Turandot non esiste
In this unique and unprecedented format "Turandot non esiste" manages to make people laugh, cry, and even scare, offering an engaging show that almost approaches the cabaret/theater song in a modern and youthful form.
This show represents a synergy of performative arts that renew popular theater, opera, and chamber music. Music becomes the voice of the characters, a magical presence that hypnotizes and takes possession of the performers, transporting the audience of all generations into the fantastic world of theater and opera. The show is approved by Casa Ricordi for the use of copyrighted material such as the opera Turandot.
Turandot non Esiste offers a completely new perspective on the beloved and troubled opera of the master Giacomo Puccini, giving a new voice to the music and the story of Puccini. Musical instruments become the voice of the characters that come to life through music, and the actor-musicians speak and transfigure themselves through the words and emotions of the story that also tells the first real denunciation of rape in an opera, bringing the theme of violence against women to the fore, also revealing a Puccini with a pronounced feminine side, who psychologically gave life to his art.
Turandot non esiste, in the three residencies performed in 2023, had the opportunity to test a diverse audience including children, music lovers, young people, and the elderly, and was found that the audience appreciated the show for multiple aspects. The aspect that agreed everyone was the synesthetic experience of the show that had a powerful communication conveying the message of the topicality of theatrical performance.
The stage of an Italian-style theater. On the left, a grand piano, on a chair, a double bass resting. Everything is ready for a beautiful chamber concert, the musicians enter and intone the notes of the scenic beginning of the opera "TURANDOT". The court of Peking is on stage with the performers, evoked by a gong that serves as a backdrop. But from the wings enters a sinister character, who moves robotically like a new mandarin. He is an actor, completely hypnotized by the music that inexorably enters the music of the concert as if it were a portal, transporting the musicians into a dreamlike and fantastic universe made of Puccini's theater puppets, oriental philosophy, and the more the music fills the theater, the more our protagonists begin to ask themselves, "Are we in the time of fairy tales or video games and comics? Of musicals and carnival or the imperial dynasty? Are we in Brussels at the bedside of the Maestro or are we feasting on a lavish hunting lunch at the Boheme circle? All of Puccini's world in a breathtaking performance that combines prose, concert, and opera thanks to the music, the true protagonist and main character of this theatrical piece. The musician-actors, the actor-musician, the instrument-scenery, and the costume-instruments, in Turandot non esiste, complement each other and move in a continuum, as music commands, and provide a key to understanding the opera, the plot of Turandot, Puccini's life, and the modern artist like nothing before. In short, a show that will give you the opportunity to love, possess, and understand who and what Turandot is... without losing your head! See, listen, participate to believe!"
Cast and Collaborators:
Costantino Buttitta: Actor/Author
Valentina Scheldhofen Ciardelli: Double bassist actress/composer/author
Stefano Teani: Pianist/Actor
Benjamin Balthazar Lebigre: StageDirector
Costumes produced by Fondazione Festival Pucciniano
