A theatrical season entitled "Passion and madness" can only bear the signature of a woman. Corinne Baroni is even clearer: “The work in the theater is multifaceted, multifaceted, it has a multitude of levels: a woman can interpret it best. This is why I affirm that theater is a woman”. When, at the end of last summer, it arrived at the Teatro Coccia in Novara, no one would have ever imagined the revolutions, large and small, that Baroni had (and has) in the pipeline for that traditional theater in Piedmont, just a stone's throw away gunshot from Milan. But Baroni is like this. She stubbornness from Trentino, where she was born, passion and enthusiasm that only "a woman of the theater", she knows how to keep together. Her career is entirely spent in Italian theatres, from her debut at La Scala in Milan to her professional maturity at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna.
Let's start from the end, from the news of these days. How did it occur to her to ask the staff of the Coccia di dressing up to sell tickets for next season?
“Not only did I ask the staff, but I myself took on the role of a noble courtesan, one of the many characters that populate theErnani by Giuseppe Verdi which opens the Coccia season on 18 October. I thought that welcoming my audience in sixteenth-century opera clothes would be very suggestive and would somehow make them part of the ongoing behind-the-scenes process these days. It was simple, I told my colleagues: tomorrow at 9 we'll meet at the tailor shop. It all happened in disbelief and general curiosity, but we had fun and it worked”.
With thei everything seems simple, what can you say one year after taking office?
"No it does not. Instead, everything is always uphill, but I don't give up. One year is a minimum time to orient yourself both in a new territory and in a new theatre. The real difficulty is funding. Il Coccia suffers from a structural lack of funds, the management is excellent, but the problem is the fixed costs. It is increasingly necessary to create a system and to do this I have to look to Turin, to the Teatro Regio. Because while in other regions traditional theaters like mine belong to very specific circuits (Tuscany, Lombardy, for example), Coccia travels alone and this makes me feel 'foreign' in some way. But I can't stop at co-productions, we need to put new life into it”.
What do you mean?
“I think a theater should be a city meeting point, a meeting place, where people talk, listen, where things are always happening. A center of cultural production projected outwards”.
No is the first to say so, actually.
“True, but now I can't stand the hackneyed phrase 'We have to open the theater doors'. On the contrary, it is I who have to commit myself to getting my content out. It seems to me a much more ambitious job”.
For example?
“Basically I amplify what happens on stage. Under the review "Coccia allo mirror" I bring out the contents of what happens in the theatre. Thus, at the opening of the season with Ernani I've built a program of appointments that serve the public as a 'toolbox' for more aware listening”.
What is your recipe for Coccia?
“Doing research and innovation in a traditional theatre”.
Easier said than done, I'm afraid.
“I am thinking of some characteristic points of my mandate. In the meantime, we need to work on training the public and on quality. Training the public means acting without presumption on our part because it would be like saying that my public is ignorant. Indeed, the theater must increasingly offer products of the highest quality, it is I who have the duty to raise the bar. Then I want to create relationships abroad, I want to bring Coccia to Europe, I'm also working in this direction. Finally, I have studied a new form of subscription for the public that I particularly like”.
What?
“I created a booklet of 10 titles freely chosen by the viewer. There are ten things you like, including prose, opera, fantasy, including all that Coccia offers on the bill. It is a subscription that everyone can sew on. It's an agile and streamlined tool, I hope it's not just me who likes it”.
And then there is the VIP formula?
“Yes, that doesn't stand for Very Important Person but is an acronym for Come, Start, Try. It is designed with a view to bringing an ever-increasing number of people closer to the work: four titles for a reduced cost of the entrance ticket. In reality whoever subscribes to this subscription is truly a VIP for me, they are my future audience”.
Speaking of VIPs, on November 10 a real star of the kitchen will be hosted: Antonino Cannavacciuolo, protagonist of a new opera produced by the Coccia Theater Foundation.
“We have set up a really important operation, a live cooking opera with the chef who for the first time will tread the scenes of an opera house creating a dish especially for us. A live cooking directed by Roberto Recchia and Umberto Spinazzola and with music by Valentino Corvino. I'm very happy".
You launch an invitation: pWhy a spectator from Milan or Turin should come to the Coccia to see this Ernani?
“He's right. I cannot compete with theaters like La Scala or the Regio di Torino. Then I have to do something else. Because of this Ernani we have recovered the historic set-up in co-production with the Massimo of Palermo. In the cast there will be two role debuts: the tenor Migran Agadzhanyan will be Ernani and Elvira will be the American-born soprano Courtney Mills. We'll see what happens".
Very interesting