The Falstaff Battiston and De Rosa to Pergola

Braggart, sbruffone, voracious, lively, furfante, Falstaff arrives on stage at the Teatro della Pergola accompanied by the powerful flexibility of Giuseppe Battiston, in the dual role of Sir John Falstaff and King Henry IV, on the score of dramaturgical Nadia Fusini, embellished by director Andrea De Rosa.

A new creation that combines dramatic theater, philosophy, opera and cinema.

Their Shakespearean fool of himself reveals something unexpected and unpredictable under the mask seemingly quiet that seems to show.

“Falstaff ci conquista subito - said De Rosa – has a love for life cheeky, which occurs mainly in the form of love for the language, for words, to wit. "

A character disruptive, whose name appears nell'Enrico VI, part one, then return as a character, besides that The Merry Wives of Windsor, in Henry IV and V nell'Enrico, both sources of adaptation of this Falstaff, as well as the libretto by Arrigo Boito music by Giuseppe Verdi and the revisiting of Henry IV that Gus Van Sant has brought to the big screen with The Beautiful and Damned (My Own Private Idaho). The text also echoes resound from the Letter to the father of Kafka and Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.

The happy meeting of Giuseppe Battiston and Andrea De Rosa's Macbeth 2012 So today is renewed in a choral work in populated scene of big bellies fake.

“Il pensiero che sta dietro a questi oggetti scenici è legato all’impossibilità di interpretare un carattere come quello di Falstaff racconta Battiston - la sua pancia rimane un mistero: for this reason the designer Simone Mannino had the idea of ​​creating large bellies, huge fake bellies, that symbolize the world of Falstaff. Specifically belly Falstaff becomes a cornucopia that pantry and pleasures, your back, wearer of these bellies accessed soul Falstaffian entering this universe of excesses and sfrenatezze ".

Falstaff is goodness elementary, like bread, such as wine, overflowing with love; asks little, and eventually gets nothing. Whole canaglieria, the wisecracks tavern, the lies and boasting are only a marginal portion, only one way to marry lunch and dinner.

"He does not care about health. Falstaff vuole la sua pancia - continues De Rosa – Falstaff wants his freedom, even when this is presented as dissolution. The time Falstaff not going anywhere, is locked. His days are repeated over, so circular and inconclusive and in this unproductive stalemate, in this retreat from commitments and maturity seems to grow and feed the secret of happiness and the myth of this fat man and his gang of friends messed up. Or at least its fun because, on closer, Falstaff is the highest good for their cheerfulness ".

The young Prince Hal, future King Henry V, is attracted and sucked into this world and decided to stay there as long as you can to drive away the responsibility of the crown and government. Falstaff becomes a second father, the father that he, son of King Henry IV, has never had and will never have.

At the center of the staging breaks so the father / son relationship: for investigating it as best Andrea De Rosa asked Giuseppe Battiston to interpret the role of Falstaff than that of Henry IV.

“Volevamo rappresentare due diverse visioni del rapporto padre/figlio - stressed Battiston – one part of the universe Falstaff, with the thoughtlessness of youth, and other Henry IV, with the rationality of the adult world. What fascinated me most of this figure is the sense of nonconformity: Falstaff is called out of the world, somehow, and imparts his wisdom ".

On this double track Andrea De Rosa drove his direction, clearly separating the sites of action: on the one hand, in the first part, tavern-brothel Eastcheap with his days are always the same, fed wine, robberies, jokes, sex, words, profanity, insults, bodies, music, chaos, the other the world of power, cold from her hard, where the rules ruthless murder and deception, that accompanied the rise of Henry IV, must be transmitted to the young Hal.

"It is a character that sometimes mocks others, sometimes goes so far as to steal – concluded Battiston – practice but the excess, at the base of his behavior, There is a free man. Following this direction, I tried to represent Falstaff. The idea of ​​freedom itself retains a fascination unrepeatable ".

The real Sir John Falstaff is to be discovered.

Michael Lattanzi

By the number 46 - Year II 7/1/2015

 

Until Sunday 11 January
iuseppe Battiston in "Falstaff"
from "Henry IV" / "Henry V" by William Shakespeare
translation Nadia Fusini
Gennaro Di Colandrea, Giovanni Franzoni, Giovanni Ludeno, Martina Polla, Andrea Sorrentino, Annamaria Troisi, Elizabeth Valgoi, Marco Vergani
adapted and directed by Andrea De Rosa
sets and costumes Simone Mannino
lights Pasquale Mari
sound Hubert Westkemper
stage movements Francesco Manetti

Adult tickets
Street € 32,00 ● Place the stage € 24,00 ● Gallery € 16,00
Reduced (except Sunday)
Over 60: Street € 28,00 ● Place the stage € 20,00 ● Gallery € 14,00
Under 26: Street € 20,00 ● Place the stage € 16,00 ● Gallery € 12,00

MEMBERS UNICOOP FLORENCE (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Street € 25,00 ● Place the stage € 18,00 ● Gallery € 13,00