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Alessandro Baricco
Tucidide. Atene contro Melo
Alessandro Baricco premieres his new show Tucidide. Atene contro Melo, for which he is the author of the text and director. Gabriele Vacis is on stage as the narrator flanked from Stefania Rocca and Valeria Solarino and accompanied by the 100 Cellos, the prodigious ensemble of one hundred cellists founded and directed from Giovanni Sollima, who also composes the original music for the show. Also on the podium is Enrico Melozzi.
to starting from the pages of Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, Baricco recounts the events that took place in 416 to.C. and the Athenian ultimatum to the inhabitants of the island of Melo, in the Cyclades: submit to their rule or perish. The refusal of the Melii gives rise to to an exemplary punishment, one of the most tragic episodes of the war: the destruction of the city, the killing of all the men and the deportation as slaves of women and children. The disproportion of the forces on the field was enormous, the overwhelming power of the Athenians obvious. Nevertheless, before giving the word to arms, Athenians and Meli met to negotiate the future of the island.
"Curiously enough," Baricco explains, "Thucydides recounts this meeting of ambassadors as if he had participated in it: he reports the exact words spoken by the ambassadors, and he reconstructs down to the last detail, and in a dramatically vivid way, the verbal clash between the two sides. Although he was a historian (indeed, the first of historians) he ended up in those pages writing about theater and beautiful theater. Therefore, bringing those pages to the stage seems almost a way of bringing them to to fruition, making them reach where they obscurely dreamed of going."
Listening to the text again today becomes all the more timely when one considers its content: a beautiful and fierce reflection on what remains of Justice and Law when faced with an aggressor and an aggrieved, a strong and a weak, a victor and a vanquished. In the elegant but harsh words of the ambassadors is handed down a clash that will continue to to trouble the West for centuries: how to save the value of Justice in the exercise of politics and war.
text and direction Alessandro Baricco
music Giovanni Sollima
with Gabriele Vacis, Valeria Solarino, Stefania Rocca
and Giovanni Sollima, Enrico Melozzi, 100 Cellos
costumes Giovanna Buzzi, SlowCostume
lights Fabiana Piccioli
Holden Studios production , Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi
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Text by Alessia Rastelli
"Surrender or we will destroy you." With this message in 416 to. C., while the Peloponnesian war against Sparta was in progress, the Athenians stood before representatives of the island of Melo in the Aegean Sea, which would have liked to parade from that conflict between the two major powers of ancient Greece and become neutral. The episode is recounted from Thucydides who, in his objective account of the events, however, surprisingly inserts to a certain point a literary, almost dramaturgical reproduction of the negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians before the siege. And today, in the play Tucidide. Atene contro Melo, written and directed from Alessandro Baricco, it is as if the words of the author, the music of the 100 Cellos directed from Giovanni Sollima, and the voices of Valeria Solarino and Stefania Rocca give fulfillment to the insight of the Greek historian in his Peloponnesian War, ferrying those facts, so remote yet extraordinarily relevant, into the present and the future.
Alessandro Baricco, how did the idea of. Tucidide. Atene contro Melo?
It is an episode that I attend from at least fifteen years, on which I have lectured several times. It has always fascinated me. First of all, because of the form, just because Thucydides actually to puts himself composing a play in the middle of a historical narrative, so much so that there is also the hypothesis that he didn't write it, that he embedded it inside... In any case, I always thought that we need to bring it to theater and, a couple of years ago, I said to myself: try it. Out of it came this show that is actually a mixed form, a lecture-concert. to produce it, the Holden Studios, precisely the production rib of the Holden School to Turin, a young group born from a few years, formed from several alumni who have first of all the specificity of being storytellers and decline it in various fields, up to advertising, podcasts or anthologies for students...
In Tucidide. Atene contro Melo music is fundamental. Why did you involve Giovanni Sollima and the 100 Cellos orchestra, composed from of about one hundred cellists?
