I later thought that this end wasn't really adding something interesting to the plot and to the message of the play. I opted, in the second version, for a plainer version of the end, trying to evidence my premessa drammatica, instead.
The second version of the play
As we have seen, the biggest problem with the first draft of the script was the lack of drama and suspense, of direct contrast between the characters.
The substantial changes were therefore of two types. The first was, in some cases, trying to lengthen the dialogues, creating more suspense, more contrasts and quoting fewer documents, or shortening them.
In some cases, I slightly reworked the plot, sometimes distancing from total adherence to historical facts, in order to favour the engagement of the plot.I also tried to bring out the character of the main characters better, making them more vivid and distinguishable.
The biggest change, however, was the addition of two characters. Discussing the script with my supervisor, we thought that two allegorical characters would enhance the liveliness and drama of the story.
These two characters, inspired for example by Monteverdi's operas (such as The Music in Orfeo), represent the contrast and the underlying message of the entire performance.
The first character is La Città (The City). She is the only female character in the entire show, and represents the desire of the citizens (or at least part of them) to open up to the cultural novelties coming from the big centres, in this case from Venice. I imagined her as self-confident but serene and loving like a mother with her citizens, ready to protect and comfort them. The other character is the Sacro Monte, hence the institution that, as we have said, sues the theatre. He therefore represents religious morality, resistance to cultural novelties, from his point of view potentially harmful. He is a dark and mysterious figure, presumptuous and grumpy. This character, in particular, solved some of the narrative problems just mentioned. It allowed me to develop a more direct confrontation between the theatre and the institution, making the diatribe more explicit and dramatic and substituting in many cases figures as the postman, or the overlong citation of documents.
The two allegorical characters are distinguished from the "real" characters by speaking in verse, and being accompanied on stage each by their own ritornello.
Foreword: sources
As it was the first time for me writing an entire script for a play, I felt the need to read various type of sources.
Storytelling and plot building books
I thought it was interesting to confront with some books about creative storytelling for theatre, to have some inspiration and to tidy up the information I had. The book that helped me the most was "Lezioni di scrittura teatrale", by Marco Andreoli and Francesco Silvestri. From that book are taken some of the hints and exercises that guided me in the plot building process.
XVII century theatre pieces
In Italy, at the end of the XVII century, spoken theatre was still mainly represented by the Commedia dell' Arte, a genre of improvisation in which actors, following only an outline of the plot, improvised their lines. This meant that I could not observe a historical source of an actual written play. The remaining sources, useful for observing plot development and language use, were later pieces (e.g. Carlo Goldoni's scripts from the following century), foreign pieces from the same period (but obviously out of context and not useful for language purposes), and opera librettos (so not for spoken destination, made in verse and usually syntactically complicated). The mix of these three sources, however, contributed to my writing. My aim, in any case, was not to copy the XVII century style, but to take inspiration to make the play verisimilar.
Historical themed theatre pieces
Last source, theatrical pieces of any age, with historical theme. These were useful to analyse the structure of the narration and the use of historical facts. One example of this type of source, Saramago's piece "Que Farei Com Este Livro?", about the story of Luis Vaz de Camoes, a Portuguese poet of the XVI century, and the events leading to the publication of his works.
Plot building
I divided the work of plot building in two parts. One was to plan in a broader view, then to plan more in detail the writing of the scenes.
Preliminary exercises
Here, some exercises I tried to do to tidy up the material I had, before starting to write the play.
1. Establish these three essential functions of storytelling: initial situation, desires/purposes of the main characters, obstacle that
makes difficult for them to pursue the purpose.
- Initial situation: emancipation of the two brothers with inheritance of the palace
- Desire and purpose of the main characters: build a theatre for social prestige and as a sort of business
- Initial situation: father entrust an inheritance to his sons, who decide to build an impresarial theatre in it.
- Obstacle: Monte di Pietà objects with a sue the construction of that theatre.
- Conclusion: in 1695, the last opera is represented in the Teatro
- Atto 1
Initial situation + obstacle
- Atto 2
Opera representation + obstacle + solution
- Atto 3
Conclusion
4. Describe briefly the plot.
In Bergamo, in 1686, two brothers build a theatre on a property they have inherited, but the neighbouring pawn shop hinders their undertaking. After numerous legal proceedings, the Venetian Senate decrees that the theatre can remain in operation, on condition of a moderate structural modification of the theatre.
