The Este court never left Ferrara. Even if it does not exist institutionally, its legacy is still very present. It is enough, in a certain sense, to open the curtain of the city that Bassani described in such a theatrical way. Precisely, opening the curtain: this is what he did, and what Claudio Gualandi has always done, and which is now clearly visible in the exhibition dedicated to him in the spaces of the Teatro Comunale of Ferrara. The graphic image returns a stage, which – in Gualandi’s case – does not have a fourth wall, on the contrary: it is the exit door to the outside world, to an urban reality crowded with masks that are inspired, primarily, by the theater .
The exhibition, entitled ‘Ferrara, theater of the city in the illustrations of Claudio Gualandi’, was inaugurated yesterday and will remain on display until 15 September. It is organized by the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara Foundation, in collaboration with Ferrara Arte, with the aim of telling the story of the Abbado Theatre, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of its restoration. “Two themes continually return in my drawings: Ferrara and the theater – explains the artist –. I would have liked to work in the theatre, perhaps behind the scenes. I studied scenography at the Venice Academy and was part of a young acting company. We rehearsed at the Sala Estense, our second home: my illustrations were the field of application of these passions”. The panels in the Rotonda Foschini and the illustrations in the Ridotto of the theater welcome a myriad of bizarre characters, who populate the places of the city theatre: from the Palazzo Ducale with its courtyard theatre, to Palazzo Schifanoia, passing through the street theatre, the house in celebration of Ludovico Ariosto or the Teatro degli Obizzi. The story of the Municipal Theater begins with the first of the premieres: on 2 September 1798, in full French occupation, what was called the National Theatre, designed by Cosimo Morelli and Antonio Foschini, inaugurated. Nobles and bourgeois mingle with the “Ferrara types” to watch Marco Portugal’s Gli Orazi ei Curiazi. It continues with the Theater returned to the city in 1964, restored after the Second World War, followed by almost twenty years of disuse: on 31 October the curtain rises again, with a concert by the Teatro alla Scala orchestra, conducted by Nino Sanzogno. In Claudio Gualandi’s drawing the point of view on the stage is frontal, that is, from the privileged place for a spectator, the main box. The illustrator makes us sit in the place of the authorities. In this muffled place, a closed living room, we feel hidden and at the same time exposed to everyone’s gaze and we all watch, but with discretion. The setting is the city and is an open window onto the square packed with people. “Claudio Gualandi gives us a great gift: in an era of social media, he takes us back to real life, to human density and encounters – comments Moni Ovadia, director of Abbado –. These works show that humanity has won if it does not create tricks to overcome itself, like artificial intelligence, but uses its resources to move towards new forms of society and aggregation such as theatre”. “Gualandi has not only illustrated the city of Ferrara – continues the councilor for culture, Marco Gulinelli –, but has contributed to making its cultural identity indelible. We define him as an artist, but he is also an artist of the people, with a narrative path very important visual, which was able to capture the essence of Ferrara”.
