DONNA FABIA

To say that Carlo Porta (Milan, 1775 - Milan, 1821) and Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli (Rome, 1791 - Rome,1863) are the greatest exponents of 19th-century dialect poetry is to do them an injustice. They are two very great poets (or rather novelists, we shall see later why) who may well vault to the heights of their contemporaries Foscolo (Zante, 1778 - Turnham Green, 1827) or Leopardi (Recanati, 1798 - Naples, 1837), whose value is reductively perceived because of their choice to express themselves in the "plebeian" mother tongue rather than in the literary idiom that constitutes of this almost a "translation." If at least part of their poetic corpus had been written in Italian (as Berchet, Manzoni and others will also do), their notoriety would probably be much more extensive.

Why consider Belli and Porta as novelists? The object of their research is the accurate description of social patterns and behaviors, of unintentional (but perhaps not) historical frescoes, of tableaux-vivants and dialogues ready for the theater capable of restoring their time with such complexity and richness of nuance from greatly dilating the boundaries of poetry. Excluding from this context a more in-depth examination, those who wish can take advantage of Dante Isella's illuminating work (in C. Porta, Poesie, to edited by D. I., Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1958, pp. XI-XXIX). Here I would like to say only about the criterion adopted in the "translation" in order to remain faithful and not lose the aristo-becherous blend of donna Fabia: a mixture of archaisms, fine idioms and elegant terms mixed with the current language, not without the coquetry of slipping in some nice vulgarity. This is the world of the late 18th-century Lombard aristocracy, which relies its economy on immense estates and agrarian income that allows for the good life in the city and the outpouring of vacationing in the splendid sumptuous Lombard mansions. With attached army of servants, maids, factors, gardeners, cooks, scullery maids, coachmen, the King's most royalist butler, and finally the ever-present priest of the house, whose good offices are supposed to ensure the dolce vita in the afterlife while they enjoy the privileges of the hereafter beautifully. This explains why there remain a few monkish Milanese words in the queue (Fabron, tal, qual, ugual, simil, infallibil, mandare to dar via, etc ) and the scurrilous vezzi that never leave the gentlemen, a kind of coarse parallel language that runs through the conversation like the ditch beside the road.

Of the Porta, I also intended to respect going in and out of the canon of metrics, according to the mood of the moment: to stretches courtly, elsewhere "practical," with no regard for infringement.

The poetry in Milanese, for those few who speak it (and let it be clear that to understand it all I have to make an effort myself!) is hilarious. To make to everyone understand it, the show adds a live countersong: Adriana, patiently waiting for the film to end (as in a Fabio Mauri or Bob Wilson installation) and then gracefully pitting the translation. I first worked with Adriana Asti in 1994, in the film Pasolini, un delitto italiano. We then met again over time: La meglio gioventù (2003), Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti (2005), until to a few months ago in Nome di donna. from always we would have liked to do something together dedicated to Porta, deity of both meneghini. Of course, one has to imagine the Milan of the paintings of Piccio (Giovanni Carnevali), Carlo Canella, Giuseppe Elena, Giuseppe Molteni or the portraits of Andrea Appiani and Francesco Hayez.

Adriana's costume, rather than harking back to early 19th century fashion (with a Napoleonic predilection for light fabrics and petticoats and shawls) echoes that of the earlier decades before the Revolution: the black in which Donna Fabia wraps herself is that of a Goyesque Maja vestida who regrets Austrian rule, perhaps even its Spanish antecedent. She wears mourning, but not for family reasons, but for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that flew spitefully away.

The house priest is played from Andreapietro Anselmi, obliged by stomach languor to conniving silent assent.

Marco Tullio Giordana