Cenere is a musical theatre work by Roberto Paci Dalò, based on the poetic texts and the voices of the poets Amelia Rosselli (Paris 1930 – Rome 1996) and Gabriele Frasca (Naples 1957). Even before their words, the poets live in the texture of their voices. In Cenere there is no trace of the intelligibility of the poetic word, but it is exalted in a play suspended between baroque elements and aesthetic hints of the works of the German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986). The words themselves create an architectural space that is poetic, baroque and minimal at the same time, inhabited by the mysterious bodies of musicians and dancers united in a single, close-knit ensemble.

Cenere investigates the “physicality” of the word. The author reflects on the acoustic and visual architecture created by the texts themselves, invisible buildings made up of alternating words and empty spaces. The scene is created by the combination of digital images and acoustic images, thus giving body to an changing scenic bas-relief made up of shadows sculpted in space.
As the author says: “The work is nothing more than a collapse in the voice. Its grain becomes the protagonist of a paradoxical piece: the voice in its bone nudity is only evoked by bodies now emptied of their own organs. A scenic place literally built from the visual materialization of the text in the space where words create landscapes and architectures”.

Perceptive loops

Subtitles are projected on stage as in the opera. In Cenere, these become real scenic objects that invade and characterize the theatrical space. The text thus develops on a double level. As the author states: “Cenere acoustically becomes pure sonic material and not comprehensible; visually it is intelligible and allows to be understood”. It is a perceptive loop created by the relationship between the image of the word, the meaning and the physical sound created directly from the voices of the authors Rosselli and Frasca.

Edoardo Sanchi’s scenography further explores the reflection on a transfigured and transcended Baroque. A strange “minimal baroque” as the author defines it, where different, apparently contrasting materials coexist, where some elements borrowed from Joseph Beuys become counterpoint and link between different aspects of the work.

The Icarus Ensemble performs the live composition through a device that – surrounding the audience completely – allows it to be simultaneously inside and outside the scene.Words are sampled and redistributed in space and intertwined with electronics. The granular synthesis of the voice allows unexpected acoustic and perceptual results to be achieved.The low frequencies coexist with very high sounds, almost inaudible, as if to evoke a laical weird gospel.

Amalia Rosselli in memoriam

Cenere is dedicated to Amelia Rosselli and is staged on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of her death. The work is also a small tribute to a poetess who has made her cosmopolitanism the real object of her creations.