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Prapatapumpa - Press IL FATTO QUOTIDIANOEmilia Romagna by Annalisa Dall'Oca - 13 november, 2013 Bologna, Moni Ovadia takes Matteo Salvatore on stage. Thinking of Lucio Dalla. The show will be on Friday 15 e Saturday 16 November at the Arena del Sole. In 2012, Dalla together with Ovadia and other artists, performed these same songs to tell about the life of one of the fathers of popular music in Southern Italy. Somehow, it will seem he's still there with the others, singing the songs of Matteo Salvatore. When, on Friday 15 e Saturday 16 November at the Arena del Sole in Bologna, Moni Ovadia presents "Prapatapumpa, padrone mio ti voglio arricchire", in the shoes of the singer/story-teller himself, it will be difficult not to think of Lucio Dalla. In 2012, at the Petruzzelli Theatre in Bari, together with Ovadia and other artists, Dalla performed these same songs, which in this new show will illustrate the life and adventures of one of the fathers of popular music in Southern Italy., 'Zicozico' as he was called, from "Le chiacchere de lu paese" to "Pasta nera", from "La notte è bella" and "La cometa" to "Padrone mio". Matteo Salvatore, who died in 2005 at the age of 80 "after having seen, done, endured and cried out anything and everything", was, after all, loved by both Lucio Dalla of Bologna and Moni Ovadia from Bulgaria and Milano. They actually met thanks to the southern bard, in September of 2011, in Puglia. Therefore, in a way "the show is a homage to both artists – explains Moni Ovadia – two fellow adventurers who are no longer with us, but for so many of us, have never really left us. According to a Hassidic saying, God created man because He loves to listen to stories. As long as we can narrate ourselves and our stories, we will know how to change the world".
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Prapatapumpa - Text fragments (...) Musicians stage left in a half-circle, a white backdrop for digital scenography, musicians stage right on chairs, to the right a bench for MoniMONI ( sitting on the floor, he stretches and gets up) Matteo never got used to a bed, as a child he always slept on the floor, there were no beds, actually, there were beds but his family, the Zicozico's, didn't keep any! Actually, they didn't even keep a house, they lived in a sort of cavern, like Jesus Christ's, without the cow, though, they wished they could have had a cow, at least they could have had the milk... but they did have a donkey, living inside with them, but it was so thin! Lean as a Good Friday meal! And it wasn't even theirs, really, it was a rented donkey, and Tatà, the father, would say: "Boy, careful with that donkey, if it dies, we're in bad trouble". But it was a donkey and had a donkey's mind so when it had to work, there was no way to make it work. Don Nicóla had given it to them, and didn't it go and die? And how did it die? Of hunger, that's how. It was skin and bones, we couldn't get a steak out of it. Not even one steak. When the donkey died, what did Matteo's father do to earn a little money? He began making "diasilli"!And what are "diassilli"? "Diasille diasiiii....sì, sì" (singing to himself in an almost Arabic fashion, he interrupts himself and says:) They're prayers for the dead, that's what. So let's say that Matteo's father was a street vendor and would recite these "diasilli" at funerals all over the Gargano area. He would appear, dressed all elegant like a professional weeper, and chant at the funerals. For every prayer, one coin. But don Saverio, the priest, got 100 hundred coins just for the blessings! (...) |
 © Photo: A.Anceschi |
Prapatapumpa - Author's notes ""He whose task is to deliver the vision, is usually prepared to face the multiple. He will do this through languages which are conjugated according to different canons and esthetics. He is also aware that he must confront and restore the ontological balance between objectivity and personal involvement. It follows that sometimes our outlook must conquer the distance of our own inclinations, or, on the contrary – an even more difficult situation – that the object observed attaches itself to the native, radical, deaper and heartfelt soul which lays at the visceral base of the eyes of he who observes and writes. In these cases, one might go through the experience with three different types of fear: the fear of seeing expectations disappointed on account of a primary emotion or out of respect; or, on the contrary, the fear of becoming too involved and, consequently, of losing clarity of vision; last and a daughter of the first two, is the fear that words won't be enough, that, in the end, those chosen may not suffice".Moni Ovadia |
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Prapatapumpa - Story Prapatapumpa, Padrone mio ti voglio arricchire – is both a homage and an act of love towards the extraordinary poetic and musical adventure of Matteo Salvatore, one of the fathers of the popular music of the Italian south.The show was born from a previous theatre piece called "Il Bene mio. La vita e le canzoni di Matteo Salvatore", which was represented on the 10th of February, 2012, at the famous Teatro Petruzzelli in the city of Bari: on stage, together with Moni Ovadia, was Lucio Dalla in one of his last live appearances. |
