Carlo Gozzi and his "Serpent Woman"

National Arts Club Benefit on October 19th, 2000:

"An Evening in Venice" & the NYC Debut of The Serpent Woman

Count Carlo Gozzi

Carlo Gozzi's Commedia Is More Popular than Ever
by LindaAnn Loschiavo

Carlo Gozzi, one of Venice's leading 18th century playwrights, died April 4, 1806 -- but his work is being revived dramatically this year in four new productions that began with a bonafide green-backed Broadway run of The Green Bird, and with a rare appearance of The Serpent Woman, making its New York City debut in mid-October.

What's in the Zeitgeist that's creating a climate for a renewed appreciation of a Venetian playwright this year in the heart of New Yorkers?

According to Dr. Stanley Longman, who has produced and directed a number of Italian plays in Cortona, Italy, through the University of Georgia's studies abroad program, and also several fables (fiabi) by Carlo Gozzi, many of la commedia dell' arte characters, such as Pantalone, Capitano, and Dottoro (all masters) or Arlequino, Scaramouche, and Pulchinella (all servants or zanni), are familiar types already preserved in the work of 20th-century American artists such as Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, and Steve Martin. A renewed appreciation of la commedia dell' arte has resurfaced in both Italian and American theaters, however, "thanks to the efforts of Italy's leading dramatist, Dario Fo [born 1926 in Lago Maggiore, Italy], who won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his own work, which revives the centuries-old art form for the modern stage," observes Longman.

Though some thought he'd never be noticed by a Nobel Prize Board, Dario Fo, famous for slapstick, has been influencing TV buffoonery (think of Seinfeld) and many other comedians on screen -- including Italian clown prince Roberto [La Vita e Bella] Benigni, whose tragi-comic Holocaust story scooped the 1998 Academy Award for Best Actor (in a major Oscar night upset) and Best Foreign Film.

L'augellino belverde [The Green Bird] at the Cort Theater

The Green Bird got a green light at the Cort Theater. Julie Taymor's reinterpretation of an 18th century Italian fable was in previews, and opened April 18, 2000. Gozzi's drama The Beautiful Little Green Bird was translated into English by Albert Bermel and Ted Emery; its score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal. A critic who reviewed Taymor's four-week Broadway run of this show in 1996, described Goldenthal's other-worldly soundtrack as "haunting, unnerving, and hard to get out of your mind."

A bawdy fairytale, The Green Bird focuses on a family separated by an evil grandmother. King and queen are kept apart, and their twin children, a boy and a girl, are raised as orphans by a rude, crude sausage maker and his spouse. The children search for their true loves: the boy for a statue that comes to life, and the girl, for a beautiful green bird, a creature more mysterious than it initially seems. The background for this double quest is Julie Taymor's stagecraft sorcery: an intoxicating blend of visionary theater that uses live performers, music, enormous freestanding puppets, masks, clowns, mythical creatures, and imagination to tell a magical, moving tale. [Among the most memorable of Taymor's inventions in her 1996 New Victory Theater production were three giant green apples that sing.]

Julie Taymor has won a MacArthur Foundation (Genius) Award, an Emmy Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Dorothy Chandler Performing Arts Award, an Obie, a Brandeis Creative Arts Award, an International Classical Music Award, and others. The Lion King was her last Broadway show; her last film was Titus starring Anthony Hopkins.

PERFORMANCES:
The Green Bird at the Cort Theatre, 138 W. 44th St. (212) 239-6200. Closed.

Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera

Gozzi has his fingerprints on the Met's Fall season, too. Among the revivals will be Puccini's Turandot (a tragi-comic operatic reinterpretation of Gozzi's tale, inspired by 1001 Arabian Nights), with Alessandra Marc singing the Princess Turandot role. In this classic love story, Princess Turandot is known as the most beautiful maiden in Peking, and the most cold-hearted. Though suitors flock from all over to win her hand, none can answer 3 riddles she sets; all are put to death. Then young Prince Calaf appears and transforms Turandot's life forever.

