Preserving nature, meeting with professions that have been handed down from generation to generation, diving into the atmospheres evoked by the Apennine mountains, letting young musicians express themselves: this is the mission that, thirty years after its foundation, Icarus Ensemble has taken on with this festival.
Icarus frames a series of events dedicated to the world of the Apennines and its people, focusing on themes such as awareness of peripheral communities, the preservation of nature, and the enhancement of the social and cultural features of the Reggio Emilia Apennines – rich in history and natural beauty, with an ecosystem as varied as it is fragile.
Talks, meetings with local craftsmen, refreshments and drinks, group activities and concerts in the setting of Castelnovo ne’ Monti and the Pietra di Bismantova, in full cooperation with local institutions.
Participants include Nicola Cisternino, Istantanea, Ensemble Cameristico Variabile S. Gaggia, and some international guests: Ensemble Kuraia (Basque countries) and Flashback (France). The climax of the festival will be the performance of WORKING CLASS: Operapaese per Castelnovo ne’ Monti by Giorgio Battistelli, who conceived for this occasion an extremely wide-ranging work dedicating it to the women and men of the Pietra di Bismantova, to the Apennines of Reggio Emilia and to Icarus.
• For this festival Icarus commissioned two works: one to the French group Flashback (Ephémères Harmonies) and one to Giorgio Battistelli (Working class: OperaPaese per Castelnovo ne’ Monti). Both have a strong multimedial component, and in Battistelli’s case even a social and political one, bringing local artisans directly onto the stage.
• Together with the inhabitants of the Apennines, Nicola Cisternino brings at the foot of the Pietra di Bismantova the chants of his 14th Great Tibetan Prayer for Peace – for Tibetan strumentarium and three instrumental ensembles – setting up traditional flags imprinted with five colours, linked to the five elements, on site. The preparation is demanding and begins the day before.
• The Ensemble Cameristico Variabile S. Gaggia performs Mozart’s La Pantomima rinata in Vladimir Mendelssohn’s reconstruction, which brings to life a brilliant farce “full of verve and amused mischief” by the Viennese composer. The stage re-elaboration is by Quirino Principe.
• Fabio Codeluppi presents his transcriptions of traditional Mazurkas, Waltzes and Polkas from Emilia, performed by Icarus vs Muzak.
In Experimentum Mundi, while the captions of the illustrations from the Enlightenment Encyclopédie by Diderot and D’Alembert are recited, describing the tools of the trades represented on the stage, page after page an authentic village of sounds emerges.
The artisans are performers of their own professions, occupations that are nowadays dying out: the confectioner, shoemakers, knife grinders, carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, flintmongers, stonemasons, bricklayers, and five voices make up the chorus of women. During the performance, each craftsman performs his handiwork on stage, in perfect synchrony with the musical and theatrical timing of the score, in a play of timbral and rhythmic interlocks that enhance gestures forged by an ancient tradition.
A dramaturgy of work, a rite that propitiates the stopping of time, a tribute to a theatre deprived of memory.
On our commission, Battistelli orchestrated the instrumental ensemble to accompany the artisans on stage, so that they could dialogue with the instruments of the Icarus Ensemble: hence the new title WORKING CLASS (Operapaese per Castelnovo ne’ Monti).
Experimentum mundi has been performed over 400 times in major theatres around the world, contributing to the fame of its creator, one of the most important musical personalities.
WORKING CLASS (Operapaese per Castelnovo ne’ Monti)* is a daring operation of musical theatre that brings real craftsmen and their tools to the stage to give life to a world of sounds and gestures that are today in danger of extinction. A project that stems from the desire to link and enhance the activities of the territory by involving a wide community of people in the realisation of an extraordinary musical event. The protagonists are sixteen craftsmen from the Emilian Apennines, five natural female voices, a youth ensemble (Icarus ensemble), a percussionist (Nicola Raffone), an actor (Pierluigi Tedeschi), and the creator of the work: Giorgio Battistelli.
*World Premiere. WORKING CLASS was commissioned by Icarus Ensemble with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Foundation.
