A stage performance of the theatrical poem “Fedeli d’Amore. A polyptych in seven pictures for Dante Alighieri” created by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari, founders of the Italian company Teatro delle Albe, will open, tomorrow 17 November and Thursday 18 November, at the Teatro de La Abadia as part of the Festival de Otoño de la Comunidad de Madrid. It is an initiative of the Italian Cultural Institute of Madrid and the Emilia-Romagna Region for the Dante year.
The main focus of the performance is Dante and current affairs; different voices are expressed in each of the seven scenes of the show, united through the unique voice of Montanari, whose performances are characterized by her exceptional vocal registers. Accompanied by the sound of a trumpet, Montanari “interprets” the fog of a dawn in 1321, the demon of a well where those who trade in death are punished, a donkey that carried the poet on his last journey, the devil who incites quarrels over money, Italy kicking herself, Alighieri’s daughter Antonia. These voices speak of the poet who fled his city as he lies on his deathbed, an exile, in Ravenna. Love is the Polar star of “Fedeli d’Amore”, the force that liberates humanity from violence. The voices of this polyptych are concentrated in the single voice of Ermanna Montanari: air, fire, sound and matter.
Parallel to the performances of “Fedeli d’Amore”, Teatro delle Albe will also hold the workshop “Cantiere Dante” at the Italian Institute of Culture in Madrid, from 15 to 19 November. A Dante workshop in which the participants, both actors and simple lovers of the Divine Comedy, will work together for five days, offering a taste of the result of their work at the end of the workshop, with a performance held on November 19 (at 19:00) at the Institute.
Ermanna Montanari, actress, author and set designer, and Marco Martinelli, playwright and director, founded the Teatro delle Albe in 1983 and collaborate together its artistic direction. Montanari has received several awards for her vocal research and is the founder and director of Malagola (International Centre for Studies on the Voice) where the study of the performer’s voice is the core element of training.
Martinelli Marco has received several awards, including seven Ubu prizes and the Journées Théâtrales de Carthage lifetime achievement award. His plays have been published and performed in ten languages and selected by Fabulamundi and the Italian and American Playwrights Project. Martinelli has written and directed several films, screenplays co-written with Montanari: Vita agli arresti di Aung San Suu Kyi (2017), The sky over Kibera (2019) Er (2020), Ulisse XXVI (2021) – and is currently planning a new film based on Fedeli d’Amore, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute in Abu Dhabi.
