The timeless magic of the Theatre

It is the dawn of a February morning at the Barrier d'Enfer in Paris . It's snowing, it's cold, Mimì comes on the scene looking for Rodolfo for the umpteenth time disappeared during the night .
Customs officers control the first who arrive in the city , farmers who came to sell chickens and eggs , milkmaids , dustmen . By contrast we hear songs from the Cabaré and Musetta who intones "Se nel bicchiere sta il piacer , in giovin bocca sta l'amor" a memory of his seductive waltz "Quando men vo" whereby she won Marcello again in the second act .
 It would be enough this brilliant beginning of the third act of  "La Bohème" by Giacomo Puccini to enchant and attract the public to opera and theaters . The overlapping of scenes, music , poetry , costumes incites at the same time different senses and immediately involves you in a whirling dance of emotions and memories , identifying yourself in such real and human dramas .
 It's like a movie , but at every show all is recreated at that precise moment by artists outside and behind the stage . Because , of course , beyond the visible protagonists who are the conductor , singers , orchestra , the choir , dancers , mimes , extras , it hides an industrious beehive that produces the miracle every time.
The seamstress sews to a baritone a button lost on the scene and facilitates the change of costume, a hairdresser and a maker-up adjust the look of the soprano , a toolmaker passes to a tenor newspaper and a pipe with which he must enter the scene . Here at the right is grouped the choir around the master to intonate an "interno" while on the other side the instrument-carrier set up lecterns , lights , chairs , carryovers for the "interno" of the band directed by the stage music director . The collaborators follow the singers , suggest a few words , command the entrances and technicians movement's of the machinists if done in music , the stage manager coordinates everything , dictating the times , the intervals , taking care of the applauses , the scene changes. If a singer does not remember the actions , the assistant director arrives to help.
 In the initial video , for example , the falling snow is created by a sack drilled and continually moved from the gallery by the machinists , and this action lasts the entire act .
 Not to mention the entire lighting team capable of making each production unique and incredible with games of nuances and perspective projections , widening the visual dimensions and inventing special effects .
 All this and much more is hidden behind an Opera , which is life.

 Stories of life relived every time, which makes you cry at the death of Mimì and makes you go out of the theater different from how you entered , which moves something in the bowels and perhaps helps you to be better , too, spectator.


  The videos are taken in the setting de "La Bohème" by Giacomo Puccini at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona on stage these days.

https://www.arena.it/files/filarmonico/mediagallery/boheme/manifesto-locandina-boheme.pdf