I discovered the 100 Cellos a couple of years ago and they were very important in the birth of Tucidide. Atene contro Melo. I originally envisioned them as a stage set: cellos can look like armor and it seemed like a strong image to have this kind of phalanx on stage. Then of course the instruments are played and their color seemed to fit, as did the sound they created with the voices of Valeria Solarino and Stefania Rocca. Finally, Giovanni Sollima, with whom I had already done Iliad in 2004, is one of the most interesting musicians in the world right now. Together to Enrico Melozzi, also on stage, is the father of 100 Cellos, so it all added up.
How did you choose the actresses Valeria Solarino and Stefania Rocca?
If I stage Greek heroes, I struggle to to have them play from men. When I worked on theIliad, many actors dressed as male characters, but for Achilles, the hero par excellence, I chose an actress. This allowed better entry into the transfigured, mythical world of such a character: a female performer immediately had the effect of disengaging him from realism. And this also applies to other similar figures. Of course then you have to choose the actress well, a kind of somewhat abstract beauty, a physical strength in the body, a voice that works. Valeria Solarino had already worked with me in the play Palamedes. The Erased Hero (2015) and Stefania Rocca in the TV version of Totem (1998), a play I had written and curated with Gabriele Vacis. He will be the one, in the performance in Tucidide. Atene contro Melo to Spoleto, to lend his voice to the narrator.
"We know very well that from here we will come out enslaved, if we stand to hear you, or forced to to fight, if we listen to our hearts," the Melians tell the Athenians, among others. And, among the latter's remarks, made arrogant by their wartime superiority, is the phrase, "It only makes sense to talk about what is fair or not fair when the forces on the field are equivalent." Are there reminders of the war recently returned to Europe?
I decided to do this play before the conflict in Ukraine broke out, although I realize that there are passages that are surprising in their topicality. However, what we can get from the episode handed down from Thucydides - the reflection on men and war, on the idea of justice when they fight - I think goes beyond the specifics of the current conflict.
In the finale, another episode in the context of the Peloponnesian War is evoked: the revolt of Mytilene against Athens and the rethinking from by the latter, which defeated the rebellious city, about the kind of punishment from imparted. If at first a ship was sent toward Mytilene with orders to kill the men and enslave the women and children, another was sent in pursuit the next day with a milder verdict. An image, according to the narrator, that is also an invitation to never to stop thinking, to always questioning ourselves and correcting mistakes.
The image of the two ships struck me as beautiful already the first time I read it in Thucydides. For Melo, however, there were no second thoughts: men were killed, women and children made slaves. His story leaves one bewildered, desolate. So I thought the key could be found in the story of Mytilene, that the two stories could travel together, or at least do so in a performance, allowing to everyone to take to home the warmth of a teaching.
In 2022 he launched Nineteen Hundred. The Source Code. That is, the read aloud of his famous theatrical monologue that became an Nft(Non-fungible token), a unique digital piece certified by technology. Will Tucidide. Atene contro Melo will it become an Nft? And, more generally, how does this play fit within his opera that spans from ancient Greece to digital civilization?
At the moment I don't think it Tucidide. Atene contro Melo it will become an Nft. But in the part of my work that draws on the past, I have always tried to recover something vital and ferry it into the future. It does not to have to do with popularization, for which I have great respect. What I do is more akin to playing Bach with today's taste, and doing it so that it doesn't disappear. I try to excite rather than teach. This latest performance is also designed to work the mind, but at the same time, and very much so, the heart and the guts. And indeed I recur to a giant orchestra... If I cannot to infuse the past with a vibration, I have done nothing, I have ferried only empty knowledge.
Is theater effective to this purpose?
It might seem obsolete, but instead it is suitable to to ignite energy and emotions. Especially in front of to large audiences, what is done in a setting like Spoleto becomes a kind of ritual around which the city gathers and experiences an almost political, secularly sacred experience.
