Antonio Fava

Last updated October 01, 2019

Antonio Fava (born May 28, 1949) is an actor, comedian, author, director, musician, mask maker and Internationally renowned Maestro of Commedia dell'arte who lives in Reggio Emilia, Italy.

<i>Commedia dellarte</i> theatre characterized by masked “types”

Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italy, that was popular in Europe from the 16th to the 18th century. Commedia dell'arte was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as commedia alla maschera, commedia improvviso, and commedia dell'arte all'improvviso. Commedia is a form of theatre characterized by masked "types" which began in Italy in the 16th century and was responsible for the advent of actresses and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. A commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised. Characters' entrances and exits are scripted. A special characteristic of commedia dell'arte are the lazzi. A lazzo is a joke or "something foolish or witty", usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine. Another characteristic of commedia dell'arte is pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino (Harlequin).

Reggio nell'Emilia, usually referred to as Reggio Emilia or colloquially Reggio by its inhabitants, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 171,944 inhabitants and is the main comune (municipality) of the Province of Reggio Emilia.

Born in Scandale, a small village in the province of Crotone, Italy. He moved permanently to Reggio Emilia. Where he holds his annual courses In Commedia dell'arte. The masks that Antonio Fava creates are the world's finest ^{[ citation needed ]} and, led him to be recognised and affirmed in the field. Thanks to the formation of an art school for Italian and foreign actors and his collaboration with leading theatre companies his masks are now on display in various museums worldwide.

Crotone is a city and comune in Calabria. Founded c. 710 BC as the Achaean colony of Kroton, it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until 1928, when its name was changed to the current one. In 1992, it became the capital of the newly established Province of Crotone. As of August 2018, its population was about 65,000.

He began his acting career at the National Theatre of Strasbourg. His adventure continued alongside the French writer Jean-Pierre Chabrol in Paris, while he was working for the realisation of the Theatre of the Jacquerie.

Back in Reggio Emilia Antonio Fava founded the Teatro del Vicolo, where, since 1980, he has staged many of his plays whilst continuing international tours that extend to France, Spain, Great Britain, Switzerland, Senegal, Lebanon, Japan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Pakistan, United States, Canada and Australia. All the while pursuing various collaborations and directions, particularly at the Institute of Theatre of Barcelona, at the Resad (Real Escuela de Arte Dramatico) in Madrid, and at the CIP of Tramelan in Switzerland.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.02 million. France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a European country located in Southwestern Europe with some pockets of Spanish territory across the Strait of Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean. Its continental European territory is situated on the Iberian Peninsula. Its territory also includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta, Melilla, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country (Morocco). Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are also part of Spanish territory. The country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean.

Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km² (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island in the world. In 2011, Great Britain had a population of about 61 million people, making it the world's third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of Great Britain, and together these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands, form the British Isles archipelago.

He has taught in universities and theatres all over the world, including the University of Exeter in England, at the Theatre Populaire Jurassien Lons le Saunier in France at l 'Ecole Superieure de Teatro-Universite du Quebec in Montreal, The Village Performing Arts Centre in Sydney and New York University (among others) .

He directed "The Turkish in Italy" and "The Thieving Magpie", both by Rossini, for the Teatro Marrucino of Chieti. Also involved in the collaboration by librettist, he worked with the International Opera Theatre, publishing The Tempest, presented in 2006.

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants—Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In act four, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-the play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language. Though The Tempest is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created a category of romance for this and others of Shakespeare's late plays. The Tempest has been put to varied interpretations—from those that see it as a fable of art and creation, with Prospero representing Shakespeare, and Prospero's renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, to interpretations that consider it an allegory of Europeans colonizing foreign lands.

One of his books, "The comic mask in Commedia dell'Arte" published by Andromeda and the Northwestern University Press USA, was translated into English in 2005. [1]

Antonio Favas' latest book "Vita Morte E Resurrezione Di Pulcinella" (Life Death And Resurrection Of Pulcinella) first published in Italian in 2014 is a focused study and analysis of Antonio Favas' favourite character from Commedia dell'arte "Pulcinella" and how the character has survived and evolved since he (Pulcinella) first appeared in Commedia dell'arte. There is also a play by the same name that he put on in 2014. [2]

Pulcinella is a classical character that originated in commedia dell'arte of the 17th century and became a stock character in Neapolitan puppetry. Engineered specifically to be the star of southern Italy, he is described as "the voice of the people, as the direct expression of a people as lively and spirited as the Neapolitans is never questioned." Pulcinella's versatility in status and attitude has captivated audiences worldwide and kept the character popular in countless forms since his introduction to commedia dell'arte by Silvio Fiorillo in 1620.

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Related Research Articles

Harlequin is the best-known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dell'arte. The role is traditionally believed to have been introduced by Zan Ganassa in the late 16th century, was definitively popularized by the Italian actor Tristano Martinelli in Paris in 1584–1585, and became a stock character after Martinelli's death in 1630.

Zanni, Zani or Zane is a character type of Commedia dell'arte best known as an astute servant and trickster. The Zanni comes from the countryside and is known to be a "dispossessed immigrant worker". Through time, the Zanni grew to be a popular figure who was first seen in commedia as early as the 14th century. The English word zany derives from this persona.

