La ginestra, by Giacomo Leopardi with Mario Biagini
Can a poet’s artistic and political testament show us the way to realistic and disenchanted hope?
Mario Biagini presents the results of the research he has conducted in collaboration with Felicita Marcelli on “La ginestra, o il fiore del deserto”, composed by Giacomo Leopardi in 1836, whose numerous layers he makes theatrically palpable, from the more formal aspects to the human and philosophical implications.
Biagini reads “La ginestra” as a true political manifesto that reveals a profound unity, capable of combining reason and imagination, intellect and sentiment, individual ethics and civic conscience.
Before the recitation of the poem, Biagini introduces the text with his own original commentary, which makes Leopardi’s rich and complex song accessible even to a non-specialist audience.
“La ginestra” offers us a revolutionary point of view from which to look with clarity at our existence, and sends a message of individual and collective redemption to future generations (to us), in the arid desert of the volcanic slopes, a timeless “sign” of the human condition immersed in history.
Mario Biagini, actor, director and educator, worked with J. Grotowski from 1986 to 1999, the year of the great theatrical innovator’s death. Until December 2022, he was associate director of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, where he performed in Downstairs Action, Action, The Twinin – An Action in Creation, One Breath Left, Dies Irae – The Preposterous Theatrum Interioris Show, etc. At the Workcenter, he directed One Breath Left and Dies Iræ – The Preposterous Theatrum Interioris Show. As director of the Open Program, which he created and directed from 2007 until December 2021, he directed shows presented internationally, based on Allen Ginsberg (I Am America, Not History’s Bones – A Poetry Concert, Electric Party Songs, Night Watch, from 2007 to 2015) and on traditional African-American songs, which gave rise to two performance events: The Hidden Sayings (2013–2020) and Open Choir (2014-2020). From 2010 to 2020, Biagini coordinated the creation of various collective performances with communities in the Bronx, New York, including Will Be Heard and HOME. From 2013, he assisted in the development of Dark Is My Mother, a work on which the women of the group coordinated by Felicita Marcelli worked until 2019. He directed Katie’s Tales, a monologue by Agnieszka Kazimierska that premiered in 2018, and E Il popolo canta, a recital by Felicita Marcelli on the dialectic between traditional Italian singing and the contradictions of modernity, both of which are still performed. At the end of 2021, Biagini left the Workcenter and, together with some former members of the Open Program and other colleagues, founded the Accademia dell’Incompiuto. Biagini is currently working on the development of Gli assetati, a collective creation inspired by La grande beuverie by René Daumal, and is developing his own personal research on La ginestra o il fiore del deserto by Giacomo Leopardi, on poetic vocal action and prosody.
Communications Office of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome
Coordination: Prof. Guglielmo Gigliotti g.gigliotti@abaroma.it
Collaboration: Chiara Picco, Martina Macchia, Marianna Pontillo comunicazione@abaroma.it