Opera by Igor Stravinskij and Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz

Production Orchestra Senzaspine, Leggere Strutture Factory 2013-2015

Winner of:

> Bando nazionale di teatro di Offerta Creativa by Teatro dell’Argine, Teatro delle Temperie and Incauti (October 2014)

> First award “La leva del ‘99” by Modena city (November  2015)

The soldier’s intimate journey evolves through a path of self-consciousness in a dreamlike dimension. The text and the music together lead the public to a reflection, in a poetic key, on the relationship between mankind, war and time.

From the very beginning, one has the sensation that war deprives human beings of time and turns them into puppets; incapable of heeding their spiritual/interior needs.  I interpreted the Soldier as an insatiable and self-centred man, trapped in his childhood. When he is under the influence of the Devil, he appears to have a puppet’s body.

The soldier agrees to teach the Devil to play the violin for three days in exchange for good treatment, but after having returned to his homeland, he discovers that three years have passed and no one seems to recognize him. This depicts the sense of loneliness and alienation generated by the war and the great feeling of misunderstanding and loss of identity on return. Only love rekindles in him a glimmer of hope, but the desire to have all, emotional and material, brings him back on the path of the Devil.

The story of the Soldier is a story about the search for happiness whilst taking large deviations from the path of self-awareness. The Soldier makes many mistakes but each time finds the energy to start over. Happiness, symbolized by the violin, corresponds to a genuine and simple life, away from the logic of profit and social careerism in which the soldier chooses to fall continuously. Choices and free will are actually the second crucial theme of the work, in accordance with the emphasis on positive freedom of man and his ethical responsibilities characteristic of the philosophy of the early twentieth century.

 Ulduz Ashraf Gandomi

WITH

Ettore Marrani, il Soldato

Simone Susani, il Diavolo

Roberto Giovenco, il Narratore

Laura Gazzani, la Principessa

CONDUCTOR Tommaso Ussardi

DIRECTOR and DRAMATURGY Ulduz Ashraf Gandomi 

CHOREOGRAPHY Rossella Russo

COSTUMES Fabrizio Carbone
PHOTO Sabrina Tirino

Production: Compagnia Officina dei Tratti, Orchestra Senzaspine e Leggere Strutture Factory