Radio version of the audiovisual performance
By Paolo F. Bragaglia
Damian Dombrowski, Chiara Pietroni: narrators
Ludovica Gasparri: soprano
On stage
Lillevan: live cinema, images
Paolo F. Bragaglia: sound design, synthesizer
Leonardo Francesconi: piano, synthesizer
Don Giovanni is one of the archetypes of our culture, one of its founding myths. And myth is not an inert fable but an active, creative force, it nourishes, in a surprisingly circular way, the very culture that gave it life.
Over the course of four centuries, Don Giovanni has taken on – or disguised himself in – countless and extraordinarily varied forms.
With this audiovisual project, we seek to explore the recurring and often mutable archetype concealed beneath Mozart’s masterpiece, creating a performance that draws on a contemporary aesthetic and language. Mozart’s music itself undergoes metamorphosis, electronic, sampled and manipulated, from old vinyl records to acoustic renditions, serving as the foundation for literary “evocations” of Don Giovanni, from Tirso de Molina to José Saramago, from Molière to Baudelaire, Hoffmann, Kierkegaard, Byron, and many others. And, of course, the operatic libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.
The project includes readings, sung passages, and historical recordings of actors’ performances, a sound carousel that conjures the situations, characters, texts, and voices that have given life to the Don Giovanni myth across different historical periods, authors, and its continual metamorphoses. Whether invoking the unrepentant libertine or the punished sinner, the paradise of the senses, the complexity of human relationships, or the hell of damnation.
A production of Mozartfest Würzburg
World premiere: June 21, 2019
Paolo F. Bragaglia is an electronic composer born in an entirely analog world, who has stubbornly journeyed into our digital age. Ever fascinated by the metamorphosis of sound across genres, over the years he has expanded his interests toward the intersections between music and moving images, dance, architectural spaces, visual arts, spoken word, and theatre.
This has led to an intense career as a composer of film scores, soundtracks, and multimedia performances, alongside record production, sound art, and sound installations. He is the creator and artistic director of the electroacoustic music festival “Acusmatiq”, held for twenty years in Ancona at the Mole Vanvitelliana, and the founder and president of the Museo del Synth Marchigiano (Museum of the Marchigian Synth)
Usmaradio – Centro di Ricerca Interdipartimentale per la Radiofonia (CRIR) / Interdepartmental Research Centre for Radio Studies, is a workplace of The School of Radio to develop an innovative radio pedagogy. Workshops, work sessions, meetings, presentations of live performance as sections of the project. Produced by UNIRSM | Università degli Studi della Repubblica di San Marino. usmaradio.org / theschoolofradio.org / unirsm.sm