Prometeo incatenato

There was a time when the relationship between men and the gods was decided. On one side stood the immortals, the celestial beings, spared from death. On the other, the mortals, who die and kill, dependent on food. Zeus and Prometheus faced off in an unequal struggle. Zeus, father of the gods, the king who destroyed the Titans with his thunderbolt. And Prometheus, who descends from those defeated Titans. It is a sacrifice that defines man’s condition in relation to the divine: the first sacrifice in history, recounted by Hesiod. In the unknown city of Metone, a dispute arose over an ox. A great and majestic ox, in the centre of the square, is slaughtered amidst mortals and gods. Prometheus divides the flesh, but in doing so he deceives. He prepares the rich entrails of the bull on one side, but covers them with withered hides, hideous to behold. On the other, he makes the bones look fine with gleaming fat. Zeus, the father of the gods, falls into the trap set by the cunning Prometheus: he leaves the abundant meat to the men and chooses the shiny, empty portions for the celestials. But one does not defy a god without consequence: Zeus, lord of the thunderbolt, takes fire—that lively companion—away from men, preventing them from cooking the meat they had won through deceit. The Titan’s cunning thus drives men and gods apart, defining the misery of the human condition for all time. From then on, sacrifice has been a celebration of an irreversible distance, and Prometheus’s act – just like Eve’s bite of the apple – leaves men alone, amidst countless evils, seized by nostalgia for the happy time when the inhabitants of heaven and earth shared the same tables. But the very human Prometheus dares to fight for mortals, and once again defies Zeus: he steals fire from him, gives it back to men, and teaches them to preserve it and keep it alive. For this he will suffer, in his own flesh, endless pain; he will endure his fate amidst the most atrocious sufferings. Prometheus is stealthy, deceitful, cunning: he is a trickster, the shrewd god who, by transgressing, makes the world his tool. Inscribed in his name are cunning – métis – and learning – manthàno. The Titan, he who taught mortals to kindle fire, then becomes the symbol of téchne, of man’s capacity to evolve, to educate himself, to progress. But the trickster Prometheus is also courageous, selfless, suffering: a dignified hero. In the tragedy bearing his name, we see him chained amidst rugged mountains and tormented by eagles at Zeus’s behest. The sorrowful foreshadowing of a crucified Christ. Divine violence is a form of election: just as he is punished as a rebellious man, Prometheus is chosen once more as a god. A god who bears the likeness of victims and of man. Multifaceted and elusive, Prometheus is constantly changing form and comes to embody opposing polarities. He is the one who has removed man from his divine state of grace, and at the same time he is par excellence the philanthropic god, the rebel who calls for an assault on heaven, the benefactor of humanity, the cunning thief who steals from the powerful to give to the weak. His gift of fire reminds us – as Camus notes – that ‘any mutilation of man can only be temporary’: to restore wholeness, there is always a deceitful yet benevolent hero, willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of mankind. The myth of Prometheus, just like its protagonist, is entirely human: it teaches that intelligence is often linked to deception; that no great deed is accomplished without sacrifice; that every advance is also a loss. His myth, like fire, is a gift to mortals:

myths have no life of their own
they await us to embody them.
Let a single man answer their call, and they will offer us their lifeblood intact

(Albert Camus)

