I MALTAGLIATI / TO SING A LIFE / TEATRET OM

A woman. A Radio. A pasta dish and first of all singing.

An old woman is standing in her kitchen cooking a pasta dish, I Maltagliati, for a guest. During a morning she relives her life through songs. The performance is built around a series of powerful, Italian folk songs and other songs that uniquely communicates ordinary human feelings, desires and dreams. The songs are the voice of ordinary people and cover all aspects of everyday life: working, loving, struggling, being born and dying. The story takes place in two different spaces: the physical space, the kitchen, where the woman makes pasta only in the company of a radio, and a space of memories, where we see the woman’s life in flashbacks, open to the viewer’s own interpretation.

„Italian folk songs have always been a source of inspiration to me because of the way they tell stories about human experience. The songs are the voice of ordinary people and cover all aspects of everyday life: working, loving, struggling, being born and dying. The idea for a sung theatrical piece came to me after I had read Bruce Chatwin’s book Songlines. In the same way the woman in this piece retraces the paths of her life through songs.“ Sandra Pasini

“I Maltagliati” is Sandra’s solo performance inspired by the poems of Beatrice Bugelli, an illiterate shepherdess, born in Tuscany in the 1800. Sandra was struck by the strength and the wisdom that was revealed in the simplicity of her words and created a performance set in a kitchen. Making pasta from scratch and simmering the sauce, she dances and sings the words of Beatrice. Spectators will immerge in a traditional Italian kitchen, engulfed by the scents of the tomato sauce on the stove, guided by a voice on the radio and Sandra’s powerful singing.

Performed & directed by Sandra Pasini, Scenography, props and costumes: Antonella Dioana, Music: Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Sanda Pasini and italian folksongs.

Production Teatret OM