Brighella character from the theatre style Commedia dellarte

Brighella is a comic, masked character from the theatre style Commedia dell'arte. His early costume consisted of loosely fitting, white smock and pants with green trim and was often equipped with a batocio or slap stick, or else with a wooden sword. Later he took to wearing a sort of livery with a matching cape. He wore a greenish half-mask displaying a look of preternatural lust and greed. It is distinguished by a hook nose and thick lips, along with a thick twirled mustache to give him an offensive characteristic. He evolved out of the general Zanni, as evidenced by his costume, and came into his own around the start of the 16th century.

La Ruffiana is an older female character of the Commedia dell'Arte with a shady past or who used to be a prostitute. She is used most often in relationship to the vecchi of which group she is a nominal member. Ruffiana is most often romantically involved with Pantalone, though his love may easily be unrequited if it suits the plot. She is generally described as being talkative/gossipy, sneaky, and mischievous, but deep down is actually kind. She has been described as an "outsider" that always mixes things up and causes trouble for the rest of the characters. "Her quips reek of garlic"

Il Capitano is one of the four stock characters of Commedia dell'arte. He most likely was never a "Captain" but rather appropriated the name for himself.

Il Dottore is a commedia dell'arte stock character, one of the vecchi, or "old men", whose function in a scenario is to be an obstacle to the young lovers. Il Dottore and Pantalone are the comic foil of each other, Pantalone being the decadent wealthy merchant, and Il Dottore being the decadent erudite. He has been part of the main canon of characters since the mid 1500s.

The Atellan Farce, also known as the Oscan Games, were masked improvised farces. The games were very popular in Ancient Rome, and usually put on after longer pantomime plays. The origin of the Atellan Farce is uncertain but the farces are similar to other forms of ancient theatre, such as the South Italian Phlyakes, the plays of Plautus and Terrence, and Roman mime. Most historians believe the name is derived from Atella, an Oscan town in Campania. The farces were written in Oscan and imported to Rome in 391 BC. In later Roman versions, only the tridiculous characters read their lines in Oscan, while the others read in Latin.

Jacques Lecoq was born in Paris. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999.

The Music of Emilia-Romagna has the reputation of being one of the richest in Europe; there are six music conservatories alone in the region, and the sheer number of other musical venues and activities is astounding. The region, as the name implies, combines the traditions of two different, contiguous areas—Emilia and Romagna—and it is perhaps this blend that contributes to the wealth of musical culture.

Pedrolino is a primo zanni, or comic servant, of the Commedia dell'Arte; the name is a hypocorism of Pedro (Peter), via the suffix -lino. The character made its first appearance in the last quarter of the 16th century, apparently as the invention of the actor with whom the role was to be long identified, Giovanni Pellesini. Contemporary illustrations suggest that his white blouse and trousers constituted "a variant of the typical zanni suit", and his Bergamasque dialect marked him as a member of the "low" rustic class. But if his costume and social station were without distinction, his dramatic role was certainly not: as a multifaceted "first" zanni, his character was—and still is—rich in comic incongruities.

Burattino, also Burrattino or Burratino, is a minor commedia dell'arte character of the zanni class.

Tiberio Fiorilli, also spelled Fiorillo and Fiurelli was an Italian actor of commedia dell'arte known for developing the role of Scaramouche. He was especially popular in France, where he was the director of the troupe of the Comédie-Italienne, which shared with the troupe of his friend Molière at the theatre of the Petit-Bourbon, and the theatre of the Palais-Royal.

Markus Kupferblum is an Austrian theatre and opera director, playwright and clown. He founded the first Austrian Fringe Opera Company "Totales Theater" in Vienna and is an expert in Commedia dell'arte and mask theatre.

Carlo Mazzone-Clementi was a performer and founder of two schools of commedia, mime and physical theater as well as a contemporary and colleague of leaders of modern European theater. From his arrival in the USA in 1957, he was largely responsible for the spreading of commedia dell'arte in North America.

NiccolòBarbieri was an Italian writer and actor of the commedia dell'arte theatrical genre. He was also known as Beltrame di Milano in reference to one of his most popular characters, Beltrame; this was the main character of one of Barbieri's best known plays, L'inavertito, which is known to have inspired Moliere's L'Étourdi ou les Contretemps. Besides popularizing Beltrame, Barbieri is also credited with creating another commedia dell'arte mask, Scapino.

Flaminio Scala, commonly known by his stage name, Flavio, was a sixteenth-century Italian stage actor of Commedia dell'Arte, scenario writer, playwright, director, producer, manager, agent, and editor. Considered one of the most important figures in Renaissance theatre, Scala is remembered today as the author of the first published collection of commedia scenarios, Il Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative, short comic plays that served as inspiration to playwrights such as Lope de Vega, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Molière.

Pio Marmaï is a French actor. He has appeared in more than twenty films since 2008.

Commedia dell'Arte masks are one of the biggest classifiers for each character. Every mask goes with a specific character based on the way it looks. Masks were originally all made of leather, but now more commonly made of neoprene. The Commedia masks must show emotion and intelligence as they are covering the face which is the main place emotion can be seen on someone. Masks should be an extension of an actor and their costume, hair and accessories. A mask creates a completely different face for the person that is wearing it. Mask, in Commedia dell'Arte speaks of the types of characters that each represents and includes all of the characters including the lovers. It is almost as speaking to the character rather than the masks, saying that they are a type that is unchanged.

References

↑ ^ internationaloperatheater.org
↑ ^ http://www.guarattelle.it/repertorio/cetrulo.htm Archived 2016-12-20 at the Wayback Machine

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[1] ternationaloperatheater.org

[2] ttp://www.guarattelle.it/repertorio/cetrulo.htm Archived 2016-12-20 at the Wayback Machine