MAURIZIO NICHETTI in Soundtrack Mascagni

Narrating Voice Maurizio Nichetti
Artists of the Mascagni Academy
Orchestra of the Teatro Goldoni in Livorno “Massimo de Bernart”
Conductor Maurizio Colasanti
A co-production Mascagni Festival / Teatro Mercadante di Cerignola

A original show in co-production with the Teatro Mercadante di Cerignola, the Apulian city that in 1885 welcomed a young Mascagni – not yet famous for the future Cavalleria rusticana – to entrust him with the role of master of the city’s music band. An assignment that not only guaranteed the young Livornese Maestro financial stability in a difficult period of his life, but also represented a practical laboratory to conduct and compose music, it brought him into direct contact with the popular musical tradition of Southern Italy and contributed to develop in him that melodic and theatrical sensitivity that will be central in the musical verism of which he was a pioneer only a few years later with his masterpiece derived from a novella by Verga.
Soundtrack Mascagni tells the deep relationship between the music of Pietro Mascagni and the seventh art, through an immersive journey between words, images and sounds. It will be interpreted by an ensemble of young artists under 35, selected through a national call, who will interact live with video projections and a narrating voice on stage.
The show will take place in Piazza Goldoni and will involve the projection on large architectural surfaces of historical posters, vintage posters and excerpts from famous films that have used – sometimes consecrated – Mascagni’s music: from Rapsodia Satanica (1915) to the Godfather trilogy, from Raging Bull to Funny Games, passing through Watchmen, Two Lovers and the cinema of Paolo Virzì. All accompanied by live performances and original reworkings of Mascagni’s scores, in particular of Cavalleria rusticana, L’amico Fritz and Guglielmo Ratcliff.
The narrating voice – in theatrical and poetic form – will embody the imaginary role of Mascagni himself, in an intimate dialogue with the audience and with the images, retracing with emotion the influence his music had on the cinematic language of the twentieth century and beyond.
The narrating voice will be that of Maurizio Nichetti, Italian actor, director, screenwriter and film producer.