As in a still from a Rossellini film — it is from today’s ruins that Italia anno zero is born.
Italia anno zero is a collaboration between Olga Neuwirth (composer/performer) and Roberto Paci Dalò (composer/performer/director) based on investigations into texts by Antonio Gramsci, Giacomo Leopardi, Pier Paolo Pasolini.Italy is not only a post-fascist country, it is also a pre-fascist place. Especially through texts by Leopardi is shown how the Italian DNA works. Something which later has been called “fascism” is already part of the Italian way of life. The piece also deals with the visible signs of today´s fascist merchandising through the presentation of some of the nazi-fascist products available everywhere in Italy nowadays.Gramsci, Leopardi and Pasolini lived on the edges of society and without having any power analized social/political structures of their time, which are still true today.
Two composers/performers gather around an astonishing project: an investigation of texts by such Italian authors as Gramsci, Leopardi and Pasolini organized in a musical way and presented in a staged concert with a five member group made out of clarinets, guitar, lectronics, sampler, and theremin vox. Kind of a band where collaborative strategies build up a dense structure out of words with multilanguage textures.

The music by Neuwirth and Paci Dalò deals with all parameters of the work, and the score includes instructions about projections, sound, text and music. The use of special software for realtime image processing enables the visual aspects to be as dynamic as all the other elements for this multimedia work.
Amongst samples, Mussolini’s voice transformed into acoustical fragments where we don’t understand anymore the meaning of the words but we are left with the straight grain of the sound.

The 2 authors (playing theremin vox, clarinets, sampler, electronics) are joined by 3 outstanding, boarder breaking musicians. There are no live voices in the piece and the speaking voices are part of the film.

By means of video projections a concrete scenic space is created which literally surrounds the performers. The stage has few simple elements like tables and chairs especially designed to function with the projections to evoke some of the original places of the authors of the texts: open spaces related to the Marche region in Centre Italy (Leopardi), closed spaces like a prison cell (Gramsci), a city like Rome (Pasolini). Mostly of the work is filmed in Rome and the entire visual is in black & white.

Parallel to the performance, a radio work is created and broadcasted by ORF Kunstradio.

• Performances

Huddersfield (UK), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
november 22, 2005 (British premiere)

Strasbourg (F), Musica
october 6, 2005 (French premiere)

Berlin (D), Maerzmusik Haus der Berliner Festspiele
8.3.2005 (German premiere)

Vienna (A), Wien Modern, Konzerthaus, 29.10. 2004

Budapest Autumn Festival, 23.10.2004 (world premiere)

*
Broadcasting on ORF Kunstradio, 21.11. 2004

Info: giardini.sm/projects/iaz/