Faust

Antonio Latella returns to the classics for the new production he is directing at the Piccolo. “After almost forty years of curtains rising and falling”, he explains, “here I am at the appointment repeatedly postponed or deliberately avoided. Mephistopheles has renewed his invitation, making me once again stop and examine Goethe’s Faust, an opera-world on which the poet spent a lifetime. The only guideline that has accompanied me this whole time has been the awareness of having to find a man, an actor, a theatrical artist capable of embracing both protagonists of the opera in a single body. To do so, I waited for a number of years until, seeing a show directed by Claudio Longhi with Lino Guanciale, I thought: “There he is, the fallen angel, the scholar, the man”. This work covers two evenings, like the two parts that make up Faust. An unbiased adaptation that has chosen to build the entire theatrical operation on just four actors and an actress to arrive at the number five, which is no casual choice, considering that there are five fingers on a hand, five senses guiding our existence in the world, and five, in esotericism, symbolises human individuality and will. A number that is also associated with the pentagram, the symbol of man (microcosm) with arms and legs open, recalling Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. Such perfection is frightening and destabilising, and it is this perfection that Faust tries to understand through all his research and study, until he accepts that no-one will ever be able to reveal the sublime mystery of Creation”.

The show is presented in two distinct parts: it is possible to attend just one part, or both parts on different evenings during the week, or in the same day on weekends. 

Duration: Faust - First part 3 hours and 20 minutes including one intermission. Faust - Second part 2 hours and 15 minutes without intermission. The weekend performances will have one intermission of around 1 hour between the first and second parts