VANGELO. Director Pippo Delbono

Back to catalogue
Сountries: France
City: Paris
Place: Théatre du Rond Point
Address: 2Bis Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Date of premiere 11 december 2016

Vangelo is a choral work, which began as a contemporary opera: it first took shape in Zagreb, performed by the orchestra, choir, dancers and actors at the Croatian National Theatre together with the acting company that has been working with Pippo Delbono for many years.Vangelo takes its cue from the atmospheres of Enzo Avitabile’s music. It is rich in poetic overtones but also markedly reveals the memories of its Croatian performers who lived through the traumatic events of a cruel war that has reshaped the history, places and boundaries of their native land. Boundaries that even during the creation of Vangelo were shaken by the arrival of ten thousand men, women and children desperately seeking a Promised Land. ‘Some days before passing away, my mother – a devout Catholic woman – told me: ‘Pippo, please do something on the Gospel. So that you can spread a message of love. We need it so much in these harsh times’, – says the director. But don’t expect any canonic incarnation the of the Good Book. ‘Christ is the only anarchist who has really succeeded’, wrote André Malraux. In Italy after Marx and Pasolini biblical symbols rather comment on the images of our times.

Pippo Delbono and his company

Pippo Delbono’s theatre life draws vital energy from the experiences he has tasted with Odin Teatret and Pina Bausch, and from studying oriental disciplines. Yet his true edge comes from avoiding rules and methods in order to instil a new level of honesty − that of feeling. Pippo Delbono has been experimenting on stage for many years now, exploring the fertile ground between public and personal, between autobiography and history. In recent years, his experimentation has developed into an unusual form of musical performance: an investigation into voice and words. 

The commitment already revealed in his films (Amore Carne, Sangue, La Visite, Vangelo) can also be found in his more recent productions, Dopo la BattagliaOrchidee and Vangelo, which are strongly influenced by this musical and cinematographic exploration.

More than a theatre group, Pippo Delbono’s company is a wandering community that has been creating a new language for the stage and for life, or rather, for that inextricable knot between art and life that only a few have the courage to tackle. This group of artists, which includes Delbono himself, is made up of people who first and foremost share a similar nature, in continuous precariousness where loneliness and isolation are prominent, and who have gravitated towards the theatre for its great scope for sharing. The existence on stage of deaf and dumb Bobò, homeless Nelson or Gianluca living with a Down syndrome is very much appreciated by the director: ‘If we compare this to a sentence from the Gospel that states we must become like children if we wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, then we can conclude that we must become like Bobò or Gianluca if we wish to be actors. We should learn from these unusual people because they know the secret of how to exist in a certain space’.

Conceived and directed by: Pippo Delbono
With Gianluca Ballarè, Bobò, Margherita Clemente, Pippo Delbono, Ilaria Distante, Simone Goggiano, Mario Intruglio, Nelson Lariccia, Gianni Parenti, Alma Prica, Pepe Robledo, Grazia Spinella, Nina Violić, Safi Zakria, Mirta Zečević
With participation (on video) of the refugees of PIAM reception centre in Asti (Italy) images and films Pippo Delbono
Original digital soundtrack for orchestra and polyphonic choir: Enzo Avitabile
Set: Claude Santerre
Сostumes: Antonella Cannarozzi
Lighting designer and technical manager: Fabio Sajiz
Management: Silvia Cassanelli, Alessandra Vinanti
Press office: Silvia Pacciarini
Set and costume workshops: Hrvatsko Narodno Kazalište- Zagabria (Croatia)
Special thanks: Fabrice Aragno, Antoine Bataille, Francesca Catricalà, Teatro Nuovo di Mirandola
Produced by: Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione and Hrvatsko Narodno Kazalište- Zagabria, co-production of Théâtre Vidy Lausanne, Maison de la Culture d’Amiens – Centre de Création et de Production, Théâtre de Liège. The show premiered on 12th January 2016 in Theatre Théâtre Lausanne. The opera version Vangelo. Opera Contemporanea premiered at Hrvatsko Narodno Kazalište (Croatian National Theatre) in Zagreb on December 11th 2015 with the Orchestra and Choir of the Croatian National Theatre.

Duration: 1h 40m

Open text
07
March
2016
Performance dates
07 March 21:00 VANGELO. Director Pippo Delbono
The focus of the press
Write a review
Our partners
Become a sponsor of the project
Send all the documents, the editors will consider them
to publish on our website
Add event
Add a review