Il Gigante
Giardino Chiuso / Versiliadanza
May 8, 2013 21:00
Teatro Cantiere Florida di Firenze | IT
The work was inspired by the short stories Il Gigante (The Giant) and Lettere a Luisa (Letters to Louise) by Paola Capriolo included in the book La grande Eulalia (The great Eulalia), Feltrinelli (1988). The two stories, although distinct, are closely linked.
The Giant is the story of a prisoner jailed for many years in a prison built for him. The new captain Eugenio leads his wife Adele and his son Ottaviano to live in anisolated building, mirroring the prison. The recluse is invisible to everyone, including the captain. One day Adele hears a violin melody coming from the cell: he is playing with unexpected sensitivity. Soon in Adele something changes suddenly and irreversibly: an astonished enthusiasm first enchants her, then grasps her and leads her to a new, exciting, deadly and orgasmic inner dimension. The woman, captured by the music, replies with her piano to the melody of the violin.
In Lettere a Luisa, the giant, now reduced to the role of prisoner only, writes to the woman letters in which he recalls the correspondence of feelings showed through the music played with Adele’s alter ego Luisa. The image of the prisoner turns finally to a spider that entagles Adele in its web, taking her away from reality.
The dominant theme of the story is music, but also the cancellation of time and the denial of space, the theme of the double, the metamorphosis, the myth.
The show traces the themes of duality and the exact symmetries of the story. The meeting of the two protagonists takes place only through music, the elevation to a state “beyond” the daily existence is manifested, until it reaches the dimension of a harmonically perfect and “separated” unison.
