Il palcoscenico del secondo Ottocento italiano: La signora dalle camelie (original) (raw)
Teatro e storia, 2023
Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus was suppressed in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV. Reestablished in 1814 by Pius VII, it also resumed its pedagogical activity, and in its theatre colleges were a part of the experience, following in the wake of a famous tradition that came from the mid-sixteenth century. On the theatre of the “new” Society there are no specific studies to date: this essay aims to be a first contribution to a wider research on the subject. It is based on chronicle sources (so-called “college diaries”) and it focuses, to begin with, only the college in the city of Loreto, in the Marche region (then one of the Papal States), in the period 1834-1857. In this college and in these years, however, we are confronted with an unexpected fact: it is not an actor’s theatre performed by the students, as that of the ancient Society had been, but a puppet theatre, made by local professionals, where the students, unseen, merely give voice. It is a mixed form of theatre, combining the craft of the puppeteers and the amateurism of the students, and framed within the usual life of the college (study, religious practices, etc.), but within the carnival time only. The repertoire, too, is very different from that of the ancient Society: no longer a theatre written by the masters of rhetorics, predominantly edifying, with a spiritual framework, useful for maturing moral and religious consciousness and conforming behavior in the young actors; it is rather a varied theatre, ranging from farce to tragedy, rich mainly with comedies and where Italian “maschere” and the contribution of music, ballets and singing are frequent. The texts are those of professional playwrights and belong to the eighteenth-century and particularly contemporary repertoire. The audience is diverse and very participatory. The theatre is associated with other carnival “entertainments”, always performed by specialists, and rich meals for all. In short, the climate has completely changed: in the new Society, in this college, the theatre is no longer an essential pedagogical factor, but, even in the seriousness of the commitment, it is primarily a festive experience, in which pleasure and laughter prevail; and which, moreover, represents a parallel experience to that of the public theatre, of which it constitutes a singular pendant.