Archivi Produzioni | Page 4 of 7

The magic of Zecchino d’oro

A gift in music that wants to pay homage to an appointment that has become a tradition. An event that has been able to cross the years with sobriety, lightness and elegance without ever losing sight of its identity. So here is Il Magico Zecchino d’Oro, a title that is already a program. A musical born from the collaboration between Antoniano of Bologna, Fondazione Aida of Verona and Centro Servizi Culturali Santa Chiara of Trento, supported by Geomag and Valfrutta.

Plot

What to expect from Il Magico Zecchino d’Oro? A show in the show in which the songs will be the absolute protagonists together with fantasy and a pinch of magic. Memories, emotions, sensations, moments lived and to relive. This and much more will be present in what can be defined as a musical fantasy able to surprise everyone, young and old. Protagonist of the plot, Alice, a little girl who is sometimes afraid of the dark. With her, on stage, the Little Man of the Moon who sends dreams to children while they sleep thanks to the jingling of the golden coin which, however, wants to take possession of the Witch Obscura. There will also be adventures and meetings with some of the most famous characters of the songs that have made the history of the Zecchino d’Oro. A gift that Antoniano gives to us to live together this very special occasion.

A show to sing along to!

As you can imagine, the songs will be the absolute protagonists of this production. The most famous and best known musical texts of the Zecchino d’Oro have been specially selected to become the soundtrack of Il Magico Zecchino d’Oro. Songs that have been conceived by the children, sung and voted by them over the years and that now, on this particular occasion, become the backbone of the theatrical dramaturgy. Protagonists in a new way, renewed and revisited while maintaining their style and their authenticity. A curiosity, this, which also represents the originality of Il Magico Zecchino d’Oro that turns out to be an engaging show and suitable for everyone, young and adult.

History of the Soldier by Igor Stravinsky

Histoire du Soldat is a text created as an “opera for actor, music and dance”. The magical atmospheres aroused by Ramuz’s text (and Afanasiev’s fairy tales) and Stravinsky’s essential and modern music seemed to us an incredibly fertile material for our way of making theatre.

Of great importance is the favour and interest with which the Ente Lirico Arena di Verona, one of the most prestigious musical institutions in our country, has welcomed the idea and the project, thus opening the activity of the institution to a new public.

We also underline the variety and importance of the artistic collaborations that have gathered around the show, a real “laboratory” for actors, musicians, scholars of the city, which offers a wide range of young and qualified presences. This edition of Histoire du Soldat was created by a team of young artists, in line with the role that our theatre wants to play in Verona’s cultural fabric.

Histoire du Soldat was first staged in Verona in 1989.

Christmas Song

Dickens’s Christmas Carol like Collodi’s Pinocchio, Malot’s Nobody’s Boy, Twain’s Tom Sawyer or Molnar’s The Paul Street Boys: a childhood classic. The path to virtue, in literature, is paved with boredom, and young readers are potentially all Gianburrasca who do not like sermons: this is the reason why Pinocchio remains at the time better, for example, than Cuore by De Amicis. But Dickens was a pleasant moralist; he knew how to show us human fears and human repentance of his characters – even the negative ones like Scrooge. Moreover, he was able to squeeze out a few tears of emotion, and did not renounce to capture the comic sides of life, with that indulgent pity that comes from knowing the secrets of the heart. (…)

Of this classic, I intended to make a new “free” and “updated” adaptation. In the sense that I intend to project in today’s world, as it is, the story of the old usurer who, in the end, repented: so that The Christmas Carol would not be – or would not be only, as it could have become – an old picture book about London, (…) but would succeed in stimulating – in this case in the audience of very young people to whom the show is destined (…) some considerations on the world in which we live”.

Ugo Ronfani

Author of this “updated” theatrical version of A Christmas Carol dedicated to children and young people, has been a journalist, writer and teacher as well as theatre and literary critic of “Il giorno”, of which he was also vice-director. He founded and directed the magazine of theatre and entertainment “Hystrio”.

