Emilia-Romagna, Valter Malosti's new show with Anna Della Rosa from William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra

Emilia-Romagna, Valter Malosti's new show with Anna Della Rosa from William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare it is a work rarely performed in Italy, but it is among the poetic peaks of the author's dramatic corpus, an opportunity for the public and enthusiasts to deal with a masterpiece unknown to most, also thanks to the new Italian translation into verse by Nadia Fusini and Valter Malosti. This is the text that Malosti, the director of ERT / Teatro Nazionale, chooses for his new direction, premiered at the Teatro Storchi in Modena from 10 to 14 January, and immediately afterwards in Bologna at the Teatro Arena del Sole from 17 to 21 January. The tour will continue in the main Italian cities until June, ending at the Piccolo Teatro in Milano.

The show is a production di Emilia Romagna ERT Theater / National Theater with the Theater Foundation of Naples – Bellini Theatre, Teatro Stabile di Bolzano, Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale, LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura.

On the occasion of the repeat performance on Saturday 13 January at 16.30 pm at the Storchi Theatre, a meeting is scheduled with Valter Malosti, Anna Della Rosa and Nadia Fusini, moderated by the teacher and coordinator of the degree course in Music and Theater Disciplines of the University of Bologna Enrico Pitozzi, as part of the Conversando di Teatro cycle.

In the roles of the two protagonists, the same Malosti and Anna Della Rosa, already a finalist at the 2021 Ubu Awards as best actress for her interpretation of the queen of Egypt in Cleopatràs, the first of Giovanni Testori's Tre lai, directed by Valter Malosti. With them, a large cast that brings together established actresses and actors and young talents (Danilo Nigrelli, Dario Battaglia, Massimo Verdastro, Paolo Giangrasso, Noemi Grasso, Ivan Graziano, Dario Guidi, Flavio Pieralice, Gabriele Rametta, Carla Vukmirovic).
For the staging, the director collaborates with some of the best professionals of Italian theatre, including the Ubu 2023 winners Margherita Palli (set designer), Cesare Accept (director of photography and light designer) and GUP Alcaro, sound designer who supports the Malosti's works for two decades, winner for the Lazarus sound project. The costumes are by Carlo Poggioli, nominated for the Nastri d'Argento, the David di Donatello and the BAFTA; and the movement is handled by the director and choreographer Marco Angelilli.

Antony and Cleopatra

Valter Malosti compares himself with Antony and Cleopatra after a long and passionate Shakespearean journey. Among the shows: Shakespeare/Venus and Adonis (ANCT Award 2009), The Rape of Lucrezia (Ubu Award 2013 to Alice Spisa), Hamlet, Shakespeare/Sonnets, Macbeth. In 2022 Einaudi published his translation of I Poemetti in the Poetry series.

«The two overflowing protagonists – explains Valter Malosti – they exceed every measure to affirm their infinite freedom. Politically incorrect and dangerously vital, at the mysterious and furious rhythm of an Egyptian bacchanal they go beyond reason and the games of politics. Inimitable and incomparable, not even death can contain them. Of Antony and Cleopatra – continues the director – my generation has above all imprinted in its memory the image, bordering on kitsch, and seen through the magnifying glass of great cinema (really great given the direction of Joseph L. Mankievicz) of Hollywood, by the couple Richard Burton / Liz Taylor. But on this disenchanted and mysterious work, which mixes the tragic, the comic, the sacred and the grotesque, on this wonderful philosophical and mystical (and alchemical) poem that sanctifies eros, that plays with high and low, written in verses that are among the highest and most evocative of all of Shakespeare's works, the shadow of our great philosopher Giordano Bruno hovers, for more than one scholar, to demonstrate their profound complexity: a theater of the mind".

The love story between Antony and Cleopatra allows Shakespeare to tell the meeting and the conflict between East and West, a conflict political but also scientific.

In 1580 in fact Giordano Bruno was in England, here he recovered the astronomical sciences of the ancient Egyptians and spread his revolutionary theories in Western culture which would later cost him his life.

For Antonio, knowing Cleopatra - a "Serpent of the old Nile" who sits on a throne covered in the mantle of Isis - is what gives meaning to the journey of life, in the meeting with Cleopatra Antonio is fully born into himself. As for Cleopatra, writes Nadia Fusini, «as well as Dido and Isis, she is a gypsy, she is the great prostitute of the East, an anticipation of Isolde, the "strange" and foreign woman of the Proverbs, the "lustful" one of Dante, the "faithful" one in love of Chaucer , Caesar's whore, and now Antony's lover. But above all, now, in this drama, she is the priestess of a dramatic action from which the ancient question arises again and again, which already obsessed Zeus and Hera: who enjoys more in love? the man or the woman? […] and does he who loves more enjoy less? And among lovers, who receives the most? […] These are questions that in the logic of the erotic economy with which Shakespeare plays explode with a roar, dissolving puritanical machinations aimed at legislating in a repressive sense on the incandescent matter of eros».

