A production by Fondazione Aida Artistic Director Roberto Terribile General manager Meri Malaguti Tour coordination Alfredo Saladini Director Pino Costalunga With Andrea Bellacicco Pino Costalunga Jacopo Pagliari Technician Riccardo Carbone Costumes Antonia Munaretti Scenes Guglielmo Avesani PROVINCIA AUTONOMA DI TRENTO Harlequin, the most famous character of Commedia dell’Arte, is an invention that started with a man and his mask. He, with his troupe, amused all the courts in Europe: his name was Tristano Martinelli, a man born in Mantua, who lived between the second half of the XVI century and the beginning of the XVII. History, along with legends, tells us that this comedian, to create the character of Harlequin used a mask of the devil from the Sacra Rappresentazione, a form of popular theatre known since the Middle Ages all over Europe in which the devils often had a comic role. The legendary aura of Martinelli and the charm that this man and actor always had, allows us to tell the dream of a way of making theatre that soon became famous in Europe and all over the world: the Commedia dell’Arte. The show, following Tristano Martinelli\Harlequin’s life, who became friends with the King and Queen of France and became rich using a cheap mask, tells us, like a dream, the story and the liveliness of an entire theatrical genre that gave us, beside Harlequin, other characters that still live in our memories: from the stingy Pantalone to the poor Pulcinella, from the beautiful Isabella to the stubborn Doctor, from the pompous Captain to the poor Zanni. A journey through masks and actors, devils and beggars, trough the hell of poor people’s world and the life in the magnificent courts of the Reinassance: a serious and fun journey through the World of the Commedia dell’Arte. Two different workshops for a different approach to the world of acting. The work on the mask, the voice and the gesture, for a better knowledge about the beginning of the modern theatre: • Commedia dell’Arte, The birth of professional acting – adults; • The world of masks – children. PHOTOS ALICE MATTIOLO • GRAPHICS ANDREA MASOTTO, ANDREA ALTOMANI ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Roberto Terribile +39 348 7822001 FONDAZIONE AIDA Segreteria organizzativa Via D. Degani, 6 – 37125 Verona – Italy tel. +39 045 8001471 | fax. +39 045 8009850 8 [email protected] | s progetti_aida 5 www.fondazioneaida.it | f fondazioneaida