Poised between the seventeenth and fifteenth centuries, between Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, Giò Di Tonno is preparing to archive those “Three Musketeers” successfully brought this last weekend to the Lirico to return to take on the role of Quasimodo in “Notre Dame de Paris”.
Yes, there is also a cultural factor in the coldness that certain people sometimes have to deal with theatrical productions? “Il musical it is a genre that does not belong to our culture and is struggling to take root. I always draw the parallel with sport and the fact that baseball or American football don’t work here just as football doesn’t work overseas. In America and the United Kingdom, musicals have large productions, while here, either due to necessarily smaller investments or through translation and adaptation, certain great titles often lose momentum. ‘Notre Dame’ worked because it’s not really a musical.”
But it was stimulating. “It has had the great merit of bringing many young people closer to the world of theatre, but at the same time it has created a spirit of emulation in improvised producers. And then in Italy there are few true fans of musicals, so the success of a production depends on the tastes and passions of the general public. Even the way of singing and the acting approach provided by the academies draws a little too much on imported stereotypes, taking little into consideration the tastes of our public.”
That is to say? “In drama schools they don’t make you study songs from ‘Notre Dame’ because that’s not a musical, but musical theatre. A bit as if one were told not to study the musical comedy by Garinei & Giovannini because it is now distant in time. Training, however, should be total. So much so that at the auditions of ‘The Three Musketeers’ certain very good products from the academies ended up being a little cold and artificial.”
The system doesn’t help. “Musical theater doesn’t have a television promotional drive and we have a monstrous effort in going on TV. This is a strong limit because at that point only the press and social media remain.”
Some are great successes. “‘Moulin Rouge!’ or ‘Mamma Mia!’ they work because they are jukebox musicals with songs that everyone knows, just think of the success of the Abba tribute concerts that fill our theatres”.
What is the public’s attitude? “It seems to me that the classic titles have been squeezed like lemons and the spectators want something new. The good feedback received in the past from proposals such as ‘Spring Awakening’, ‘Newsies’ and now from ‘Moulin Rouge!’ they say that there is attention to the new. Of course, we need to identify unreleased titles that fascinate without following trends, perhaps focusing on ‘Mare Fuori’ because the TV series worked. About fifteen years ago they even tried to bring ‘I Cesaroni’ to the theater. And I said it all.”
Prospects? “Writing new things, musically closer to the tastes of the Italian public than certain blockbusters from across the Channel and across the Atlantic. Let’s always remember that the English style doesn’t belong to us Italians much”.
Andrea Spinelli
