Carlo Colla & Figli

In the repertory of the Company of Marionettists Carlo Colla and Sons, the melodrama is always the starting point from which great spectacles grow. Particularly from Verdi’s melodramas, which offer the guarantee of a range of characters that corresponds closely to that normally seen in the theatre of the marionette, in which the romantic characters – the hero, the heroine, the villain – already, with their mere presences, are theatrical.

The marionettes, in fact, will cease playing mere melodrama when placed in an atmosphere of true opera, when the protagonist enters into a world of true heroism, of impossible, unrequited loves, and of vendettas.

Fascinating and highly suggestive themes run through this piece, underlined by the oriental setting where the exotic atmosphere escapes from the historical and philological criteria in which, for example, Isis is seen together with Vulcan, and the priests with priestesses that are not all that far from odalisques. “Aida”, also belongs to a theatrical structure similar to that of the comic opera, in that the dances exist as spectacle, and not as a part of the dramaturgical whole.

CARLO COLLA & FIGLI
AIDA
In the repertory of the Company of Marionettists Carlo Colla and Sons, the melodrama is always the starting point from which great spectacles grow. Particularly from Verdi’s melodramas, which offer the guarantee of a range of characters that corresponds closely to that normally seen in the theatre of the marionette, in which the romantic characters – the hero, the heroine, the villain – already, with their mere presences, are theatrical. The marionettes, in fact, will cease playing mere melodrama when placed in an atmosphere of true opera, when the protagonist enters into a world of true heroism, of impossible, unrequited loves, and of vendettas. Fascinating and highly suggestive themes run through this piece, underlined by the oriental setting where the exotic atmosphere escapes from the historical and philological criteria in which, for example, Isis is seen together with Vulcan, and the priests with priestesses that are not all that far from odalisques. “Aida”, also belongs to a theatrical structure similar to that of the comic opera, in that the dances exist as spectacle, and not as a part of the dramaturgical whole.	To all of this one must add the ingenuousness typical of the world of the marionette that assures that “heavenly Aida” will truly be dressed in sky blue, that the Ethiopians will truly be evil, Amonasro truly ferocious and Ramfis perfidious. And this is to say nothing of the scene of the triumph, in the realization of which the marionette theatre is free from the limits of budget and reality imposed on the theatre of living actors- it is free to realize this scene with legions of wooden characters and exceptionally, impossibly huge animals. The show is presented in a version that, faithful to the tradition of the marionettes of the 18th century, assumes the use of sung passages and spoken passages. Furthermore, despite the finale of the Verdi opera, due to the pressing requests from the public that crowds the Teatro Gerolamo, the ending is crowned with the collapse of the Temple and the flight of Radames and Aida towards their dreamed-of “sweet-scented forests”.

CARLO COLLA & FIGLI

AIDA