflect on the human condition, on current events, on the present, on the world, and on what we want to be. The show “Paradiso – From darkness to light” which will open the four dates of the summer theater season proposed by the City of Mondovì in collaboration with “Piemonte live”, will see the singer-songwriter and actor Simone Cristicchi propose a new stage on his work dedicated to happiness and to the condition of modern man. The evening will begin at 9 pm on 7 July in Piazza d’Armi. It will represent a new passage in direct continuity with “HappyNext – In search of happiness”, which has also become a book. Cristicchi returns to Mondovì for the second time, after his presence in the 2020 billboard with “Exodus”, an adaptation of his show “Magazzino 18” dedicated to the tragedy of the refugees of Istria. Since 2005, when the refrain “I would like to sing like Biagio Antonacci” seduced Italy, the Roman artist has been able to build an extremely original artistic path, also adding theatrical and literary activity to his artistic resources (moreover his first steps in creative world are in comics, with a teacher like Jacovitti) with very in-depth works on even thorny and difficult themes. The interest in Dante also came in a somewhat fortuitous way, as he himself tells us.
INTERVIEW – “There is a need for spirituality, to look within oneself”
«Paradiso is a show that was commissioned to me, a bit like it happened to the artists of the Renaissance (laughs). This is also an experience. One has their own inspirations, then someone directs you to a topic that at that moment seems distant, in the case of Dante Alighieri. In recent years I was doing a research on the theme of happiness, which resulted in a book “HappyNext” which has also become a theatrical show. For this reason, it was immediate for me to combine this theme with Dante’s Paradise. So I started studying, with the attitude of a visitor in a museum. I let myself be traversed and stimulated by Dante’s canticle, some personal ideas and reflections arose which turned into monologues. It will not be a “Benigni-style” exegesis, but a more spiritual and interior discourse on the concept of Paradise. It touches on many themes: the afterlife, science, the universe, quantum physics, nature… I have reserved for myself the 33rd of Paradise at the end, which I recite entirely from memory, in music ».
When we talk about the Comedy we generally choose to work on Hell, more human, vivid, with its gallery of characters. You have chosen the most metaphysical, difficult song, certainly the least popular. Conscious choice?
“There is also a personal nature of mine. I believe that in this moment of my life, but also in this historical moment, there is a need for spirituality: to look within oneself, think about one’s priorities, about important things and investigate the invisible world, which is greater than matter. It is an infinite search, that of interiority, but it is worth exploring it, because matter is not enough. We see hell every day, it is the projection of our personal hell: the world is always a mirror. I believe that in this sinusoid which is the history of humanity there will be moments in which beauty will be breathed, and it will be possible to start building it here, Paradise. Someone is already doing it ».
Yours is a very special song-theater, distant from the Gaberian model but also different from the musical. How did you come up with this proposal?
«I have always been a great admirer of Gaber and Luporini, since I was 16-17 years old. Then I was struck by Gigi Proietti and his ability to hold the stage alone for hours. I discovered Marco Paolini’s civil theater and somehow I put these experiences together when I decided to do the first theatrical experiment. It was theater-song along the lines of Gaber, dedicated to asylums. Then I decided to really try the pure monologue card, which is the hardest thing. In 2010, directed by Alessandro Benvenuti, I retraced the history of the Russian campaign of the Second World War with “Li Romani in Russia” and it was a small case. The hybrid you are referring to came out with the arrival of director Antonio Calenda, who pushed me to go back to writing songs. For a long time I had given up on them. With “Magazzino 18” the passages are functional to the text, commenting on the historical events of the Istrian exodus, and it was a triumph ».
Did you let go of the songs because they weren’t enough for you anymore?
«I wanted to test myself with other artistic forms».
Even your singing pieces are marked by a curious hybrid between rap and song, where does the choice of using the rap language come from?
«Here too I would say that it is a personal inclination, in fact I have also written some books. There is an urgency to say, to say a lot. Think of “University student”, more than a song is a short film, or the same “I will give you a rose” … they are films in music. In the last compositions that I have not yet published but that I sing in the theater I care more about synthesis, less words more depth ».
Curiously, your first artistic experience is with comics: you were a pupil of the legendary Jacovitti, what is your memory of the great master?
“In the last years of his life I went to his house, I went once a week. He was gruff, grumpy, had a difficult character, but he was also brilliant, funny, unsettling. The greatest teaching he gave me was to look for my voice, in the drawing, my originality. The artist has to find his own way, you can start by copying the masters, then you have to find your originality within yourself. He was the first to give me this teaching which also served me when I started writing songs ».
“I’ll give you a rose” in 2007 changed your life, but also a little Italy. Thinking back to that song and the whole “On the other side of the gate” project on mental illness, what is your balance of that experience?
“I consider that song a godsend, as well as some others like ‘Take Care of Me’. They are small miracles that happen when you have no plans in place, when your mind is clear of marketing, rankings, goals to achieve, then you are ready to aim for something higher. I was working on the documentary on asylums, needed a song to finish. It was born in this way, in this somewhat surreal way, and followed the path we know: it won Sanremo and stirred the consciences of millions of people. If I think about it still today it gives me chills. I think it has remained quite a unique case in the history of the Festival, a victory with a song on mental illness ».
In the same disc also appeared “Legato a te” dedicated to the story of Piergiorgio Welby
“That too is a special piece. I had spoken to Welby’s wife, Mina, who had told me about his particular relationship with the machine that keeps him alive. This detail struck me a lot, and the song was born from there. That too is a song that continues to excite me a lot ».
Tonight the debut of the summer theater season with Cristicchi – INTERVIEW – The Monregalese Union