The Siege Of Paris at Patravadi Theatre

“THE SIEGE OF PARIS” – Highlight of Italian Festival 2010

In the framework of the “Italian Festival 2010”, organized with the cooperation of the Italian Trade Commission, the Embassy of Italy is proud to present one of the highlights of the Festival: the puppet theatre “The Siege of Paris”, by award winning puppetry company Teatroarte – Cuticchio.
The Sicilian “puppet opera” is a form of theatre which has been documented in Sicily since the first decades of the ‘800, although some scholars have confirmed the existence of puppet masters who worked in Siracusa (Sicily) since the Greek period of Socrates and Xenophon (V Century B.C.).

Since ‘800, the Sicilian puppetry had an extraordinary success to the point that only in Palermo city there was in each district a small theatre where every evening the public tenaciously followed the performances, the most important of which told about the legendary “Carolingian Cycle” (or the Matter of France) articulated from scene to scene by the characteristic sound of the barrel organ.

The theatre area was surrounded by craftsmanship activities by painters, sculptors, arms builders, whose works had influence also on the Sicilian traditional art. After the crisis brought by the new age of television, today this form of theatrical performances is reborn and obtains remarkable success. Not by chance the UNESCO has selected, among 32 candidatures, the Sicilian “puppet opera” as the “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”.

The master puppeteer and Honorary President of Theatre-Arte Cuticchio company, Girolamo Cuticchio, is praised for the over 60 years of activity and he is today the oldest master puppeteer existing in Italy.

A number of FREE tickets are available to the public on a first-come-first-served basis.
For details please call the above venues.

Created by: Patravadi Theatre