5. Dramatic preamble or theme of the play: the answer to the questions: what are you aiming for? What do you want to prove? What do you want to say with your text? "It is a position statement, and as such, it must be expressed in an assertion composed of: subject, predicate and complement: a simple and dry assertion"1
"In a small city like Bergamo, some personalities with various ambitions always try to expand cultural activities, sometimes clashing with provinciality and sometimes with the closed-mindedness dictated by a certain religious outlook."
6. My position with regard to this text.
I feel involved because Bergamo is still a small city where a certain part of the citizens tries to develop a lively cultural activity, even if it remains provincial, in a certain way. Anyone who really wants to have an outlet in the artistic/cultural world that is not in some way closed off has to leave. As happened to me, first by going to Milan (which already offers a completely different view of the world) and then abroad. A small city remains a small city. But it is almost a duty for those who have studied ‘outside’ and have the privilege of having a broader point of view to give it back to the city, creating a cultural activity that can tell the story of both the city itself and a different way of seeing the world. In this way the play reflects me. In Bergamo I took my first steps, but I felt it was a narrow place for what I wanted to do, as the only stable theatre on the Venetian impresario model ever built there immediately caused problems and had disagreements.
Detailed planning
Some examples of more detailed planning.
1. Example of brainstorming the contents of an act (Atto 2):
- Introducing character of Antonio Scappi, impresario for the first two operas, who was involved in other events regarding theatres in Bergamo before
- Reference to the hostility of the city towards theatre (church)
- Rehearsal of operas showing musicians, singers, impresario, director… (if the musicians are off scene, for the scenes of the rehearsals they could go on scene)
2. Example of planning of the scenes
Atto 2, Scena 2 (this scene had been revised later)
- Arrival on stage of Giuseppe and Marco
- It is the first time that Scappi and Giuseppe see each other, they greet each other, small talk about how the rehearsals are proceeding
- Giuseppe explains the whole story, namely: theatre construction, monte di pietà opposed because they can't find a treasurer, plus they added the danger of fire, which now seems to be the main problem.
- Scappi comments something about the fact that the first opera will be performed soon anyway (part of the company is known to have been there since December)
- Marco asks if they can hear anything, they would like to hear Caterina sing given the recommendation of the Duke of Gonzaga
- Scappi gives some orders like "let's do the aria..." and the musicians/singers arrange themselves
- Another scene/aria from the opera where Caterina Frangiosi sings, Marco and Giuseppe watch happily
Two versions of the play
The first version
The first draft of the play was completed by May 2024. It included eight characters2 and it had three acts. The first act contained six scenes, the second one five scenes and the third had four. In this version of the play, I was trying to follow the more accurately possible the historical facts, citing in the dialogues a lot of the notarial documents I had. An example of that is this dialogue of the first act (scena VI):
The narrative problem I was trying to solve, writing this scene, was how to give the news that the Monte di Pietà had sued the theatre. As one can observe, the result is a bit artificial, being the document very long and the "action" of the scene not so active, creating an unbalance between these two elements. So, in this first version, the strategy I used was the character of the postman, simply handing a letter that Giuseppe could read out loud. That means that there was no direct confrontation between the two brothers and the institution that was suing them: they could only react between them.
This is only an example, but the first version of the play is full of solutions like this, producing a lack of liveliness and drama in the play, avoiding head-to-head moments and citing too many documents.
Another problem of the first version was the end. As the sources don't give us much information about the Teatro Secco Suardo in its last years, apart from the last opera we know about (1695), I had to decide how to end the play. My first idea was to invent an end where Giuseppe lost interest in the business, being occupied with something else (we know that by 1707 he had a political charge). I imagined Marco at that point passionate about the theatre, trying to keep the theatre alive but struggling without the practical help of his brother.
Here an excerpt of the last dialogue of Marco and Giuseppe, in the first version of the third act.
GIUSEPPE
Ormai vedo molto bene che sei in grado di gestire tutto quello che c’è da organizzare, preparare, accomodare.
MARCO
Dico solo, si sente a volte la mancanza della tua fermezza. Capisco, avete da fare, ma avete voluto questo teatro così fortemente!
