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Growing Up
Hans Werner Henze's 'Pollicino'
thrills children and adults in Florence,
by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
Some thirty years ago, Hans Werner Henze found the subject of his opera 'Pollicino' ('The little thumb boy') in fairy tales written by Carlo Collodi (the Italian author best known for his book 'Pinocchio') in the second half of the nineteenth century. On his own account, Collodi had been working on the basis of tales by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault and adapted them to his time and age. The project also had a 'social' objective, that Henze shared with the Italian writer Giuseppe Di Leva, author of the libretto: to bring the Montepulciano children to a music theatre experience not only as part of the audience but also as singers and actors.
Montepulciano is lovely small town in the Tuscan hills. There Henze had started a Cantiere d'Arte (an artistic work place), where, for a week, artists from several countries participate in opera, concert and ballet performance without receiving any fee and the entire population joins in...
Copyright © 30 October 2010
Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
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