Carmelo Rifici
A graduate in Literature and a diploma holder from the Scuola dello Stabile in Turin, he served as assistant director to Luca Ronconi on Progetto Domani, a theatrical event for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. He worked alongside Ronconi on the productions of Fahrenheit 451, Ulisse doppio ritorno, Turandot and The Merchant of Venice. As a director, he has helmed dozens of productions, including Il giro di vite, La tardi ravveduta and La Signorina Julie for the Litta Theatre in Milan (2003–06), and Lunga giornata verso la notte for the Teatro Filodrammatici in Milan (2006). The Napoli Teatro Festival commissioned him to direct Chie-Chan e io, based on the novel by Banana Yoshimoto (2008). For the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, he directed Jean-Luc Lagarce’s *I pretendenti*, Ludwig Tieck’s *Il gatto con gli stivali* (2009) and Ephraim Lessing’s *Nathan il saggio* (2011). In 2010, he directed Lars Norén’s *Dettagli* at the Piccolo and Euripides’ *Fedra* in Syracuse. He directed Buio by Sonia Antinori for Teatro Due Parma, Medea by Luigi Cherubini for the Ponchielli in Cremona, I puritani by Vincenzo Bellini for the Circuito Lirico Lombardo, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare and Visita al padre by Roland Schimmelpfennig for the Piccolo in Milan. Since 2014, he has been artistic director of LuganoInScena, where he has directed Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, Iphigenia, Liberated, Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio, the opera The Barber of Seville, Avevo un bel pallone rosso, and I Cenci with music and libretto by Giorgio Battistelli, which in 2020 featured on the programme of the Venice Music Biennale and the Festival Aperto in Reggio Emilia, Macbeth, le cose nascoste. In 2019, he directed Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Ravel’s L’heure espagnole at the Teatro Grande in Brescia. In 2020, he became artistic director of the LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura cultural centre in the city of Lugano. Since 2015, he has directed the Luca Ronconi Theatre School at the Piccolo in Milan. In 2005, he won the Critics’ Award for emerging director; in 2009, he won the Eti Olimpici del Teatro Award for director of the year, the Critics’ Award and the Golden Graal, and was nominated for the Ubu Awards as director of the year. In 2015, he won the Enriquez Prize for the LuganoInScena theatre season; in 2017, he won it again for his direction of Ifigenia, liberata. In 2019, he won the I nr. Uno award presented by the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Switzerland (CCIS) for his work at the LAC. Together with Paola Tripoli, he is the creator of Lingua Madre, Capsule per il futuro.

Giovanni Crippa
Since his debut in Peter Shaffer’s Equus, directed by Marco Sciaccaluga, Crippa has worked with leading Italian directors including Squarzina, De Lullo, Patroni Griffi, Albertazzi, De Fusco, Siciliano, Crivelli, Cappuccio, Shammah, Testori, Chérif, Maccarinelli, Stein, Rifici, Sinigaglia and Nicosia. Among the various leading roles he has played, notable examples include Alan in Equus, Le Cid in Corneille’s Le Cid, Renzino in Testori’s Promessi Sposi alla prova, Albert Tavernier in Fior di pisello directed by Patroni Griffi, and Erik in Lars Norén’s Dettagli directed by Rifici. In 1995, he began working with Luca Ronconi, under whose guidance he took part in over twenty productions, often in leading roles, among which he particularly likes to recall Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov, Bartolomeo in Il Candelaio, Penteus in The Bacchae, Aeschylus in The Frogs, Ebenwald in Professor Bernhardi, Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida, Verri in Questa sera si recita a soggetto and Arlecchino in I due gemelli veneziani (Ubu Award for Best Supporting Actor). On television, he played the male lead in Manon, directed by S. Bolchi, and Cheri, directed by E. Muzii. He has recently resumed his collaboration with Carmelo Rifici, under whose direction he played Dorn in Chekhov’s The Seagull and The Old Man/Calcante in Angela Demattè’s Iphigenia, Liberated. In the 2019–2020 season, he played Paolo in M. Malvaldi’s L’infinito tra parentesi and the Cenciaiolo in J. Giraudoux’s La pazza di Chaillot, both for the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia. He is a lecturer at the Scuola del Piccolo Teatro in Milan, where he served as academic coordinator from 2015 to 2020.

Igor Horvat
Born in Switzerland to a Croatian family. After completing his science-focused secondary education, he moved to Italy where he attended the Civica Scuola d’Arte Drammatica “Paolo Grassi” in Milan, graduating as an actor in 2000. This was followed by numerous collaborations with both resident and non-resident theatres. He has appeared in productions directed by, among others, Luca Ronconi, Roberto Guicciardini, Giancarlo Cobelli, Guido De Monticelli, Massimo Navone, Giorgio Marini and Stefano Alleva, thanks to whom he has performed in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Senegal. She combines her theatre work with radio and television, working on numerous TV dramas and collaborating with RSI Swiss Radio and Television.