Alessandro Baricco is one of the most versatile contemporary writers in Italy. Known for his bestselling novels Castelli di rabbia (Premio Selezione Campiello and Prix Médicis Étranger in 1991), Oceano Mare (Premio Viareggio in 1993) and Seta (1996, translated into 16 languages), Baricco has also had a prolific career as a television host of cultural programs, as a playwright and essayist. His fourth essay The Barbarians (2006) addressed the relationship between writing and the digital cultural revolution. In his latest book The Game (2018), Baricco returned to this theme by broadening his reflection to the impact of the digital revolution on humanistic thought and culture in general. The book is an intellectual preface to the principles Baricco has applied to the Academy program of the Holden School from he founded in 1994 to Turin.
An internationally renowned cellist and composer, he collaborates with the likes of Riccardo Muti, Yo-Yo Ma, Iván Fischer, Viktoria Mullova, Ruggero Raimondi, Mario Brunello, Kathryn Stott, Giuseppe Andaloro, Yuri Bashmet, Katia and Marielle Labeque, Giovanni Antonini, Ottavio Dantone, Patti Smith, Stefano Bollani, Paolo Fresu, Elisa and Antonio Albanese and with orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Moscow Soloists, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, Cappella Neapolitana, Accademia Bizantina, Budapest Festival Orchestra. For film, theater, television, and dance he has written and performed music for Peter Greenaway, John Turturro, Bob Wilson, Carlos Saura, Marco Tullio Giordana, Alessandro Baricco, Peter Stein, Lasse Gjertsen, Anatolij Vasiliev, Karole Armitage, and Carolyn Carlson. He has performed in some of the most important halls around the world, including Alice Tully Hall, Knitting Factory, Carnegie Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), Salle Gaveau (Paris), Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Ravenna Festival,Opera House (Sydney), and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). Since 2010 Sollima has been teaching atAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where he was awarded the title of Academician. In 2012 he founded, together to Enrico Melozzi, the 100 Cellos. Giovanni Sollima plays a Francesco Ruggeri (Cremona, 1679) cello.
Enrico Melozzi after graduating in cello became an assistant to Michael Riessler. He later approached contemporary music working with important musicians such as Sabine Meyer, Vinko Globokar and Jean Pierre Drouet.
In 2002 he made his debut as conductor at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome with his opera on Oliver Twist. After this experience Enrico Melozzi began to collaborating with various directors and has composed music for short films, feature films and theatrical performances.
In 2011, he launched Vertenza Musica, which was joined by Stefano Bollani, Subsonica and Giovanni Sollima, among others. With the latter in 2012 he founded the group "100 Cellos."
In theater he has collaborated to extensively with director Fausto Paravidino and Roberta Torre. For film, he has written soundtracks that have won awards at national and international festivals.
In 2017 he presented his opera "The Little Prince" at the Teatro Regio in Parma. In 2020 he debuted at the Teatro Sociale in Como with "Opera Crime." In 2021 he was appointed Maestro Concertatore of the Notte della Taranta. In 2022 he collaborated with singer-songwriter Niccolò Fabi as arranger and orchestrator.
Enrico Melozzi has participated in the Sanremo Festival since 2012. In 2021 he directed Maneskin with the song "Zitti e buoni," for which he supervised the orchestral arrangements, and with which they won the festival. In 2023, his seventh participation, he directed among others Mr.Rain, who finished in third place, and Gianluca Grignani with the song "Quando ti manca il fiato," of which he is co-writer and arranger.
Ensemble of cellists born in 2012 from an idea of Giovanni Sollima and Enrico Melozzi, 100 Cellos is a collective group formed from a base of historical participants that is enriched by new members summoned and enlisted in each new location reached. The repertoire ranges through all eras and styles, in the compositions, arrangements and direction to four hands of Sollima and Melozzi, who skillfully alternate between the roles of soloist and conductor. The group, heterogeneous in age and background, is formed from time to time with a "call to the arts," as Giovanni Sollima likes to call it, through an international call during which applications allow for the selection of a group of musicians among the best in the world. 100 Cellos is a celebration of the joy of making music together, uniting different generations and building bridges between learned repertoire and popular tradition.