Merry Christmas Santa Claus

Plot

What if Santa Claus can no longer bring gifts to children as he does every year? What if not even the Befana is available to replace him? Christmas would be in danger of becoming a day like any other, even sadder and more boring. In his first test flight, Santa Claus got stuck in the chimney of the house of two children and can no longer get out. To tell the truth, Santa Claus can no longer get out of a whole series of other little problems. Lately he has gained a lot of weight, he only eats big coloured candies sent to him by an unknown admirer and he doesn’t really want to go on a diet. But the worst thing is that he has lost the desire to fly with his reindeer and his sleigh.

Luckily, Federico and Chiara, the children protagonists of this story, are good and smart. In the end, they will find a way not only to help Santa get out of the chimney, but also to solve a very dangerous matter for him and for all the children in the world.

Our two friends, with the help of Santa’s elves, Nettle and Chestnut, will discover that the terrible Wizard Bisesto, envious of the fact that his day falls only once every four years and is never waited for and celebrated as it should be, has hatched a terrible plan to abolish the joy of Christmas forever by trying to put both Santa Claus and the Befana out of business.

Between twists and turns, songs and great fun, in the end Christmas will be saved and everyone will be able to shout and sing together and happy again: Merry Christmas, Santa Claus!

Santa Claus and the potion of 13 herbs

Plot

This time Santa is facing the beautiful but cruel Queen Blizzard, who after casting a terrible spell on him and freezing his heart, has taken over the magical sleigh to carry out her terrible secret plan. Nikolas, Santa’s apprentice, and Rudolph, the trusty red-nosed reindeer, in order to save Christmas will have to venture into the mountains of faraway Switzerland in search of the Wise Old Gnome, the only one able to tell them where to find the thirteen magical herbs needed to make the potion that can dissolve the spell and free Santa’s heart. A whirlwind of adventures and twists and turns in an exciting and entertaining musical-style fantasy.An exuberant show with completely original plot and songs, but always respecting the tradition and the magical atmosphere of Christmas.

Stories of Laura Lattes

In 2018, 40 years have passed since the death of Laura Lattes, author of the ‘Storie di Mirella’, a children’s book much praised by Vamba, the author of Gianburrasca.
The meeting will bring out her human qualities and her skills in writing for kids, also taking into account her personal experience as a Jewish teacher removed in 1938 from the ‘Fogazzaro Institute’ where she taught.

A testimony not to forget

Laura Lattes was born in Venice, in Malamocco, Italy, in 1893 to Jewishparents : Abramo Samuele Angelo Lattes and Elisa Segre. Angelo and Elisa were however born and always lived in Italy. They were Italian before they were Jewish. “I too felt Italian before I was Jewish,” says Lattes.

Laura arrived in Vicenza in 1900 and in this city obtained a master’s degree.

“I found many friends in Vicenza, friendships that stayed with me all my life. It was the city of my games and my studies. Vicenza was my city”.

In 1914 after graduating in Italian Literature in Florence, she started working as a teacher. Se had to move often from one city to another, until, in 1934 she returned to Vicenza because she had won a teaching post at the ‘Don Giuseppe Fogazzaro Institute’. Unfortunately, in those years, a strange wind had begun to blow in Italy, a wind made of human stupidity, hatred and ferocity: the wind of Fascism that will produce, from there, the terrible racial laws against the Jews.

In 1938, in fact, Laura Lattes was expelled from teaching, like all Italian Jews as a result of racial laws and forced to teach in the ‘Jewish school’ in Padua and Venice to pupils turned away like her from state schools.

“They were first of all Italian, like me, but they were to blame for being Jewish. Like me: the fault of being Jewish! Even textbooks could no longer bear the signatures of authors of Jewish origin”.

Pino Costalunga will retrace both the human and literary events of Laura Lattes, in particular those of her teaching period, thus recounting a difficult and terrible era as it was that of the Fascist period in Italy and the racial laws. This often sad and painful story will be alternated with pages of Lattes from the ‘Storie di Mirella’ where the sweetness of writing for children will instead be counterbalanced for the realization of a dense and at the same time pleasant show.

Put that mobile phone away

The show

The mobile phone and the web”, says Aldo Cazzullo, “are the greatest stupidity of humanity. The mobile phone and the web,” replied the children, “are part of our lives and our future.