Anahì Traversi
Of Italian, Swiss and Argentinean origin, she studied at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at the University of Milan and attended the Luca Ronconi Theatre School at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. She furthered her training with a two-year course directed by Federico Tiezzi. In 2012, she was chosen by Riccardo Muti for the new production of Paul Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna at the Ravenna Festival. Since 2013, she has collaborated with the drama department of RSI Radiotelevisione Svizzera and with the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, and is an actress in the company of the Teatro Sociale Bellinzona. In 2014, together with Fabrizio Rosso, she launched the theatre project La extravagancia#0 based on Rafael Spregelburd’s monologue, a production selected for the Schweizer Theatertreffen (2015). In 2016, together with Camilla Parini, she made her debut with Princesses Karaoke or something like that… a production that was a finalist for the Premio Schweiz. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with the LAC in Lugano; Carmelo Rifici directed her in The Seagull, Iphigenia, Liberated and The Cenci; Andrea Novicov in Elektra; Emiliano Masala in Six Characters in Search of an Author; Alan Alpenfelt in Jackie; and Leonardo Lidi in Phaedra. She is one of the founders of the Treppenwitz Collective, which made its debut with L’amore ist nicht une chose for everybody, directed by Simon Waldvogel (2019).

Carlotta Viscovo
Born and raised in Turin, she trained at the Scuola del Teatro Stabile from 1997 to 2000, where she had encounters that proved fundamental to her development: Luca Ronconi, Mauro Avogadro, Marisa Fabbri, Franca Nuti, Marise Flach and Maria Consagra. After graduating, she immediately began working at the Stabile, directed by Mauro Avogadro, Carmelo Rifici—with whom she would stage seven productions—and Marco Plini (Risveglio di primavera). Directed by Valter Malosti, she took on *The Bacchae* in 2002; the following season she joined the T.S.T. Company, with whom she took part in the *Shakespeare Project*, directed by the French-speaking directors Jean-Christophe Sais, Dominique Pitoiset and Mamadou Dioume. In 2003–2004 she was in the cast of *The Broken Jug*, directed by Cesare Lievi. In 2005, she took part in the second edition of Franco Quadri’s Progetto Thierry Salmon, led by Rodrigo Garcia. She was subsequently directed by Massimo Castri (Hecuba) and by Monica Conti (L’innesto and Le intellettuali). Together with Elisabetta Pozzi, she worked on the Theatre ouvert project at the T.S.T. and was directed by Luca Ronconi in Fahrenheit 451. In 2008, she appeared in The Trojan Women, as part of the European Theatre Company, directed by Virginio Liberto and Annalisa Bianco. With Massimo Popolizio, she appeared in Ploutos, which he directed, and in Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by Daniele Abbado. She was part of the cast of Le signorine di Wilko, directed by the Latvian Alvis Hermanis. In 2011, she met the French director Catherine Marnas, with whom she worked for a period in Marseille on the creation of the production Convivio. From 2012 to 2014, she undertook a creative exploration with Michele Di Mauro, resulting in the productions Ferocemadreguerra and L'amore segreto di Ofelia. In recent years, she has appeared in Roberto Valerio’s A Doll’s House, Andrea De Rosa’s The Bacchae, and Heracles with Emma Dante. In 2019, she tackled Jelinek’s challenging writing in Jackie, with the Swiss-Scottish director Alan Alpenfelt. She has worked as an assistant director to Carmelo Rifici, Massimo Popolizio, Monica Conti and Roberto Valerio. For several years, she has been teaching young people wishing to embark on a professional career.

Walter Rizzuto
Born in Cosenza, he graduated from the Piccolo Teatro School in Milan in 2017. Shortly afterwards, he met Andrea Chiodi, with whom he worked on The Taming of the Shrew. The production went on tour in 2019, performing at various Italian theatres. In the same year, Chiodi also directed him in Francesco e il sultano. He appeared at the Teatro Franco Parenti in Margherita Scalise’s play Squame d’amore. In 2020, he played Pantalone in L’isola Di Arlecchino, directed by Stefano De Luca, and joined the cast of Arlecchino servitore di due padroni at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. Furthermore, in 2018 he worked as a dancer at the LAC in Il barbiere di Siviglia directed by Carmelo Rifici and in Chòros directed by Alessio Maria Romano. He was assistant director for the Musella-Mazzarelli company on the project Who is the king (2018). In 2019, he starred in the short film Anna e Elio by Giulia Claudia Massacci and took part in the Venice Biennale with his first project as director and playwright, Hippólytos