GIUSEPPE
Marco, i tempi sono diversi, ormai. Sai bene che questi incarichi che mi sono affidati sono importanti per il prestigio della nostra famiglia. Richiedono tempo, e so di poter far affidamento su di te per quanto riguarda il teatro.
MARCO
Che ne è dell’entusiasmo che avevamo per le nostre opere?
GIUSEPPE
Marco, il teatro era un modo come altri per ampliare le nostre ricchezze e la nostra fama. Certo, si è rivelato persino dilettevole, ma ora ho altro a cui pensare.
Conclusions
Writing this play has been a long journey of discovery of my city and its history, from many points of view, from the political to the cultural, from the musical to the architectural.
But it was also an exercise in imagination, immersing me and making me identify with a four-century-old story.
Being able to dwell on such a specific history allowed me to consider a number of aspects of ‘context’ that we do not always, as musicians, consider when we play something.
Immersing myself in a story for so long allowed me to create an increasingly vivid imagery of what I wanted to tell, gaining more and more colour with each discovery.
As can be seen in the transition from the first to the second version of the script, the play loses some of its purely ‘historical’ and bureaucratic connotations, to try to synthesise, even allegorically, the essence of how I imagined the story and the atmosphere that the characters might have experienced.
I think it is important, to return to my research question, to always investigate, as far as possible, the aspects surrounding the music we play. This creation of an imaginary allows us to have a unique awareness, which, however subjective, gives room for creativity and imagination, elements that we too often forget when we want to call ourselves ‘artists’.
Character designing
The first step, after taking some inspiration, was to choose the characters for my play and to imagine their personalities. Of course, the fact that they were real historical characters provided me with some information, but since I only had notarial documents (not, for example, letters or more personal writings), it was "cold" information. So I had a lot of room in imagining the various personalities.
This is a list of the characters at an early stage of my research, when I had not yet written the script.
Personaggi
IL PADRE il conte Ludovico Secco Suardo
GIUSEPPE il primogenito del conte Secco Suardo
MARCO il secondogenito del conte Secco Suardo
Rappresentante di monte della pietà
Rettore 1
Rettore 2
Impresario Antonio Scappi
Cantanti
I tried also to take note about how I imagined some characters. Here some examples.
Giuseppe Secco Suardo
Seems like his interest in the construction of the theatre is also economic. Might be represented as agile investor/businessman. He's secure and ready to take actions.
Marco
The younger of the two brothers. He is fascinated and gradually becomes passionate about the theatre, he expresses enthusiasm for the opera world that he is able to meet. At the same time, he's less practical than Giuseppe, and he faithfully follows his indications.
Impresario Scappi
He had previously tried to establish a stable theatre at the municipality of Bergamo, without success, so he returned to Bergamo in this occasion (representing Clearco in Negroponte) after other experiences (for example in Parma). Maybe, the relationship between Scappi and Giuseppe could be interesting, the dialogues between them could be about business but also about creativity. Scappi could talk passionately to Giuseppe about the projects. Can be represented a bit eccentric, extrovert.
POSTINO
Bussa alla porta
GIUSEPPE
Avanti!
POSTINO
Ho delle nuove per voi, prego leggete.
GIUSEPPE
Legge silenziosamente tra sé il documento, preoccupato
Marco, odimi. Abbiamo dei guai.
MARCO
(sporgendosi verso la lettera per vedere meglio) Che dice? Lasciami leggere.
GIUSEPPE
(con tono grave) I Consigli ci hanno inoltrato una supplica da loro ricevuta.
MARCO
Spiegati meglio.
GIUSEPPE
Ascolta.