Antony and Cleopatra, as the teacher, translator and poet Gilberto Sacerdoti suggests, is an optical prism: «If it is observed only from the front an optical prism shows only one image, and if you do not take a step to the left and one to the right, the other two remain invisible – which, in the case of “truth” and “secrets of nature” that "they should be silent", it can be good to keep them silent and speak at the same time." Seen from the front, it is therefore the story of love and politics narrated by Plutarch. Viewed sideways, it pushes us to decipher “nature's infinite book of secrets”. To find a counterpart to Antony's infinite love "one must necessarily discover a new heaven and a new earth", and to those who are willing to wash their brains with strong Egyptian wine, Dionysus reveals "a revolving world" just like the one that humanity was preparing to discover."

A brief note on order and disorder / Valter Malosti

PHILON

Our general's dementia
surpasses all measure: his eyes
that sent out flashes of fire
on the ranks and the war rallies,
reflected on the metal like a Mars,
now they are turned towards the Egyptian one,
and his great captain's heart,
which he blew away in battle
the buckles of the armor on the chest,
unbridled renounces all temperance,
it has become the bellows and the fan
that cools the heat of a gypsy
lustful.
Look carefully at the scene [...]
You will see one of the three pillars of the world
transformed into a whore's fool.
Be careful and look.

I have always been struck by reading and rereading Antony and Cleopatra, the first and last scenes but I didn't understand exactly why. It seemed like two scenes to me, I was about to say two shots, not relevant. In the first scene, one of the ambassadors who arrived from Rome to have a conversation with Antonio speaks of the great general as if he were a demented, disordered, lecherous old man, lost in his love for “gypsy” Cleopatra, and on the other hand gipsy comes from Egyptian, as does our Italian “gypsy”, which is the Latin aegyptanus, from Aegyptus «Egypt», and with this last name Antony will call Cleopatra within the Shakespearean tragedy.

In the scene that closes the tragedy we instead observe the victorious Caesar Octavian in front of the lifeless body of Cleopatra who incites “maximum order”.

Antony and Cleopatra therefore begins with the greatest disorder in progress, in which Eros lives together with Thanatos in an Egyptian bacchanal and coexists with wars and the public res and power, but all this upheaval of the world vanishes with the death of the two lovers “unparalleled”. The last shot belongs to Caesar Octavian who, after the political mockery of Cleopatra's suicide, grants the two an imperishable common tomb and demands from him the "maximum order" regarding the burial rite with the entire army deployed. Maximum order that he wants to erase maximum disorder forever.

And it is, instinctively, precisely from the image that is inescapable for me of this tomb-monument that our research on Antony and Cleopatra began. I asked Margherita Palli to create a tomb-scene, with the (millennial) layers of history visible, it is a modern mausoleum that houses ancient tombs of ancient guests, the ghosts, the shadows as Shakespeare called them, which are the essence of the theatre. They are the dead who speak to us here with a fullness of life and a presence more alive than life, thanks to the poetry.

I. The inverted taste
and also invertible
of the poison you sought,
distributed,
beloved,
that hateful, sadistic mania
to make that matter
of art either
like the throat
the moment before
let a hand shake her
or in infected veins
the asp-syringe
the fatal drool-drug,
the moment, the hour,
eternity, perhaps,
before Cleopatra dies
[...]

II. Who has down here
painted and loved
that he didn't want at the time
self-assassination
and the lover,
a common death,
even if it were pictorial,
Together,
two,
my agonies,
her…
[...]
Giovanni Testori, Francesco Cairo, from Maddalene, Franco Maria Ricci, 1989

Characters and performers

• Anna Della Rosa Cleopatra
• Valter Malosti Antonio
• Danilo Nigrelli Ahenobarbus
• Darius Battaglia Caesar Octavian
• Massimo Verdastro Soothsayer
• Paolo Giangrasso Cleopatra's Messenger
• Ivan Gratian Agrippa
• Noemi Grasso Incanto
• Dario Guidi Eros
• Flavio Pieralice Messenger of Rome
• Gabriele Rametta Soldier of Antonio
• Carla Vukmirovic Ottavia

Valter Malosti, director, actor and visual artist, he has directed the Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione / Teatro Nazionale since May 2021 and previously the Fondazione Teatro Piemonte Europa and the independent company Teatro di Dioniso. Malosti's shows have obtained, among others, the international Flaiano award for the direction of Venus in Furs by David Ives in 2017, the Ubu Prize 2009 for direction of Quattro Atti Profani by A. Tarantino and that of the National Association of Theater Critics again for Quattro Atti Profani and for Shakespeare/Venus and Adonis. In 2004 Jon Fosse's Winter received the Ubu Award for the best foreign text staged in Italy. From 2004 it is the Hystrio prize for directing Fellini's Juliet. In 1992 Malosti received a special mention at the Melbourne Fringe Arts Festival as best performer interpreting Ella by H. Achternbusch in English. Of the 2019 is the nomination for the Ubu Awards for the direction and sound project of If This is a Man by Primo Levi. Malosti has conducted works by Nyman, Tutino, Glass, Corghi and Cage, often in the first performance, and for the Teatro Regio in Turin Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. He has several radio directions to his credit for Rai Radio3.

