VANNI ON STAGE

The set design is inspired by ‘Turandot’, Giacomo Puccini’s opera, which premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1926. 
The drama tells the story of the cold and bloodthirsty Chinese princess Turandot, who is transformed into a woman in love after Calaf’s sudden kiss: ‘il suo nome è Amor.
The aria “Nessun dorma” is eternal, one of the most famous ro-mances in the history of music, made famous by Luciano Pava-rotti’s interpretation.
"Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle! All’alba vincerò! Vincerò! Vincerò!"

A piano takes center stage. The grand ballroom of the ocean liner Virginian. This is the setting for the theatrical monologue written by Alessandro Baricco in 1994, which tells the story of the pianist nicknamed Novecento. A child abandoned on the steamship, and raised by a sailor, who will spend his entire life playing, enchanting travelers, without ever setting foot on land. 
The book was succesfully adapted into the film ‘The Legend of 1900’, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and starring Tim Roth, with an unforgettable soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.
“We played because the ocean is big and scary, we played so that people wouldn’t feel time passing and would forget where they were and who they were.”

The dreamy set design is inspired by the novel “Le Città Invisibili” (Invisible Cities, 1972) by Italian writer Italo Calvino. In an imaginary dialogue Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant and explorer born in 1254, tells Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan of the cities he has seen during his travels.
The 55 invented cities narrated in the novel have each a female name, being a tribute, a dream, or a vision dedicated to the feminine. Their fantasy descriptions question us on how we conceive a city, real or imagined, and how we perceive reality. 
Fedora is the name of this city. At the centre of Fedora stands a grey palace with a glass sphere in each room, and looking inside each sphere, you can see a blue city, which is a model of another Fedora.
A meditation on the urban human experience, on the desires and fears of the modern world.
“Cities, like dreams, are built on desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules absurd, their perspectives deceptive, and everything hides something else.”