Roberto De Simone, the master of 'Gatta Cenerentola' dead

Musicologist, composer, director, anthropologist, scholar of popular traditions, European intellectual: Naples loses the musical genius of Roberto De Simone, who passed away at the age of 91 amidst family affection in his large home in Via Foria. The story of Naples would not be the same today if in 1967 the maestro, trained at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella, had not founded and forged the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare: a revolution that would unite high and popular music born from the encounter of the scholar of southern archaic cultures with Eugenio Bennato, Giovanni Mauriello, Peppe Barra, Patrizio Trampetti, Fausta Vetere, Carlo D'Angiò.

It was a remarkable success, even an international one. On 7 July 1976, the opera LaGatta Cenerentola, inspired by the fairy tale of the same name contained in that masterpiece called Lo Cunto de li Cunti by Giovan Battista Basile, made its debut at the Festival dei due Mondi di Spoleto. "A melodrama as new and ancient at the same time as fables are new and ancient at the moment they are told", the author defined his masterpiece. Villanelle, moresche, tammurriate, cultured music, a timeless Neapolitan: the show became a cult hit, carried away by the enthusiasm of the young people who crowded the theatres in the 1970s.

But De Simone, who never left Naples, where he was born in Pignasecca, on 25 August 1933, was also much more: artistic director of the San Carlo Theatre from 1981 to 1987 (but he did not spare criticism of the Massimo's new acoustics), he contributed to the rediscovery of 18th-century Neapolitan music. His production is vast, from Requiem in memory of Pier Paolo Pasolini (1985) to Eleonora (1999), a tribute to Pimentel Fonseca for the bicentenary of the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799. He has directed in major international theatres, from Mozart to Rossini. His Flauto magico inaugurated La Scala in 1990. Among his titles, L'Opera Buffa del Giovedì Santo (1980), Cholera (2003), Il Re bello (2004), Là ci darem la mano (2007), Pergolesi in Olimpiade (2011). In 1995 he was Director Emeritus of the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella, three years later Academic of Santa Cecilia.

Honours

The first knighthood came from the French Republic, in 2019 he was appointed Knight of the Grand Cross by Mattarella. For the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, 'De Simone was an enlightened intellectual. He knew how to combine artistic genius and scientific rigour, giving voice to the immense popular cultural heritage and deep roots' of the country. "The President of the Campania Region, Vincenzo De Luca, described him as a 'magnificent singer of the deepest feelings of Neapolitan culture and humanity'.