19:00, Sat 22nd June 2024 at Keynes Hall, King's College, King's Parade, Cambridge CB2 1ST, United Kingdom
17:00, Sun 23rd June 2024 at Fellows' Garden, King's College, King's Parade, Cambridge CB2 1ST, United Kingdom
Easter May Week to Summer Vacation
Join us for an enchanting evening immersed in the world of the Decameron on June 22nd and 23rd at King's College.
- Saturday 22nd June, at 7pm, Keynes Seminar Room, King's College.
- Sunday 23rd June, at 5pm, Fellow's Garden, King's College. Please note that the previous location (Provost's Garden) is incorrect.
The actor Paolo Panaro will read and interpret some short stories from the italian masterpiece Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio.
The event will be held in Italian.
The Decameron is one of the great literary masterpieces of Italian literature. It tells of a group of young people, seven women and three men who, during the plague of 1348, took refuge in the hills near Florence. For almost two weeks, they peacefully entertain themselves with various pastimes according to precise rules, including songs, dances and games. They decide to spend a few hours taking turns telling stories. The short stories are inserted in a narrative frame, starting from the Proem and the Introduction to the first day, with the story of the plague. Within a multiplicity of topics, environments, characters and tones, in an excellent play of symmetries, some of Boccaccio's favorite themes can be identified as central, such as luck, ingenuity, courtesy, love, but also mockery and chance. Fortune and Nature, true ministers of the World, are at the basis of the moral conception of the Decameron. For Boccaccio, love is an irrepressible force, a source of delight but also pain, which acts in the most diverse social strata and for this reason often clashes with cultural prejudices and customs. In this context, the real virtue is not mortification of instinct, but rather the ability to satisfy and dominate natural impulses. Variety and composure ensure a balanced compactness in a work dominated by a complex and highly cultured intelligence, capable of blending the new and the tradition.
Actor and director, Paolo Panaro is the main artist of the Diaghilev company. He graduated in 1988 from the School of Interpretation and Scenic Expression of the Pugliese Public Theater Consortium, directed by maestro Orazio Costa Giovangigli. For over twenty years he has worked steadily with the Diaghilev company, taking care of the creation of production initiatives and artistic projects. Mr. Panaro has developed an original catalog of narrative shows. Through a recovery of the theatrical techniques of the ancient storytellers and an in-depth study of the techniques of diction, Panaro has created a repertoire of shows, the titles of which are taken from the heritage of great literature and range between different genres: from the fable, to the poem, to contemporary novel. Various works, in addition to being proposed at a regional level, have been presented at important theaters and festivals of national importance (Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia, Festival della Letteratura of Mantua, Festival Orizzonti of Chiusi, Teatro del Sale of Florence, etc.). He also attended the theater workshops held by the actors Tonino Pierfederici and Jerzy Stuhr, as well as the highly specialized courses of the `Silvio D'Amico' National Academy of Dramatic Arts directed by the maestro Luca Ronconi, the actress Marisa Fabbri and the musicologist Paolo Terni.