ETTORE MAJORANA. Cronaca di infinite scomparse

An interesting and overall convincing opera by Vetrano and Pintor. The theme of circularity gave originality to the development of the work. The stage direction curated by Stefano Simone Pintor was very remarkable, bringing all the artists, as well as the choir and the extras, to move with great stage truth and attention to detail.

The work on Majorana hits the target. Pintor’s libretto is almost a film script, shrewd and intriguing, and the dramaturgical work converges well both with Zurla’s set and costume design and with Vetrano’s music. The 90 minutes piéce work in every sound and scenic joint. Turned into a vaguely Kafkaesque thriller, the hypotheses about the disappearance of the scientist capture the interest of the audience thanks to a concept structure that let the “movements” of the projections and the gestures of the artists cross each other on the practicable around the orchestra. Temporal jumps flow as frames. The direction moves well singers and actors but also the OperaLombardia choir, obtaining the emotional participation of the public that meanwhile learns/reviews one of the many unresolved Italian historical puzzles.

Pintor conceives an engaging and inclusive set-up of the audience, letting some singers down in the audience, so as to make the spectators participate in the story told.

“How do you tell a story today? It’s really difficult to believe one can do something new, something that can somehow amaze the reader, or just interest him. Difficult but not impossible, and certainly the author of the libretto of “Ettore Majorana – Cronaca di infinite scomparse” succeeded. He succeeded because he had the courage to approach the subject with love, with the study not only of the history of this immense genius of the last century, but also of his theories about physics. He did it with a completely new approach in the world of opera, applying new rules. First of all that of a story that does not take place in a conventional period of linear time, but circular. A rather difficult concept to digest… especially if you enter the hall with the expectation of attending a show that tells a story, in this case a version of the history of Majorana, and contrary to expectations we find ourselves immersed in a loop of overlapping events in which time, if it exists, exists in an overlapping manner. Stefano Simone Pintor, author of the libretto and director, chooses not to tell a version of all the stories about the physicist’s disappearance, but to tell them all, overlapping one another. Result: the viewer finds himself immersed in a metasic space in which infinite parallel realities coexist. He cleverly manages to involve the spectator thanks to the use of a sort of “augmented reality”, with 3D mapping projections that are not limited to the stage but run through the entire auditorium. He manages well, through sensed geometries, in moving the interpreters and the numerous crescendo of alter ego of the protagonist, to make the idea of ​​parallel realities. It will seem strange, but the author really has something to tell and he is able to do it. Nevertheless, the glaring contaminations coming from the cinema world must be noted. The question would be if they were deliberate… but even if they were used unconsciously, this would only confirm the absolute simultaneity of what I would dare to declare a masterpiece.”

The difficult philosophical concepts are well developed in the libretto by Stefano Simone Pintor and in the musical writing by Roberto Vetrano. Nearly two thirds of the opera deals with the different hypotheses on Majorana’s disappearance. The final scene is devoted to the key philosophical questions. The action is fast, the acting good, and the projections that form the sets are quite interesting.