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Addio del Passato (Farewell to the Past) by Marco Bellocchio |
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Italy 2002; 47 min.
In the theatre, in Verdi's historical locations like
Villanova d'Arda, in the conservatory and at the restaurant, everywhere
in Piacenza the music from La Traviata is still alive
in a constant alternation of popular and more cultured performances,
between passion and tradition.
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Cast and Crew:
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Thoughts from the director SMALL SOUVENIRS In the geography of my work, there is an axis or, unpretentiously, a recurring line: Bobbio-Rome, Rome-Bobbio (see I pugni in tasca (Fists in the Pocket) or Vacanze in Valtrebbia), as if Piacenza didn't exist or as if it played a secondary role in my life. It is though that if I think about my childhood or my early teenage years, I immediately see my long summers spent in Bobbio. Happy? Light-hearted? I don't know, but there I fell in love for the first time, there I risked killing myself on a bicycle by bumping into Guardia di Finanza truck, there I often sang opera hidden at night for groups of girls, and boys who were more interested in the girls than in my singing (the manager of the only cinema in Bobbio wrongly predicted a rosy future as a tenor for me). Every afternoon we swam in the deep crystal waters of the Trebbia River and we were never home, our doors were always open, we didn't have keys, we could go home at any time and no one would be waiting for us. My family, its rules, rituals and dramas were infinitely less oppressive in Bobbio. Piacenza meant winter, meant school, meant staying willingly locked in at home (or in the parish but the oratory yards were long and narrow and closed by high walls). But at home I learned by hearth my first opera pieces that I would later sing in Bobbio. I remember my mother singing in a low voice Tutte le feste al tempio or Salve dimora. My mother loved the Traviata very much as well, but perhaps because of the subject or of the character, she didn't allow herself to sing it, not even in a low voice, with her children present. But I do remember that we often listened to the preludes from the Traviata on the 78 speed records that my elder brothers bought at Avogadri (I never set foot in that shop on the Corso which, I think, doesn't exist any longer) between the end of the 40's and the beginning of the 50's. Again at Avogadri, Giorgio and Tonino bought a record of the most famous poetry by Valente Faustini read by Nino Castellini. That poetry was touching, I would recite the poems together with the actor (I learned them all by heart) and they have left in my memory the ineffaceable shade of Piacenza. That's why I choose to start my film Farewell to the Past with a poem by Faustini read by the excellent Castellini and merged with the prelude from the Traviata and the pictures of the beautiful batuse on the shore of Borgotrebbia, harmonising Verdi with Piacenza, with the dialect of Piacenza, of which the editor and assistant editor, both from Rome, couldn't understand a word. Me, (apart from Italian, my poor English and average French, a few words and mottoes in Latin, Greek but not even the alphabet any longer) I do know a litte bit of this dialect, totally unintelligible for anyone not from Piacenza. Exactly for its unintelligibility, this dialect makes us Piacentini more similar to people from Palermo, Catania, Naples or Bari than to Florentines or Romans.
To this reserved and parsimonious town (which I experienced mainly from
windows of my house while I was listening to Tito Gobbi abusing the counties),
to this nostalgic and slightly awkward language, and to my youth in Piacenza
without happiness (but not because Piacenza), I dedicate this small film. |
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