Progetto Ritsos/Delfi cantata (1990-1994) - Playbill

Study for sound, voice and darkness concieved and realized by Moni Ovadia, Piero Milesi and Studio Azzurro, inspired by the poetic work of Yannis Ritsos.

Directed by Paolo Rosa and Luca Scarzella

ARTISTIC CAST

>> Moni Ovadia

>> Elena Sardi

>> Piero Milesi (traditional music)

PRODUCTION

>> Studio Azzurro Milano

Void, silence, but above all, darkeness. The stage darkens, making our gaze incapable of distinguishing it. Two screen , connected simultaneously to two infrared cameras move like eyes, eith their synchronized movements, guiding the spectator in the dark, following the actor's movements and try to decipher a space crowded with statues, in anticipation of a new level of sight, a new condition of awareness. The writing tends towards simplicity, concision, renunciation. An effort to bend the irreverent element of technology within the confines of poetry.
(www.studioazzurro.com)

Delfi is inspired by a text written by the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos, which describes the bitterness of a modern-day guide in the face of the tourists' lack of sensitivity as they visit the divine ruins of Delphi. A single actor-guide (Moni Ovadia) recites a monologue in the midst of a number of casts of the sculptorial Olympus, but the stage is dark and visible to the audience only through two large video monitors placed stage front, like two huge artificial eyes, connected to the revealing gaze of the infrared cameras, which are able "see" in the dark. The infrared camera, created for scientific and military scopes, becomes here a pregnant metaphor for a visionary faculty capable of perforating the blindness of the de-personalized gaze of the media and mass tourism, and which illuminates the darkness of ordinary sight which consumes without comprehending.