After the international success of the solo by the German actress Stella Höttler, who played the unheard priestess Cassandra, voiced by Ruggero Cappuccio in 2019, the Flemish artist Jan Fabre went back to the drawing board and entrusted this same text to a leading Italian actress: Sonia Bergamasco.
This new production premièred at the ancient Teatro Grande in Pompeii.
The solo performance Resurrexit Cassandra revolves around the resurrection of a female redeemer, called Cassandra. The Troyan priestess Cassandra is a mythological character that is specifically interesting in times of crisis or imminent catastrophe. Humankind is facing an impressive amount of problems: the global Corona pandemic, the plastic islands in the sea, the destruction of the Amazon forest, the global warming, etc. Cassandra is known for her gift of prophesy, what the Greeks called 'manteia'. When she refused the love of the God Apollo, Apollo put a curse on her: Cassandra would predict the nightmares of the future but no-one would ever believe her prophecies. According to a less popular version of the myth, Cassandra received her prophetic skills as an infant by sacred snakes in the temple of Apollo.Another version tells the story that Cassandra fell asleep in a temple, where the snakes licked or whispered in her ears all the nightmares about the future.
In the poetic and inspiring text of Ruggero Cappuccio, Cassandra returns one more time to this earthly life to help humankind, embodied by the brilliant and enchanting Italian actress Sonia Bergamasco. We are in 2021 and the urgency of Cassandra’s prophecy is alarming: we need to act and take better care of Mother Earth and her treasures. It boils down to this one sentence: 'Nature will always come back to reclaim what is hers. Injure her and she will kill you'.
Cassandra comes with cosmic consciousness and ability to experience everything willingly and without resistance. She comes with the wisdom that all things are inherently equal, that the things that can be perceived as poison can be eaten, absorbed, integrated and transformed into something higher. Cassandra will take different shapes, she changes from skin, life and character as a snake does. The snake as symbol of duality, of good and evil, of live and death, of transformation and rebirth. Of growth and consciousness. Trying to help humankind to find their way to a future respecting what they are given by Mother Earth.
“And then on all this visionary journey of a voice-body, the emotion of a responsibility becomes solid. Become wealth. The magic is linked to the interpretation directed by the sensitivity of Jan Fabre, always attentive to contemporary colours. Message arrived, operation done. Cassandra's words vibrate with truth, everyone carries it inside. They have already been said, already ignored, because Cassandra is not just a person, but an eternal role that she herself asks to stop having.” - Ilaria Barbara Varriano | Italian cultural Newspaper Teatro.it
"In reality the show acquires strength and sanguine vitality, along the scansion and inventions of the beautiful and respectful direction of Fabre, from the interpretation of Sonia Bergamasco. … A beautiful and fascinating performance, which in the space of just over an hour, makes us travel around and within ourselves, between our certainties and our doubts, the illusions and risks of an awareness that continually risks escaping humanity.” - Gianfranco Capitta | Italian Newspaper il manifesto
"… The lighting design by Wout Janssens is important, in the incredible rise, at the 'premiere', of the full moon that emerged from the veils of clouds as light as the fumes that rose from the stage to affirm, shining, the redeemed hope and the divinity of the trembling smile of the protagonist Cassandra / Bergamasco applauded for a long time by a disciplined and distant audience." - Review from la Repubblica | Article: 'The return of Cassandra in the seduction of Pompeii: a convincing show'
Ruggero Cappuccio
Ruggero Cappuccio is an acclaimed Italian playwright, writer and director.
He made his debut as an author in 1993. His plays Shakespea Re di Napoli, Oedipus at a Colonus, The Last Seven Words of Caravaggio, Don Chosciotte, Spaccanapoli Times, Casanova, Tieste, Bacchidi, Paolo Borsellino Essendo Stato, have been performed in major Italian theatres. His works have been published by Feltrinelli, Einaudi and Sellerio. Cappuccio has directed numerous operas, working with conductors as Riccardo Muti, Pinchas Steinberg, Bruno Campanella, Boris Brott and for the Salzburg Festival, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Opera House of Rome and many others. He wrote and directed the films La lingua di Fuoco broadcasted on Rai 5, Paolo Borsellino broadcasted on Rai 1 and Rai Storia, Examleto featuring Roberto Herlitzka that was broadcasted on Rai 5, Rien Va produced by Rai Cinema, Il Sorriso dell'ultima note with Chiara Muti, Lighea or the Silences of Memory. He has been the artistic director of the Festival BENEVENTO CITTA' SPETTACOLO, and curator of the project TECHNE and FORMART financed by the Ministry of Labour, and director of the Festival SEGRETI D’AUTORE. Since 2016, Cappuccio is the artistic director of the NAPOLI TEATRE FESTIVAL.
Sonia Bergamasco
Italian actress and director, musician and poet, Sonia Bergamasco earned a degree in piano at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. She has worked with theatre directors such as Thomas Ostermeier, Jan Fabre, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Carmelo Bene and Giorgio Strehler; she has also directed and performed in shows in which her musical background is more deeply intertwined with theatre. In film and TV she has worked with noted directors including Liliana Cavani, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Marco Tullio Giordana, Riccardo Milani and Roberta Torre. For her role in Quo vado? (Where Am I Going?), directed by Gennaro Nunziante, she won the Flaiano Prize for best performance of the year, the Alida Valli Prize for best actress in a supporting role at the Bari International Film Festival, and a Golden CIAK Award.
24/06/2021 | Première POMPEII THEATRUM MUNDI, Pompeii |
25/06/2021 | POMPEII THEATRUM MUNDI, Pompeii |
26/06/2021 | POMPEII THEATRUM MUNDI, Pompeii |
28/06/2021 | TEATRO ASTRA, Turin |
29/06/2021 | TEATRO ASTRA, Turin |
30/06/2021 | TEATRO ASTRA, Turin |
07/09/2021 | TEATRO ROMANO, Verona |
08/09/2021 | TEATRO ROMANO, Verona |
23/11/2021 | TEATRO SAN FERDINANDO, Napoli |
24/11/2021 | TEATRO SAN FERDINANDO, Napoli |
25/11/2021 | TEATRO SAN FERDINANDO, Napoli |
26/11/2021 | TEATRO SAN FERDINANDO, Napoli |
27/11/2021 | TEATRO SAN FERDINANDO, Napoli |
28/11/2021 | TEATRO SAN FERDINANDO, Napoli |
30/11/2021 | TEATRO FRANCO PARENTI, Milan |
01/12/2021 | TEATRO FRANCO PARENTI, Milan |
02/12/2021 | TEATRO FRANCO PARENTI, Milan |
28/08/2022 | TEATRO GARIBALDI, Lucera |
04/10/2022 | TEATRO VASCELLO, Roma |
05/10/2022 | TEATRO VASCELLO, Roma |
06/10/2022 | TEATRO VASCELLO, Roma |
07/10/2022 | TEATRO VASCELLO, Roma |
08/10/2022 | TEATRO VASCELLO, Roma |
09/10/2022 | TEATRO VASCELLO, Roma |
18/11/2022 | MUNICIPAL THEATER, Casalmaggiore |
19/11/2022 | TEATRO IMPAVIDI, Sarzana |
20/11/2022 | TEATRO IMPAVIDI, Sarzana |