Happy birthday, Teatro Dal Verme. There are 150 and the party will not go unnoticed, because the Foundation with the Municipality and the Region has prepared 15 special occasions, from September to December and with a prelude on June 14, to celebrate an institution much loved by the Milanese and with a multiform vocation, from the opera opera to the circus, from symphony to prose, cinema, dance, operetta, literature and politics. Stefano Boeri has created a manifesto for “Teatro Dal Verme 150” in which all these souls are represented.
The prelude, in June, is a precious cinematic preview curated by Cineteca Milano: it is Alfred Lind’s “Jockey della Morte”, shot in 1915 in the old Dal Verme, a black and vaguely horror story that allows you to understand how the he building which was then destroyed under the bombings of 1943. The evening will be accompanied by music by Andrea Valle performed live by Arto fantasma. The second film presented in the review is instead, on November 19, “I promessi sposi” by Mario Bonnard, from 1922, in a newly restored version, a symbol of all the films that were screened at the Dal Verme.
Official opening at 6 pm on September 14th, with the varnish of the exhibition “Teatro in Mostra” (photos, posters, newspapers, documents), with the participation of Paolo Rossi, and with the performance of “Three centuries on stage”, cantata for orchestra and mezzo-soprano commissioned by Carlo Galante from the resident orchestra of Dal Verme dei Pomeriggi Musicali for the centenary of Pier Paolo Pasolini. The text is by Davide Rondoni, the voice of Monica Bacelli.
Closing, December 21st at 8 pm, with the world premiere of “Winter Journey”, oratorio by Ludovico Einaudi with libretto by Colm Tóibín, conducted by Carlo Tenan and dramaturgical ideation by Roberto Andò.
In the middle, of everything and more, in events all divided between words and music, conceived by the director of the I Pomeriggi Musicali Foundation Maurizio Salerno: Stefano Boeri who talks with Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior on “Designing the city”, Maurizio Nichetti on operetta that looked to the East, Claudio Sessa and Enrico Pieranunzi to remember the formidable jazz players who played at the Dal Verme, including Louis Armstrong in 1959.
Here also debuted “Le Villi” by Giacomo Puccini and “Pagliacci” by Ruggero Leoncavallo, and these and other historical premieres will be told by Angelo Foletto with Piero Ostali and Luciana Serra, with a concert by Desirée Rancatore and Gianluca Terranova.
Nicola Savino and Samuele Bersani will discuss the songwriting, meetings will be dedicated to Scapigliatura and Futurism, which were at home here, and an amusing historical reconstruction of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson, guest in 1782 of the Milanese living room of the Dal Verme counts.
A descendant of the friend of the American president, Francesco Dal Verme, would have built the theater, inaugurated in 1872 with Giacomo Meyerbeer’s “Gli Huguenots”. On the remains of an equestrian circus, the “Politeama” by Gaetano Ciniselli, which was a great success but the count was very annoying at night, a bit like some Milanese of today the nightlife.
Finally, great anticipation for the meeting, on 11 November, on the cultural entrepreneurship of the city, with Antonio Calbi, the director of the Piccolo Claudio Longhi, the superintendent of the Scala Dominique Meyer and Elisabetta Sgarbi. Title of the round table taken from a quote by Antonio Greppi, the first post-war mayor: “Bread and music”, because culture is a primary good.