Arianna Frattali

La Didone abbandonata è il primo dramma per musica di Metastasio e, pur essendo stato scritto in una fase non ancora piena della sua maturità artistica, ne presenta in nuce tutti i tratti distintivi...

Using death as a lens to look at life in a different way, or constantly aspiring to a post-mortem stage of life itself...

RIASSUNTO La ricerca ricostruisce, basandosi su fonti dirette e materiali inediti, la vicenda biografica e artistica della contessa bergamasca Paolina Secco Suardo Grismondi a partire dal 1775, anno in cui iniziò a tenere un salotto che diventò tappa obbligata di gran parte dell’intellighentia italiana e francese del secolo. La contessa allestì inoltre una compagnia teatrale, di cui questo studio ricostruisce motivazioni e repertorio, che diede un decisivo contributo al risveglio intellettuale della società bergamasca del secolo e alla stabilizzazione di un sistema teatrale cittadino che fino a quel momento risultava piuttosto precario. SUMMARY The research, based on primary sources and unpublished materials, reconstructs the artistic life of the Countess Paolina Suardo Grismondi in Bergamo since 1775, when she began keeping a salon that became a destination for much of the intellighentia Italian and French of the eigtheenth century. The countess also staged a theatrical company, of which this study reproduces motivations and repertoire, which gave a decisive contribution to the cultural revival of the Bergamo society of the century and the stabilization of a city theater system which until then was rather precarious.

In 1957, the Ente Autonomo Piccolo Teatro was founded, ten years after the foundation of the theatre in Milan, and it started a new phase in its life. In the following years, until 1960, Paolo Grassi and Giorgio Strehler were busy in the hypothesis and drafting of a bill for the theatre of prose. Many protagonists of the world of theatre were involved in the debate: critics, directors, actors, all committed in re-thinking the Italian theatre horizon as included, at last, in a precise regulation. So, in 1959, the newly formed Ministero del Turismo e Spettacolo summoned an appropriate commission to discuss a bill regulating censorship, funding, and interventions of the Government in the production of the theatre, and in the choice of the repertoire. The aim of this study is to reenact the debates of those years through the relationships between Paolo Grassi and the other protagonists of the world of theatre, all involved in a new project. In this context Eduardo De Filippo and Vittorio Gassman emerged as constant interlocutors of the Piccolo Teatro, in a dense network of reciprocal artistic exchanges, common projects, co-produced shows, shared or discussed ideas.