Great sacred music returns to St. Mark's Basilica in Venice

Milan's Teatro degli Arcimboldi opens a small hall, where telephones are left out: it begins with 'Sweeney Todd', by the great Stephen Sondheim. At the same time, the big hall is staging the Italian premiere of 'The Book of Mormon', a great success on Broadway and in London. In Naples, too, it is musical theatre, but between the profane and the sacred: it is the 17th-century 'Cantata dei pastori', an old-fashioned Italian play, with two great actors, Peppe Barra and Lalla Esposito. We change atmosphere in Venice, but remain in the Christmas mood, with Natale Monferrato's 'Vespro di Natale' (1675), in St Mark's Basilica.

The Teatro La Fenice has for years presented its Christmas Concert in St Mark's Basilica, with the voices of the Cappella Marciana conducted by Marco Gemmani. This year's concert is on the 18th. The ensemble descends directly from the ancient formation of the Serenissima and was the Doge's Chapel for five centuries. Considered to be among the oldest professional music ensembles still active, it will transport us to late 17th century Venice, playing the Christmas Vespers of 1675. The music was composed by the director of St. Mark's, Natale Monferrato, an important figure because in addition to the Basilica he directed the putte choir of the Ospedale dei Mendicanti.

“Sweeney Todd”

On the 18th a 100-seat, phone-free room opens inside the Arcimboldi Theatre. It is the STM Studio, where STM stands for Scuola del Teatro Musicale (School of Musical Theatre), with two venues, at the Milan theatre and the Coccia Theatre in Novara. They are staging one of the best musicals by a great author like Stephen Sondheim, 'Sweeney Todd', in Italian, performances on 19-20-21 and 26-27-28.

Another musical, 'The Book of Mormon', in English for the first time in Italy, is on stage until the 21st in the Arcimboldi's Great Hall; it is a satire of religious movements and contemporary society.

“La Cantata dei Pastori”

From 19 December to 4 January at the Trianon Viviani Theatre "La Cantata dei Pastori", with Peppe Barra and Lalla Esposito. At the end of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits commissioned Abbot Perrucci to write a play that was to contrast - at Christmas time - with the other competing, rather unscrupulous shows. It was a sensual and irreverent Naples, where people deserted midnight Mass on Christmas Eve to go to see freak shows. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the people turned it into a glorious and tasty mess of religious sentiment and comic theatre. Later, however, the Cantata remained the preserve of the clergy and did not leave the sacristies. In 1974, the great talent of Roberto De Simone dug it up and staged it with the famous Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare; he then rewrote it in 1988. Peppe Barra, part of the Compagnia, has kept this tradition alive for more than forty years.