The story explores the relationship between parents and children in the digital age. On the one hand, there are those who see in the mobile phone above all the risks; on the other hand, there are those who see in it a series of multiple possibilities. On stage, there is not only the relationship between the actors, but also the connection and the relationship with that screen, which on stage is often brighter and certainly bigger and obviously more full of possibilities than the human actor. In short, it is a way to delve into the words of this beautiful book in an amusing and unpredictable way, with a clear attempt not to find answers, but to raise further questions. Because it is asking questions to find strategies that distinguishes the human from the technological medium.

The show is part of the project FUORI DALLA RETE – Percorsi educativi all’uso del web, conceived by Fondazione Aida in collaboration with the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, ULSS 9 Scaligera, Prospettiva Famiglia and “Scuola e territorio – Educare insieme” with the patronage of the Comune di Verona – Politiche giovanili.

Leo invents everything

Songs, inventions, a ballet, a puppet, two actors, theatre and lots of magic are the ingredients of “Leo invents everything”!

The show

Lisa is a little girl who loves to invent, observe the world and study. She is a happy child… except for today!

She is desperate because she didn’t manage to get top marks at school. Gioconda, who is her doll, but also a magic puppet, tries to console her, but there is no way of comforting her …. “Leonardo da Vinci would not have made a mistake,” says Lisa. Yes, because Lisa’s role model, her myth, is Leonardo da Vinci.

So, while she is working in her workshop, as if by magic she meets her favourite genius: Leonardo da Vinci. A wonderful friendship immediately develops between Leonardo and Lisa: Lisa reveals what her ideas have become today and what benefits they have brought to our times, while Leonardo, ever more enthusiastic, gives her new stimuli to never stop dreaming and creating… A tale for everyone, engaging, educational and with a touch of magic and madness.

A captivating story to discover the genius of Leonardo da Vinci through the eyes of a little girl. A magical adventure to make children reflect on how precious the study, exploration and interest in Nature is, but above all how important is the understanding of the world that comes from observing it.

The four seasons and little wind

Good morning Spring!

It’s me, Little Wind!
I sing from above and I dive
I slip into every chink in the air
Blowing with a voice of thunder
I ruffle the feathers of the sparrows
Who laugh and laugh and laugh
and fly high in the air.

The show

A show involving the youngest audience on the theme of the four seasons and listening to nature.

Based on the music of Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”, an example of vital and inventive subject music, this sparkling story unfolds, following the adventures of Piccolo Vento with smiles and poetry, through the seasons and their changes: landscapes, colours, scents, nuances, sounds… and music.

With the help of the three actors on stage, LittleWind talks to the audience, drawing the children’s attention to observing the small things in nature and listening to the musical story. The three actors on stage, alternating in dances and narrations, will play with the children to listen to the words of Little Wind and accompany him in his search for his mother Zephyrus, gliding harmoniously from one season to another.

The Secret of the Invincibles

The show

Based on Il misterioso segreto degli invincibili (Grappolo di Libri, 2019) by Simone Dini Gandini, the show recounts one of the darkest periods in Italian and European history, that of the Nazi-fascist madness during the Second World War. Football is therefore the pretext for recounting those bleak years, so as to give the audience a representation of Italy caught in the grip of fascism, in which, however, there were those who had the strength and courage to remain human and resist. At the same time, following the sporting parable of the Grande Torino, we will also witness the enthusiasm, energy and desire for redemption and rebirth of the years immediately following the war, years in which the Granata team dominated the football championship while Italy on two wheels was divided between cheering for Coppi and cheering for Bartali, all correlated by archive images from newsreels, radio broadcasts and newspaper articles of the time.

The epic comes to an end on 4th May 1949, when Erbstein and the entire team lost their lives in a plane crash into the bastion of the Superga basilica. From that day on, the story ends and the myth begins. Heroes are always immortal in the eyes of those who believe in them. And so the boys will believe that Torino is not dead, it is just away, as IndroMontanelli wrote in Corrieredella Sera on 5 May 1949.

On stage an actor, Valerio Ameli, who, with light brushstrokes, will paint a picture of that Italy and will retrace together with Erbstein his daring escape from the Fascist Laws and his internment in a labour camp. A multi-instrumentalist musician, Andrea Faccioli, will accompany the audience through the melodies of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, songs whose frivolous appearance often concealed subversive messages that were dangerous to the Fascist regime.