Napoli Milionaria! by Rota, dom 29 gen 2023, Da (2023/2023), Diretto da Arturo Cirillo,, Direttore d'orchestra James Feddeck, Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo, Italia

Melodrama in the name of musical eclecticism, Naples as a millionaire!is the last work composed for the opera house by Nino Rota, based on the comedy of the same name by Eduardo De Filippo and performed for the first time at the Spoleto Festival on 22 June 1977. The collaboration between Eduardo and Rota generates a darker work and bitter both of the original comedy and of its cinematographic realization: the variations made in the dramaturgy by Eduardo himself signal a disillusionment due to the realization of the degradation of values ​​following the war and the downward slide of human dignity. The black market in Naples, the love affairs between Maria Rosaria and Johnny, an American soldier, the life of a poor family beyond the limits of legality, are interpreted by Rota with a character that keeps attention to the word, without overwhelming the song. Coldly received by the public and censored by almost all the Italian critics of the time, the work has recently been re-evaluated and partly re-evaluated. What seemed like a cauldron between realism, Neapolitan song, fragments of film soundtracks and American musicals, now appears to be an operation in which unequal codes and languages ​​(music, prose, melodrama, cinema, dance) contaminate and merge in an often effective way . Not a masterpiece, therefore, but an interesting work, built with a skilful interlocking game and containing pages of undoubted suggestion. Vocally challenging, millionaire Naples! he draws all-round characters, playing with vital linguistic contaminations to render the chaos and confusion of life as soon as the war ended. Rota sets to music the fresco of a Naples of wounded and fragile humanity, not only materially poor, but which is beginning to bear the signs of an unconscious inner ruin. Rota and De Filippo demonstrate a strong civil commitment in this musical theater work, testimony to the profound and happy marriage of two great Italian artists of the twentieth century.