Compagnia dell'asino che porta la croce

LA SAVIEZZA GIOVENILE by Adriano Banchieri
(1568-1634)
Theatre and music performance in one act

Direction, masks and costumes by Antonio Fava

(Out of production)

In the early 17th century, near the Commedia dell' Arte (a play with improvised dialogues, the term meaning "comedy of professional actors") there lived for some time the Comedia Harmonica or madrigalesca, so called because the characters were singers who sang their own stories in poliphonic form with the "basso continuo" accompaniment.
Themes and characters of Commedia dell' Arte meet with plots and stock types of the popular mask-theatre in Comedia Harmonica.

This performance form was to please the audience's ears, not the eyes, as Orazio Vecchi, an enlivener of the new genre with Adriano Banchieri, wrote: probably the Comedia Harmonica had not a real staging. "La saviezza giovanile" by Adriano Banchieri is staged with professional singers and musicians who become actors in the performance.

The musical philologic and iconographic reconstruction keep step to the scrupulous and innovating direction work which, as Antonio Fava wrote in his notes, is dedicated to "the continuity and not to the restoration of theatrical archaeology, because the aesthetic, rhythmic and cultural interventions, with all respect to their historic origin, are made to enjoy a living, present, reacting public."

Contacts:
COMPAGNIA DELL'ASINO CHE PORTA LA CROCE
c/o Fabio Bonvicini
via dell'Alloro 10, 41100 Modena (Italy)
telefono e fax: 059-233069