PERFORMANCES:
September 30, 2000 matinee; October 4, 7 mat., 12, 16, 20, 24, 27, 30; November 3, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25 mat. Lincoln Center is located in Manhattan on Broadway and 63rd Street.
Information online: http://www.metopera.org/season/2000-2001season.html

La Donna Serpente [The Serpent Woman] at The National Arts Club

Pontine Movement Theatre

Much less well-known than Turandot is Carlo Gozzi's enchanting fable for 17 characters The Serpent Woman [La Donna Serpente]. Enchanted by myths and legends, a 20-year-old Richard Wagner composed his first opera The Fairies [Die Feen] based on Gozzi's intricate tale. Pontine Movement Theater makes a New York debut with one colorful performance sweetened with music, puppets, masks, and spectacular costumes, and introduced by Giorgio Radicati, Consul General of Italy, on Thursday October 19, 2000 to several hundred Gozzi-fans (including actor John Turturro). Pontine's one-night-stand, which will be taped for TV, is part of a unique Evening in Venice, a Benefit for the club that also features top Venetian maskmakers (Sergio and Massimo Boldrin) along with American and European designers (Jordan Betten, Oleg Cassini, Louis Di Carlo, Alfred Durante, Margo Manhattan, Nicole Miller, Christina Perrin, Cynthia Rowley, Kate Spade, Diane Von Furstenberg, Milton Glaser, Mary McFadden, Zuss Fashion, etc.) whose exotic "wearable art" will be auctioned. Between bids, attendees can enjoy an Italian buffet and Mionetto's Venetian wines.

In the 18th century, La Donna Serpente was produced by the Sacci company at Venice's Sant' Angelo Theatre, opening on October 29, 1762. In a published preface, Gozzi noted that this fiabe had 18 very successful performances from an October debut until spring of 1763. At last, 238 years later, this tale is being performed in Manhattan. What took so long? Gozzi's biographer, John Di Gaetani has his own theory: "Most Americans know very little about Italian theater. What it takes, I think, is a great director with a flair for experimental theatre to stage these. Happily, Julie Taymor is interested in Gozzi--as is Andrei Serban. Both have directed marvellous productions of Gozzi's work. Julie Taymor's interest in masks has provided a modern equivalent for l8th century commedia dell' arte and her visuals attract people to these wonderful fairytale plays."

The Serpent Woman weaves traditional bawdy, irreverent commedia characters into a magical landscape inhabited by Cherestani, a fairy queen, and Farruscad, her mortal prince. Marriage leads to a half-humorous, half-horrifying journey from youth to maturity. But with a great deal of humor, love triumphs in the end. Pontine Movement Theatre's unique adaptation of this theatre classic uses masks, colorful costumes and sets, toy theatre, and puppetry to evoke Carlo Gozzi's love of fantasy, enchantment and special effects.

PERFORMANCE:
Thursday October 19, 2000 at 7:00 pm -- one night only.
The National Arts Club: 15 Gramercy Park So., NYC 10003; Tickets: 212 475-3424. Credit cards accepted Mon-Fri, 9:00 am-4:00 pm. VIP admission: $250. General: $150.

L'amore delle tre melarance [Love of 3 Oranges] at the NYC Opera

Picture Carlo Gozzi writing L'amore delle tre melarance while chuckling. The Love of 3 Oranges is an operatic reinterpretation of Gozzi's 18th century fable with a cast that includes comedians, tragedians, lyricists, cranks, and empty heads in Sergei Prokofiev's 1921 farce. NYC Opera's web site promises a "visually, musically stunning new production." Laughter is the only cure for an ailing prince. His problem is that nothing amuses him even though his father, the king, tries everything. A witch arrives to make sure the prince doesn't laugh; when he finds her hilarious, she curses him to wander the world in search of ... oranges.

PERFORMANCES:
October 17, 2000 7:30 pm; October 21 1:30 pm; October 25 7:30 pm; November 2 7:30 pm; November 5 1:30 pm. Lincoln Center is located in Manhattan on Broadway and 63rd Street; New York State Theater is located on the south side of the main plaza, facing the fountain.
Information online: http://www.nycopera.com/nycosea0001.htm

Carlo Gozzi (1720 - 1806) wrote dramatic and satiric fairy tales for Commedia troupes, emphasizing fantasy, magic, and spectacular effects. Scholars see his plays as an attack on the sentimentalism of 18th-century Italian dramatists and consider Gozzi's output to be the final flowering of the Italian Commedia form. If you've been an understudy for the heart's sad craftsmanship, get some Gozzi. To paraphrase Pagliacci, la commedia non e finito.

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