Friday 25 June from 20.30 until dawn Ravenna Public Gardens Ravenna Festival
VERSO PARADISO (Toward Paradise)
music for the integral reading of Paradise from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy with the actresses and actors of Ravenna
streaming on the Ravenna Festival website https://www.ravennafestival.live/en/events/towards-paradiso/
music by Luigi Ceccarelli
with
Vincenzo Core – electric guitar
Giacomo Piermatti – double bass
Gianni Trovalusci – flutes
Andrea Veneri – live electronics
and with Mirella Mastronardi – vocals
sound design Marco Olivieri
conceived and directed by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari
lighting design Fabio Sajiz
technical direction Enrico Isola
Ravenna Festival / Teatro Alighieri Ravenna
in collaboration with Teatro delle Albe / Ravenna Teatro, with the extraordinary contribution of the Municipality of Ravenna and Ravenna for Dante
review
25-06-2021 – Nazim Comunale, Il Giornale della Musica
https://www.giornaledellamusica.it/recensioni/le-voci-di-dante-ravenna
“It is not a show, it is a happening to be shared all together”. Thus Ermanna Montanari at the opening of verso Paradiso, the complete reading of the third cantica of the Divine Comedy, conceived and directed with Marco Martinelli on the music of Luigi Ceccarelli.
Seventy actors take turns on stage until dawn in this journey towards light and truth, played by Vincenzo Core (electric guitar), Giacomo Piermatti (double bass), Gianni Trovalusci (flutes), Andrea Veneri (live electronics), with Mirella Mastronardi on vocals.
This ascent towards the perfect unspeakable is skilfully translated into score by Ceccarelli, who makes us enter the skies with single-voice rooms that refer to an ancestral, intact and remote folk. But “Trasumanar significar per verba / non si por” (I, 70) and here are enclosed the light of these songs and the meaning perhaps of the music itself, which says things that cannot be translated into words.
Trovalusci’s flute is the door that opens onto this diaphanous and rarefied world: in some situations memories of the soundtracks of Popol Vuh or Ernst Reijseger for Werner Herzog resurface: infinitely horizontal beatitudes from mantra, spices of Indian raga, vaguely Arabic choirs let the voices slide down a slope, like sirens (the canon in canto VII is extraordinary) for a happily ambiguous and allusive conversation, which aims, fully succeeding, to become impalpable like the substance of the souls to which a verb is given ….
reciting voices
Andrea Argentieri (Fanny & Alexander), Alessandro Argnani (Teatro delle Albe), Beppe Aurilia (Beppe Aurilia Theatre), Paola Baldini, Mario Battaglia (I Sognattori), Consuelo Battiston (Menoventi), Camilla Berardi (Spazio A), Alessandro Bonoli (Teatro delle Albe), Derek Boschi, Alessandro Braga (Piccolo Teatro della Città di Ravenna), Roberto Bustacchini (I Scalcagné), Cristina Calandrini (Cvi de Magazên), Cristiano Caldironi (Circolo degli attori), Giuliana Camorani (Gruppo Teatrale S. Severo), Enrico Caravita (Lady Godiva Teatro), Lorenzo Carpinelli (Studio Doiz), Salvatore Caruso (Compagnia Caruso-Garante), Marco Cavalcoli (Fanny & Alexander), Beatrice Cevolani (Panda Project), Martina Cicognani (Anime Specchianti), Roberta Colombo (Teatro del Drago), Franco Costantini, Alice Cottifogli (Lady Godiva Teatro), Luigi Dadina (Teatro delle Albe), Cinzia Damassa, Francesca De Lorenzi (Anime Specchianti), Eliseo Dalla Vecchia, Giuditta Di Meo (teatroINfolle), Evelina Drianovska, Tania Eviani (Lady Godiva Teatro), Piero Fenati (Compagnia Drammatico Vegetale), Cesare Flamigni (Tutti meno uno- Compagnia del Buon Umore), Asia Galeotti (Compagnia Teatrale Luigi Rasi), Nadia Galli (La Caveja aps), Tonia Garante (Compagnia Caruso-Garante), Carlo Garavini (Lady Godiva Teatro), Graziano Garavini (05QuartoAtto), Matteo Gatta, Rudy Gatta, Chiara Lagani (Fanny & Alexander), Edoardo Liverani (I Mattoni del Teatro), Antonio Maiani (TeatrOnnivoro), Roberto Magnani (Teatro delle Albe), Elvira Mascanzoni (Compagnia Drammatico Vegetale), Sara Masotti, Giorgia Massaro (Anime Specchianti), Francesco Matteucci, Francesca Viola Mazzoni, Marco Montanari (Galla&Teo), Andrea Monticelli (Teatro del Drago), Sabina Morgagni (Officina Playground), Chiara Muti, Kingsley Ngadiuba, Chiara Nicastro (Anime Specchianti), Vitaliana Pantini (Piccolo Teatro della Città di Ravenna), Gianni Parmiani, Flaminia Pasquini Ferretti, Elena Pelliccioni, Antonella Piroli (Tanti Cosi Progetti), Fausto Pollio (Compagnia Teatrale Il Passaggio), Francesco Porzio (Beppe Aurilia Theatre), Massimiliano Rassu, Laura Redaelli (Teatro delle Albe), Alessandro Renda (Teatro delle Albe), Elisabetta Rivalta (Piccolo Teatro della Città di Ravenna), Silvia Rossetti (Galla&Teo), Marco Saccomandi (Spazio A), Sergio Scarlatella, Gianfranco Tondini, Fabio Treré, Massimiliano Venturi
