franco manzoni

Franco Manzoni

Over the last forty years of the nineteenth century the theatre in Italy followed, to say it this way, the evolution of the post Risorgimento society: performances were influenced by a representation of the southern nobility already more than decaying and the bourgeoisie replacing little by little the ancient aristocracy with the freshness, the pride and the determination of a new emergent class.
Achille Torelli (Naples, 1844-1922) devoted himself to theatre and wrote comedies, both in Italian and vernacular Neapolitan, and developed themes and analysed situations belonging to his contemporaneous reality.

The most successful text of his production seems to be the comedy "Mariti" (1867), whose plot finds its start-off on the New Year's Day at Dukes of Herrera house.
The author sounds out the nature of these nobles: Alfred, a frivolous young married with Sophie; Julie, linked against her will to Theodore, brother of Sofia and very jealous; Emma, fiancé for a decision of her parents with a young bourgeois attorney, the shrewd Fabio.
Both Sofia and Julie are very unhappy, unsatisfied of their corresponding husbands, members of the local aristocracy, and leading a debauched life as the unfaithful Alfred or the oppressing jealousy of Theodore.

Even if being aware of her sister's and sister in law situation, and notwithstanding she does not love the bourgeois Fabio, she marries him; towards him she keeps an disdainful attitude, reserving her own loving thoughts to Ernst, another dissolute noble, for whom she nursed a certain liking before getting married. You attend, passing the settings, the going downhill of the several exponents of the nobility: Ernst must leave the army for gambling debts; Alfred courts openly a women "excluded by repute" from the smart set; Theodore, with jealousy scenes, makes life unbearable for Julie.

Rita, the wife of the baron of the Isle, betrayed even she by her husband with a maidservant, thinks she can find solace and love with Fabio, who instead refuses and keeps faithful to his love toward her wife.
On consequence of that, Rita will wise up Emma, making her understand the honesty and the firmness of mind of Fabio in comparison with the licentiousness of the other noble husbands.
Giovanni Verga (Catania, 1840-1922), beyond his most famous literary production, wrote to for the theatre, performing theatrical adaptation from his own novels.
Among the most staged and celebrated we remind Cavalleria rusticana, staged first in January 1884, "La lupa" (1896) e "Dal tuo al mio" (1903).

The Verga's dramas are estimated by critics as examples of the veristic theatre, where it is very present the religious and primordial dismay and human instincts of the personages upset and generate the events in a scenery mostly regional that is the Sicilian one.
"Cavalleria rusticana", adapted from the homonymous novel, tells about Turiddu that got back from the call-up, with great surprise finds Lola, his fiancé already married with master Alfio. Turiddu, out of spite becomes engaged with Santuzza, with both purposes to make Lola's jealousy arouses and to embark an extra conjugal relationship with his beloved. Santuzza, really deceived by the devious behaviour of Turiddu, relieves her feelings in revenge and reveals the situation to Alfio, Lola's husband.

Blind with jealously and wounded in his honour, master Alfio wants to fight a duel with Turiddu, to wipe out the insult with blood.
In "La lupa" Verga tells about two women, mother and her daughter who love the same man, Nanni: the young Maricchia, modest and silent, and Pina "la lupa", in mature age, bold and sensual so to overcome and cling to herself the young Nanni.

The relationship of passion involves the man till the constraint and blackmailing situation will arouse inside him a killing push toward the "lupa", persisting in not letting him free to enjoy his relationship with the young wife Maricchia.
"Dal tuo al mio", instead, proposes and examines again the theme so dear to Verga, that of the "possessions", strongly dealt with by coeval examples.

The contrast between the newly rich bourgeois and the decayed noble, between the bourgeois turned into employer and the workers in ferment are essential moments of reflection over the changed social conditions.
Verga seems to show more likings for the noble baron, already without substance rather than siding the arrogant bourgeois who in his endless avidity his time stands toward workers as a cruel profiteer of the class submitted to him.
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