Zeno Gabaglio
Having obtained a diploma in cello, a master’s degree in free improvisation and a degree in philosophy (in Lugano, Basel and Florence), he devotes himself to music in various forms, favouring the most authentic and, perhaps, least predictable approaches. To date, he has released four albums, composed over forty soundtracks (for film and theatre) and performed in concerts across Europe, America and Asia. He was recently included in the compilation *Interactions – Swiss Experimental Music* and composed the soundtracks for the films *Moka noir* by Erik Bernasconi, *Love me tender* by Klaudia Reynicke and *Cronofobia* by Francesco Rizzi.

In the theatre, he has collaborated with Carmelo Rifici on Gabbiano, Purgatorio, Ifigenia, liberata and Uomini e no; with Andrea Chiodi on La bisbetica domata; and with Trickster-p on Nettles. Active as a critic and populariser, he collaborates regularly with RSI Swiss Radio and Television (for which he created the web series Rossini, musica per il palato, which has won awards at various international festivals) and holds the chair of free improvisation at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano. He is a member of the Cantonal Cultural Commission and chair of the Music Sub-Commission, as well as a member of the SUISA Board and the Fondation SUISA Board.

Maddalena Giovannelli
Maddalena Giovannelli has been teaching History of Theatre and Theatre Communication at USI since 2020.

She was a fixed-term researcher at the University of Milan, where she taught ‘Theatre Literature of Ancient Greece’ and ‘Ancient Theatre on the Contemporary Stage’. She was Principal Investigator of the FIR research project ‘Lexicon of Greek Comedy’ (2014–2017), dedicated to the ancient and contemporary reception of the comic genre. Her fields of interest include theatrical translation, ancient dramaturgy with a particular focus on the comedies of Aristophanes, the reception of classical theatre in the contemporary world, and the development of theatre and dance audiences. She has published the book “Aristophanes, Our Contemporary” (Carocci 2018), and “The Audience in Dance: Communities, Memories, Devices” with Lorenzo Conti and Francesca Serrazanetti (Scalpendi 2019). He founded the biannual journal “Stratagemmi_prospettive teatrali” and the cultural association “Prospettive Teatrali”, within which he is involved in audience development. He writes about theatre for “Hystrio” and “Doppiozero”.

Francesco Paolo Campione
Francesco Paolo Campione teaches Cultural Anthropology at the University of Insubria (Como and Varese) and is director of the Museum of Cultures in Lugano.

For almost thirty years he has been involved in the anthropology of art, museology and the management of organisations operating in the cultural sector, alternating research activities with academic teaching and the direction of cultural institutions and museums. He has conducted field research in Bali and Laos. To date, he has curated over 80 permanent and temporary art exhibitions in various countries and has to his credit 14 books, 20 art catalogues and over a hundred scholarly articles in journals and works by others.

In the field of organising and managing cultural institutions, he has developed and implemented modern systems based on medium- and long-term planning, organic interaction with the local area, and the development of international networks for sharing and promoting activities, whilst also acting as a consultant to institutions and local authorities in Italy and Switzerland.

di
Eschilo

traduzione e regia
Carmelo Rifici

voci (in ordine alfabetico)
Giovanni Crippa
Igor Horvat
Walter Rizzuto
Anahì Traversi
Carlotta Viscovo

consulenza
Maddalena Giovannelli

musiche originali
Zeno Gabaglio
Niton
Brian Burgan

mix
Brian Burgan

mastering
Lara Persia - Lemura Recording Studio

fonici
Brian Burgan, LAC
Lorenzo Sedili, LAC

Animazioni video
Irene Masdonati, LAC

delegati di produzione
Vanessa Di Levrano
Nicola Fiori

produzione
LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura

Per il salotto cinematografico un rigraziamento per la collaborazione a Sara Conio Prontera di Modernariato al Mercato.