IL FURIOSO GAETANO NELL’ISOLA DI S. DOMINGO

Cast

Music by Gaetano Donizetti
Music dramaturgy Alberto Zanardi
in collaboration with Mariagrazia Mercaldo

Conductor Giulio Arnofi
Director and dramaturge Manuel Renga

Donizetti Opera Ensemble
in collaboration with Orchestra del Mare

Description

Maestro Gaetano Donizetti, aged and struck by madness, is in a nursing home in a small French village; an Italian servant named Sancio has been assigned to care for him. He no longer concerns himself with music, living alone, isolated, with a vacant stare. When he regains some strength, he locks himself in his room and reads, writes, talks to himself… No one knows how to help him anymore! One spring day, Sancio takes advantage of the door left open by his master and listens to him: Donizetti talks about his works, his stories, his music… and as he does so, for a moment, his eyes light up again. Then an idea forms in Sancio’s mind: why not recover one of the maestro’s works, written long ago, and try to use it to restore him to his former vitality? Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo (The Madman on the Island of St. Domingo) is just what he needs.
Listening to the overture, as if by magic, everything comes back to him and reality, memory and fantasy intermingle. Two actors and five singers will tell this bizarre, adventurous, dangerous and entertaining story.
It is a story about the dangers of being alone, how love and friendship can heal all wounds, about acceptance and imagination.
In the end, the Maestro realises that only with the help of Sancho, now considered his faithful squire and friend, can he remember the ending of the story and perhaps change it!
‘In the kingdom of fantasy, Sancho, anything is possible!’

Discover the performances for schools of Il furioso Gaetano nell'isola di S. Domingo