This article needs additional citations for
verification. (October 2018) |
Fabrizio De André in Concerto | |
---|---|
Video by | |
Released | April 2004 |
Recorded | February 13–14, 1998; Teatro Brancaccio, Rome |
Genre | Folk, world music, rock |
Length | 180 min. |
Label | BMG, Dischi Ricordi |
Director | Mimma Nocelli, Pepi Morgia |
Producer | Dori Ghezzi, Marco Godano |
Fabrizio De André in Concerto, also known as L'ultimo concerto ["The last concert"] or simply In Concerto, is a DVD and concert film by Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, chronicling two February 1998 shows at Teatro Brancaccio in Rome during his successful 1997–1998 Anime salve Italian tour, promoting his same-titled 1996 album. (The tour was quickly renamed The Tarot tour by Italian music journalists and reviewers, because of its peculiar set design.) The shows are De André's last filmed ones before his death in January 1999, although not his very last: the tour, indeed, lasted until August 1998, when De André had to stop it because of the first symptoms of a recurring illness, later diagnosed as lung cancer. The DVD, originally filmed as a TV broadcast on RAI, was directed by Mimma Nocelli and longtime De André collaborator Pepi Morgia, and produced by Dori Ghezzi, who released it in 2004 on her own label Nuvole Productions. [1]
The show consists of two acts, set apart by their musical content. Act 1 starts with three songs from Crêuza de mä (the title track and, notably, the only two songs on the album which are not about Genoa), then De André goes on to perform the Anime salve album in its entirety and in order. Act 2, after an interlude by De André's firstborn son Cristiano, starts with five songs from La buona novella, after which De André performs a selection of his most popular songs, also including "Geordie" as a bonus. The show also features lengthy and detailed spoken introductions by De André about the main three albums that the setlist is based on. (On the DVD, two of these introductions are edited out of the main feature and presented as bonuses, as described above.) Because of the higher prominence given to past material, De André's second-to-last album Le nuvole is completely absent from the setlist of the show; "Don Raffaé", the most easily accessible track from that album and arguably its "greatest hit", was included in the setlist for the first leg of the 1997 tour, but, according to a comment by De André in the "Backstage" bonus feature, it was later dropped from the winter 1997 setlist and throughout 1998 in favour of "Bocca di Rosa" - which holds an even larger popularity among De André's fan base.
Several songs in the show were modified from their studio versions, either to compensate for the absence of musicians and performers who were featured on the respective studio albums, or for purely musical reasons.
The show features almost all of the musicians who played on Anime salve, most of which are regular members of De André's live backing band since 1991. The band also includes American-born keyboardist Mark Harris (who was a stable band member during the first half of the 1980s, but was later dismissed), Neapolitan session percussionist Rosario Jermano (replacing Giuseppe "Naco" Bonaccorso, who played on Anime salve and was tragically killed in a 1996 car crash) and both of De André's children – multi-instrumentalist Cristiano on violin, guitars and keyboards, and Luisa Vittoria, nicknamed "Luvi", as a female vocalist. [5]
The backdrop for the show, which always puts a greater emphasis on the music than on the visuals, is a house of cards made up of wood panels, each one decorated with a pasted-on, oil-on-paper and hugely blown up pictorial rendition of a " Major Arcana" card from a Marseilles Tarot deck; all the pictures are also vaguely similar to Pamela Colman Smith's well-known illustrations for the Rider–Waite deck, but with names in French. The backdrop was conceived and designed by Pepi Morgia, while graphic artist Paola Salvi (who previously painted the "perfect fakes" - i.e. faithful copies of famous paintings from various eras - for De André's 1992-93 tour) painted the actual pictures. As Morgia himself revealed in his 2009 photographic and textual memoir Tourbook, the design was inspired by a comment made to him by De André during the very fragmentary rehearsals for the show; according to the singer-songwriter, the entire show was like a house of cards, which was constantly on the verge of falling down, but, thanks to the musicians' talent, never actually did. He also compared the very ephemeral nature of a house of cards to the frailty of his own life. Morgia's first idea for the cards involved a traditional Neapolitan playing deck, but he changed his mind after Cristiano De André showed him the illustrations from a Marseilles deck which he had, and which Morgia deemed more visually interesting to look at; later on, some elements from the Rider–Waite deck were incorporated as well. [6] Neither Morgia nor anybody else is credited for the set design, as, indeed, both the liner notes and the on-screen credits at the end of the DVD do not include any credits for "set design".
