Marco Baliani
Del coraggio silenzioso
text by Marco Baliani
collaboration for the dramaturgy Ilenia Carrone
music Mirto Baliani performed by
Cristiano Arcelli sax and bass clarinet
Mirto Baliani harmonium and samplers
Giacomo Gaudenzi cello
Francesco Tedde guitar and modular synths
production Comune di Bergamo, Teatro Donizetti, Casa degli Alfieri
The word ‘courage’ is usually associated with a sensational, death-defying act. But there is another kind of courage, silent and unassuming, and it is this kind of courage that the play is about. Inconspicuous courage acts almost unexpectedly, it doesn’t need a warlike temperament, nor does it expect a reward. Antigone, who buries her brother’s body despite Creon’s prohibition, is a prime example: “The immortal unrecorded laws of the gods. / They are not today merely now: they were, and shall be for ever / and no one knows the origins of their splendour”. This is the splendour I seek in five stories of unassuming courage: a rigorous dramaturgical structure in which words and music combine to recreate the scandalous simplicity of those human acts of silent valour (Marco Baliani).
