Witches

& Venice.

I look terrible, like a witch, these days – so I started looking at the witch stuff – you know the ones with so many dark circles and bags that they scare even the mirror?

And then I discovered a treasure
A treasure that was completely overlooked.
Maybe I didn’t look hard enough – but I think I’m not entirely wrong.

You probably all know Venice, at least by name – its canals, its St. Mark’s square, love & death in Venice, its carnival – in short – it’s all very well known.
La Fenice is a little less well known and many foreigners easily place La Scala de Milano in the middle of Venice.

But the Venetian opera, then this one has completely disappeared from the radar.
And this opera is full of witches – and then top witches, the worst, the ugliest, the most perfidious, the most wicked, those who hide their ugliness under splendid masks –

This association between the Carnival and the Witches is not a coincidence
This Carnival lasted almost all winter – it started on the last Sunday of October – it officially ended at the beginning of Lent , with some interruptions, it is necessary to work sometimes.

It began – and still does, I believe – with the Flight of the Angel – or the Fall of the Angel: an acrobat descended on a rope stretched between the platform of the Campanile and the Loggia of the Ducal Palace, where the Doge was watching the scene. When he reached the bottom, everything began.

On Shrove Tuesday, the final explosion of parties, games and shows.
And on the first day of Lent – everything had disappeared – as if the witches of Venice had cast a spell on the city, “one could believe in the coming of a magician who has turned everything upside down” wrote a contemporary.

I tried to find arias, performances, something, things to finally hear and watch and nothing – nothing at all.
We have the stories
We have the music
We have the so famous costumes of the Carnival

and nobody puts on the shows anymore.

There are still some external works – which are very good, I do not say the contrary – but those of the heart of Venice, there is almost nothing left – well … some pieces of score, some pieces of outline of plays and especially the costumes of characters

So – if nobody puts them on – it would be rather intelligent to think about putting them on, no ?
to arrange them of course
Or even – since there are stories – to put them on with music by contemporary musicians, which would give a good facelift to the whole thing.

And allow to use these so strange costumes of Venice on a stage:

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