Povero Napoleone dal Festival di Nuova Consonanza
Povero Napoleone
for tenor voice and piano (2020)
During the protests over George Floyd’s death, a not-so-hypothetical president is in front of the cameras.
(Un)fortunately, his address is breaking up. Is he singing an anthem or is he giving voice to an involuntary flow of consciousness? Finally taking the hints of his accompanist, he will quit the scene by singing a (strangely autobiographical) “Povero Napoleone”: an old Italian folk songs collected by Gianni Bosio e Roberto Leydi in 1962.