GRANDEBRIXIA – Paolina Leopardi racconta Mozart

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s travels in Italy.

In September 1837, a 35-page booklet entitled Mozart, with no indication of the author, was published in Bologna. A biography of Mozart, one of the first in Italian. Anonymous. Four copies of the book are preserved in the library of the Archiginnasio in Bologna, one in Leopardi’s house in Recanati. The home of the person who wrote that biography: Paolina, Giacomo’s beloved sister. It was always known in the Leopardi household that Paolina was that Mozart, and she herself declares this in an 1838 letter to a friend in Bologna: a document that says much about the author and this Mozart biography of hers. She tells us, for example, that “the censorship took out the most piquant parts of it and made me very angry.” Ecclesiastical censorship. Which issues the imprimatur, but only after the text has been amended. Amended of the “most piquant pieces.” Which we will never know, because the manuscript is lost.

Paolina Leopardi racconta Mozart is a sharp and surprising recital for actress and piano that unfolds through the voice of an exceptional witness.

With Sonia Bergamasco
Marco Scolastra Pianoforte
A proposal by Nino Criscenti
From the book Mozart by Paolina Leopardi
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dramaturgy Sonia Bergamasco
First performance: Recanati, Orto “Colle dell’infinito,” August 28, 2020