Legge il documento
“Eccellenze, Eccellenze Illustrissime, Illustrissimi Signori
Per la morte del signor Giacinto Torina, fu priore del sacro Monte de’ Pegni, resta difettivo l’esercitio della carica di thesoriero, onde si rende necessario il proveder soggetto, che termini la carica stessa sino alla nova elezione. Li signori deputati però d’esso Pio Luogo notificano alle Vostre Eccellenze et Vostre Signorie Illustrissime il bisogno per le dovute p[ro]visioni. Inoltre andandosi costruendo un teatro in vicinanza della casa d’esso Monte, li signori deputati d’esso Pio Luogo hanno stimato loro debito il participarlo a questo publico per ogni dovuto riguardo, ricadendo pure devotamente alla prudenza delle Vostre Eccellenze et delle Vostre Signorie Illustrissime di non venir in opinione di rimettere l’affare a detto Pio Luogo, perché essi s’esprimono non volerne ingerenze, ma di attenderne le deliberazioni della loro prudenza. Considerato poscia per la contumacia de’ massari di detto Pio Luogo, qual è solo d’anni tre che riuscirebbe più proficuo, se in avenire fosse prorogata detta contumacia per le considerazioni fattisi a danno della povertà et anco del Luogo medemo, come pure se sentissero di dichiarar tal carica onorevole, la medema sarebbe esercitata da cittadini riguardevoli con maggior profitto del Luogo et della Povertà. 1686.
14 dec[emb]re presentata per d[ominum] Constantinum de Costantiniis notarium d[ict]i M[onti] Pignorum.”
MARCO
Non ho inteso interamente la lamentela. Il Monte di Pietà… quel banco dei pegni?
GIUSEPPE
Sì, confinante con il nostro palazzo.
MARCO
E perché sono avversi al nostro teatro?
GIUSEPPE
(Pensieroso) La construzione di un teatro in codesta città non tarda a infastidire… Essi cercan tesorieri, ma tutti si paventano, avendo vicina tale scandalosa impresa.
(Sicuro) Non importa Marco, vedrai, la nostra opera sarà compiuta!
POSTINO
Knocks at the door
GIUSEPPE
Come in!
POSTINO
I have news for you, please read.
GIUSEPPE
Quietly reads the document by himself, worried
Marco, hear me. We have trouble.
MARCO
(leaning towards the letter to get a better look) What does it say? Let me read.
GIUSEPPE
(with grave tone) The Councils have forwarded us a petition they received.
MARCO
Explain yourself better.
GIUSEPPE
Listen.
He reads the document
‘Your Excellencies, Most Illustrious Excellencies, Most Illustrious Gentlemen
Due to the death of Giacinto Torina, formerly prior of the sacred pawnshop, the office of the treasurer remains ineffective, and it is therefore necessary to provide for a person to hold the office until a new election is held. The deputies of this Pious Place, however, notify Your Excellencies and Your Illustrious Lordships of the need for due consideration. In addition, since a theatre is being built near the house of this Mount, the deputies of this Pious Place have considered it their duty to share it with this public for all due consideration, although they have devoutly relied on the prudence of Your Excellencies and Your Illustrious Lordships not to come to the opinion of referring the matter to this Pious Place, since they express their wish not to interfere in it, but to await the deliberations of their prudence. Considering then the contumaciousness of the priests of the said Pious Place, which is only three years, it would be more profitable, if the said contumaciousness were prolonged in the future, because of the considerations made to the detriment of Poverty and also of the Pious Place itself, as well as if they were to declare this office honourable, it would be exercised by respectable citizens with greater profit for the Place and for Poverty. 1686.
14 dec[emb]re presented per d[ominum] Constantinum de Costantiniis notarium d[ict]i M[onti] Pignorum.’
MARCO
I didn't entirely understand the complaint. The Monte di Pietà... that pawnshop?
GIUSEPPE
Yes, bordering our palace.
MARCO
And why are they adverse to our theatre?
GIUSEPPE
(Thoughtful) The construction of a theatre in this city does not take long to annoy... They are looking for treasurers, but everyone is afraid, since such a scandalous undertaking is so close at hand.
(Confident) Never mind Marco, you'll see, our work will be completed!
GIUSEPPE
By now I can see very well that you can handle everything that needs to be organised, prepared, accommodated.
MARCO
I'm just saying, sometimes what is missed is your firmness. I understand, you are busy, but you wanted this theatre so much!
GIUSEPPE
Marco, times are different now. You know very well that these duties entrusted to me are important for the prestige of our family. They require time, and I know I can rely on you as far as the theatre is concerned.
MARCO
What happened to the enthusiasm we had for our operas?
GIUSEPPE
Marco, the theatre was a way like any other to expand our wealth and fame. Of course, it even proved enjoyable, but now I have other things to think about.
