Le regole del cielo
The rules of heaven
29/10/2005, 
19:00 30/10/2005, 23:00 31/10/2005, 21:00 01/11/2005
text Luca Scarlini and Luca Massimo Barbero
with extract from Guarino Guarini's La pietà trionfante
directed by Stefano Tomassini
with Giovanni Franzoni
and with Alessandro Cafiso, Tiziano Ferrari, Guglielmo Menconi, Domenico Sannino
lights Luca Piga
production Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena
in collaboration with HoldenArt
duration 50'
première
Guarino Guarini (1624-1683) is one of the greatest architects of the European Baroque whose fame revived in the second half of the twentieth century following a long period of neglect. Born in Modena, he was forced to leave his home town for reasons which have never been fully explained, but doubtless at the express wish of the Este family. What little evidence remains of his presence is linked to the Casa di San Vincenzo, a work of his maturity, the home of the Teatrini, an order to which he belonged, and now the city Courts. After a series of circuitous (and mysterious) journeys, he ended up in Messina, departure point for an extraordinary European tour that finally took him to Turin, where he became official architect to the House of Savoia. Here he completed important commissions including the Chapel of the Holy Shroud. His only work for the theatre, La pietà trionfante (The triumph of mercy) was published in Sicily in 1660, even though it was begun in the territories of the Po plain and written to a recognisable didactic formula practised to spectacular effect in Rome at the court of Pope Rospigliosi, an amateur playwright. Depicting paladins got up like Sicilian gangsters, caught in moments of meditation, drag queens in monumental wigs rushing through arias of jealousy and disdain, his purpose is to recount his version of The Faith as the soul’s mathematics. The result is a sequence of images not that dissimilar from the giddy vortex effects of his cupolas.
Luca Scarlini’s Le regole del cielo draws on this story, taking a behind-the-scenes look at that first and perhaps only performance held on the shores of the Straits of Messina, where, incidentally, few traces of Guarini’s work remain: most of it was destroyed in the earthquake, confirming a rule of destiny that struck many of his creations. Extracts from the play are interwoven with fragments of biography, both real and imagined. We see an author whose attempted to reduce reality to the rules of geometry and who does all he can to conceal his reasons for docking so far from the beloved fogs of the Po plain and the clergymen-actors, whose names and roles are known to us from the original cast list. The performance is accompanied by sixteenth century music by composers with a penchant for dark tones and the clerical calling. There is also contemporary music which alludes to possible alternative readings of the Baroque understood in its widest possible meaning.
Luca Scarlini
