Sgarbi's Renaissance trio begins

(by Daniela Giammusso) (ANSA) - Rome, March 6 - Vittorio Sgarbi will be speaking about art through another play after his one on Caravaggio, just after the Italian parliamentary elections in which he was centre-right candidate in Acerra. Sgarbi was defeated by Five Star Movement (M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio. In discussing the theatrical work, Sgarbi said that "it is a tale of the contemporaneity of an idea, more than a human experience. A way of thinking so big that every artist has to come to terms with him. It is a contemporary aspect of the world of ideas, of artistic inventions." His 'Michelangelo' will debut in Rome on March 15 at Teatro Olimpico and run through March 18 prior to going on tour. On the same evening there will be an immersive show with Sting music and the voice of Francesco Favino at the Auditorium della Conciliazione on Michelangelo as well. "I had thought about a broader tale on the Renaissance," Sgarbi said. " It would have enabled me to change the subject almost every evening. But the possibility of the birth of a political movement that was considering the name 'Renaissance' made theaters think that there may have been a conflict of interests." And thus a trilogy was born. After 'Michelangelo' there will be a show on Leonardo Da Vinci (who died in 1519) - from June 3 at Verona's Teatro Romano, producer Marcello Corvino said - and one on Raphael (who died in 1520). "And since among the anniversaries of famous deaths that the institutions set up a committee for, at least as long as there was a state," Sgarbi said, "was also Dante, who died in 1321, it is possible that in 2021 I will do one on someone who was not a painter: Dante." After the show on Caravaggio "was more successful than expected, from the north to the south: clearly culture unites and politics divided," he said, the tale of Michelangelo this time will not focus on comparisons and personalities (as was the case with Caravaggio and Pasolini), "but on the timeliness and contemporary aspect of his way of thinking: so vast that everyone had to come to terms with him, from Giacometti to Marini and Munch. And then Rodin, Henry Moore, and Jan Fabre - who brought a Pieta' to the 2011 Biennale which had a skull and not a face." There will also be talk of current issues, Sgarbi noted, saying that "I am not ruling out political references to these people who will from tomorrow be entering parliament. They know that they have an enemy for life. Fascism began like this. The March on Rome has begun. We are getting ready to engage in resistance."