On Tuesday 14 May, at 8.30 pm, at the Abeliano Theater in Bari, the twenty-ninth concert season of the Collegium Musicum continues: on stage a precious event that will merge theater and music, conceived by Rino Marrone, who on the podium will conduct the Collegium Musicum: the voice narrator of the theater director, actor and television presenter Pino Strabioli will tell, together with the Collegium and the children’s choir “Vox Juvenes” by Emanuela Aymone, the theater of a master like Sergio Tofano (1886-1973), with the stage music written by two great Italian composers for as many theatrical comedies: those by Fiorenzo Carpi for «Bonaventura Veterinario per forza» (in the suite by Rino Campanale) and the music by Nino Rota for «Bonaventura nell’isola dei parrots» (in the suite by Nicola Scardicchio) .
Info and reservations: 340.499.38.26. Tickets at 12 euros (full price), 9 euros (reduced for over 65s, students and disabled people).
The concert is a special tribute to the greatness of Sergio Tofano, fifty years after his death. Actor, director, cartoonist, writer and playwright of great refinement, he became famous for the creation of “Mr. Bonaventura”, an imaginary comics character created in 1917 and published by Corriere dei Piccoli until 1978. The character entered with his proverbial million of lire in Italian culture of the 20th century. In addition to the re-editions of the historical plates, by publishers such as Adelphi, television, theatrical and cinematographic transpositions of the character have been created.
Bonaventura, among the characters of vintage comics, is one of the most long-lived and popular, so much so that he can rightfully enter the history of national customs with his adventures, which start badly but always end with the unexpected and fortunate reward of a million lire. Even today he is surprisingly well known, testimony to his creator’s ability to create a character “truer than the real”.