A director and author, he has written and directed numerous plays including Exercises on Mendeleev's Table, Prize Opera Prima 1985; Elements of Structure of Feeling, Prize UBU 1986; The Story of Romeo and Juliet, Prize UBU 1992; The Tale of Vajont, Prize UBU 1994, from including the television program Evening Vajont, winner of three television Oscars in 1998. In 1996 he won the Italian Theatre Critics Association Award for directing and in 2011 the Dionysus Award for Innovation in Classical Culture. He is the author and star of Totem, with Alessandro Baricco, broadcast from Rai Due in 1998. In 2000 he conducted the thirty-six-part program 42° parallelo on Rai Uno. He has directed numerous operas. In 2006 he curated the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games, and "Bookstock," opening ceremony of Turin Capital of Books. He has directed the actors and directing course at the "Paolo Grassi" School in Milan and the School for Actors of the Teatro Stabile in Turin. He teaches Institutions of Directing at the Catholic University of Milan. He directed the TAM Project, School for Actors of the Palestinian National Theatre to Jerusalem. He has edited and published several translations, theatrical adaptations and essays, including AWARENESS, ten days with Jerzy Grotowsky, Rizzoli 2001. Recently came out Intelletto d'amore written to four hands with Lella Costa. From 2002 to 2006 he was a permanent director at the Teatro Stabile di Torino for which he created Torino Spiritualità. In 2008 he wrote and directed the film Uno scampolo di paradiso, Jury Prize at the Annecy Festival. From 2013 to 2017 he was artistic director of the Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia. In 2017 he founded, for the Teatro Stabile di Torino, the Institute of theatrical practices for personal care.
Director of several short films such as Buenos, a documentary filmed between Argentina and Italy presented Torino film festival (2005), Osa, a short presented at the 71st Venice International Film Festival (2014) and Bari international film festival-Bif&st (2015) and L'abbraccio, presented at Bari international film festival-Bif&st (2016). His short film entitled The Dreamers' room was nominated from Vogue Italia among the most beautiful fashion videos of Milan Fashion Week 2021 and Winner of People's choice award at Fashion Film Festival Milano - Fffm (2022). Be forward-Mechanic dream is his latest short film. She is artistic director of "OFFF- Otranto Film Fund Festival." Italian actress with an international career, praised by critics for her ability to disprove clichés and stereotypes as well as to acting in ever-changing genres, languages and roles. She studied acting to Rome at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and at the Actor's Studio in New York. To date she has received 8 nominations and won 5 awards including Golden Globe, David di Donatello and Nastro d'Argento. An excellent performer in both to theater and audiovisual, she has participated to numerous Italian films and international productions.
Start to acting to twenty years old. 2003 is the year when her stage experiences begin to be joined by roles in cinema: from Fame chimica to Che ne sarà di noi, La febbre, Valzer finoa Signorina Effe. She never abandons the theater, which she cultivates at the same time as cinema, working with different directors-Malosti, Vacis, Avogadro-and in important works such as Alessandro Baricco's Palamede-l'Eroe cancellato, Una giornata particolare, from Ettore Scola's masterpiece, Il Misantropo, up to the intense monologue on gender identity Gerico Innocenza Rosa and the theatrical transposition of Perfetti Sconosciuti by Paolo Genovese. Valeria Solarino is in the cast of several successful films such as Vallanzasca - Gli angeli del male directed from Michele Placido, Era d'Estate, to casa tutti bene by Gabriele Muccino. And again_, Quanto Basta_ together to Vinicio Marchioni, Giovanni Veronesi's The King's Musketeers, Smetto quando voglio and Dolcissime. Several are also the TV series: from Rocco Schiavone to Bosè, where she is in the role of the iconic Lucia Bosè, Anita Garibaldi, Maltese, novel of a commissioner and L'Alligatore from Carlotto's novels. Also on TV, she was the narrator of Roberto Bolle's Danza con Me.
Laetitia Casta
Olivier Messiaen
Silvia Costa