The photo book included with the 16-CD live anthology box set Fabrizio De André: I concerti [i.e. The concerts], released in 2012 by Sony Music, features four pages which include blueprints of the stage, clearly signed "Pepi Morgia" (detailing the locations of all the Tarot cards featured on stage), as well as De André's handwritten comments on the symbolic significance of the "house of cards" design. [7]
This article needs additional citations for
verification. (October 2018) |
Fabrizio De André in Concerto | |
---|---|
Video by | |
Released | April 2004 |
Recorded | February 13–14, 1998; Teatro Brancaccio, Rome |
Genre | Folk, world music, rock |
Length | 180 min. |
Label | BMG, Dischi Ricordi |
Director | Mimma Nocelli, Pepi Morgia |
Producer | Dori Ghezzi, Marco Godano |
Fabrizio De André in Concerto, also known as L'ultimo concerto ["The last concert"] or simply In Concerto, is a DVD and concert film by Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, chronicling two February 1998 shows at Teatro Brancaccio in Rome during his successful 1997–1998 Anime salve Italian tour, promoting his same-titled 1996 album. (The tour was quickly renamed The Tarot tour by Italian music journalists and reviewers, because of its peculiar set design.) The shows are De André's last filmed ones before his death in January 1999, although not his very last: the tour, indeed, lasted until August 1998, when De André had to stop it because of the first symptoms of a recurring illness, later diagnosed as lung cancer. The DVD, originally filmed as a TV broadcast on RAI, was directed by Mimma Nocelli and longtime De André collaborator Pepi Morgia, and produced by Dori Ghezzi, who released it in 2004 on her own label Nuvole Productions. [1]
The show consists of two acts, set apart by their musical content. Act 1 starts with three songs from Crêuza de mä (the title track and, notably, the only two songs on the album which are not about Genoa), then De André goes on to perform the Anime salve album in its entirety and in order. Act 2, after an interlude by De André's firstborn son Cristiano, starts with five songs from La buona novella, after which De André performs a selection of his most popular songs, also including "Geordie" as a bonus. The show also features lengthy and detailed spoken introductions by De André about the main three albums that the setlist is based on. (On the DVD, two of these introductions are edited out of the main feature and presented as bonuses, as described above.) Because of the higher prominence given to past material, De André's second-to-last album Le nuvole is completely absent from the setlist of the show; "Don Raffaé", the most easily accessible track from that album and arguably its "greatest hit", was included in the setlist for the first leg of the 1997 tour, but, according to a comment by De André in the "Backstage" bonus feature, it was later dropped from the winter 1997 setlist and throughout 1998 in favour of "Bocca di Rosa" - which holds an even larger popularity among De André's fan base.
Several songs in the show were modified from their studio versions, either to compensate for the absence of musicians and performers who were featured on the respective studio albums, or for purely musical reasons.
The show features almost all of the musicians who played on Anime salve, most of which are regular members of De André's live backing band since 1991. The band also includes American-born keyboardist Mark Harris (who was a stable band member during the first half of the 1980s, but was later dismissed), Neapolitan session percussionist Rosario Jermano (replacing Giuseppe "Naco" Bonaccorso, who played on Anime salve and was tragically killed in a 1996 car crash) and both of De André's children – multi-instrumentalist Cristiano on violin, guitars and keyboards, and Luisa Vittoria, nicknamed "Luvi", as a female vocalist. [5]
The backdrop for the show, which always puts a greater emphasis on the music than on the visuals, is a house of cards made up of wood panels, each one decorated with a pasted-on, oil-on-paper and hugely blown up pictorial rendition of a " Major Arcana" card from a Marseilles Tarot deck; all the pictures are also vaguely similar to Pamela Colman Smith's well-known illustrations for the Rider–Waite deck, but with names in French. The backdrop was conceived and designed by Pepi Morgia, while graphic artist Paola Salvi (who previously painted the "perfect fakes" - i.e. faithful copies of famous paintings from various eras - for De André's 1992-93 tour) painted the actual pictures. As Morgia himself revealed in his 2009 photographic and textual memoir Tourbook, the design was inspired by a comment made to him by De André during the very fragmentary rehearsals for the show; according to the singer-songwriter, the entire show was like a house of cards, which was constantly on the verge of falling down, but, thanks to the musicians' talent, never actually did. He also compared the very ephemeral nature of a house of cards to the frailty of his own life. Morgia's first idea for the cards involved a traditional Neapolitan playing deck, but he changed his mind after Cristiano De André showed him the illustrations from a Marseilles deck which he had, and which Morgia deemed more visually interesting to look at; later on, some elements from the Rider–Waite deck were incorporated as well. [6] Neither Morgia nor anybody else is credited for the set design, as, indeed, both the liner notes and the on-screen credits at the end of the DVD do not include any credits for "set design".
The photo book included with the 16-CD live anthology box set Fabrizio De André: I concerti [i.e. The concerts], released in 2012 by Sony Music, features four pages which include blueprints of the stage, clearly signed "Pepi Morgia" (detailing the locations of all the Tarot cards featured on stage), as well as De André's handwritten comments on the symbolic significance of the "house of cards" design. [7]