Among his projects most recent opera direction from The Journey of G. Mastorna by Matteo D'Amico from Fellini and Lazarus by David Bowie and Enda Walsh.

As an actor Malosti worked for almost a decade with Luca Ronconi, and at the cinema with Mimmo Calopresti, Franco Battiato and Mario Martone. It was Manfred (Schumann/Byron) for Noseda conducting. He directed the School for Actors of the Teatro Stabile of Turin from 2010 to 2018. His translation of I Poemetti by William Shakespeare was released at the end of November 2022 for the Poetry series by Einaudi Editore. For the direction of ERT / Teatro Nazionale in 2023 he received the Enriquez Prize and the Volponi Plaque.

Anna Della Rosa, graduated from the school of dramatic art Paolo Grassi specializes with Luca Ronconi and Massimo Castri. He made his debut with Peter Stein at the Greek Theater of Syracuse and in the most important ancient theaters in Europe. She is the protagonist directed by Toni Servillo, Luís Pasqual, Pascal Rambert, Valter Malosti, Martin Kušej, Marco Bellocchio, Andreè Shammah, Marco Baliani, Davide Livermore, Veronica Cruciani, Simone Toni and Jacopo Gassmann, for whom she is Iphigenia in Iphigenia in Tauris at the Greek Theater of Syracuse in 2022. For the role of Giacinta in La Trilogia della Villeggiatura directed by Toni Servillo, she won the ETI Gli Olimpici del Teatro Award as best emerging actress and the Virginia Reiter Award, for her performance in Blackbird directed by Luís Pasqual , receives the Marisa Bellisario Award and the Duse Award as best young theater actress and the International Award “Friends of Milano for the young people". She is a finalist for the Ubu Award as best actress in 2008 for the role of Giacinta and in 2021 for her interpretations of Cleopatràs by Giovanni Testori directed by Valter Malosti and Sorelle, written and directed by Pascal Rambert. She is the voice of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, audiobooks produced by Storytel. She is the Bloodless Girl in The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino, winner of the 2014 Oscar for best foreign language film. In the 2023/2024 season you will debut in Durante, text and direction by Pascal Rambert. You recently interpreted Erodiàs + Mater strangosciàs at the Nuovo Teatro delle Passioni in Modena, the project by Sandro Lombardi, historic interpreter of Testori's Tre lai, born as an ideal passage of deliveries from actor to actress (produced by ERT / Teatro Nazionale). She also takes Accabadora, from the novel by Michela Murgia, dramaturgy by Carlotta Corradi and directed by Veronica Cruciani, an ERT co-production with Savà srl.

Tour

• 10-14 January 2024, Teatro Storchi, Modena
• 17-21 January 2024, Teatro Arena del Sole, Bologna
• 23 January 2024, Asioli Theatre, Correggio
• 25-28 January 2024, Teatro Alighieri, Ravenna
• 31 January – 4 February 2024, Teatro Sociale, Brescia
• 8 -11 February 2024, Teatro Comunale Bolzano
• 13-18 February 2024, Teatro Carignano, Turin
• 22-25 February 2024, Teatro Ivo Chiesa, Genoa
• 2-10 March 2024, Bellini Theatre, Naples
• 14-17 March 2024, Teatro Goldoni, Venice
• 20-21 March 2024, LAC – Lugano Arte Cultura
• 4-9 June 2024, Piccolo Teatro Milano – Theater of Europe

Information

• Storchi Theatre
• Largo Garibaldi 15 – Modena
• 10 from January to 14 2024
• Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 20.30pm | Saturday 19.00 pm | Sunday 16.00pm

Conversing about Theatre

Saturday 13 January at 16.30 pm at the Storchi Theatre, meeting with Valter Malosti, Anna Della Rosa and Nadia Fusini, moderated by Enrico Pitozzi.

I'm coming too! Creative workshops for children while the adults are at the theatre. The Movement and Dance workshop organized by Centro Danza La Fenice is scheduled for Saturday 13 January at 19.00pm: it will be a different way to become familiar with movement through play and imagination. Two experts will propose playful motor activities that associate sounds and colors with the proposed movements. Creativity, imagination and research will be the main themes of the laboratory.

The cost of each appointment is €7 per child*, (€10 in total if there are 2 children), in addition to the price (reduced by 20%) of the show ticket for the parents, reduced by 20%. Limited availability and subject to availability. Reservation required: 059.2136021 – biglietteria@emiliaromagnateatro.com

Audio descriptions

The performance of Antony and Cleopatra on Sunday 14 January at 16.00 pm will be audio described, thanks to the collaboration with Centro Diego Fabbri of Forlì as part of the Teatro No Limits project. The audio description was created with the support of Banco S. Geminiano and S. Prospero.

Ticketing

Tel. 059 2136021 | biglietteria@emiliaromagnateatro.com Open from Tuesday to Saturday 10.00am – 14.00pm; Tuesday and Saturday also 16.30pm-19.00pm Online sale at the following link  and to this link Prices: from €7 to €27