Opera Oggi: The Lyric Puppet Show

The lyric puppet show is the work that won the first edition of the “Gabriella Gentili Mian” International Composition Competition for its liveliness, festivity, intelligence, and sharpness in the stage and musical conduct, as well as for its profound content revolving around identity and freedom, which are connected and made dependent on each other through a simple and effective story. The discovery of one’s identity by a puppet who, due to an error by the puppeteer, finds herself without the strings that supported her, her timid emergence into a different life, her slow humanization, and her falling in love with a girl from the audience are the steps that will lead her to question what freedom, the world, and reality as a whole really are. Using an ironic and light tone, The lyric puppet show addresses the theme of human freedom and the drama of choosing between what is already known and facing the great sea of reality. There are veiled references to the fable of Pinocchio, the myth of Orpheus, and the film “The Truman Show,” but the title is ironically inspired by the well-known musical “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. The use of the accordion, rather unusual for opera, explicitly characterizes the world of puppets. The language used oscillates between the lofty tone of the moments when the show is performed and the colloquial and contemporary tone of the conversations of the puppets offstage. Throughout the entire duration of the opera, which lasts about 80 minutes, the protagonists enter and exit the stage, playing between reality and fiction, theater and metatheater.

Plot: Orlando, Adelaide, and Astolfo are three puppets who perform a story that repeats itself in roles and action, only changing the background and setting. When they are on stage, the three puppets interpret the show titled “The lyric puppet show,” and when they are offstage, they discuss and comment on what happens during the show. During one of the performances, the puppeteer manipulating Orlando loses control of the strings, causing Orlando to slump to the ground. Only at the end of the scene does the technician manage to regain control of the puppet. After the show, the puppets talk, as usual, about what happened on stage. While Adelaide and Astolfo complain and curse the incompetent puppeteer, for Orlando, that incident is an opportunity to understand that someone else is deciding for him, and that his freedom is an illusion. From that moment on, Orlando tries to take control of the story, but fails to do so. At one point, Laura enters the scene, a woman from the audience who comes to observe the puppets, and as she watches, she sings a sweet aria for Orlando, who falls in love with her. The incident on stage and the unlikely love for a woman are the two occasions that push Orlando’s curiosity and desire beyond the narrow world of the stage, making him hypothesize the existence of a larger world outside the stage itself and making him desire to be able to correspond, as a puppet, with the love of the woman. Astolfo and Adelaide try in various ways to convince Orlando, with seemingly rational arguments, that the real world is only the stage, and that love between a puppet and a woman is not possible. Orlando will have to decide his life, and in the end, his choice will be to leave the stage to follow Laura, thus becoming human. The other two puppets, however, decide not to risk their freedom in an unknown world and remain wooden.

Info: 0586 204225 – Ticket Full price 5€ – Reduced price for students 3€ – Reduced price for teachers 1€