Racconto di un presepe vivente. Donzelli Editore, 2004

What are the shepherds of the Nativity scene thinking about, frozen in their condition of eternal statuettes?

David Riondino and Stefano Bollani try to envisage their thoughts in a musical tale (they call a “little chamber opera”) that captures the shepherds as they worship the Child.

We find out that their initial astonishment very soon turns into the opposite: the discouragement of someone who discovers to have lost his ability to move, bound in perpetual contemplation of something he hardly understands and the details of which he ignores. As they sing and wonder, the statuettes have a chance to decide to break out of this immobility and really fall in love with life and the present. Those are difficult choices to make if you have been still for millennia, but you can make them for sure!

A book-CD that presents a theatre performance in which, for once, the singers, instead of “wiggling and play-acting” (cit. Riondino), are forced to stay still for an hour and a half and to interpret passions through their own voices only.

If we are not able to think of everything we remember

and we are not able to know everything we desire

because whatever we imagine, we imagine it on our own

because our despair makes us look like someone…

…DON’T STAY STILL!

Additional Information

Piano and composition: Stefano Bollani

Text and narration: David Riondino

Illustrations: Sergio Staino

The singing statuettes: Paolo Benvegnù, Monica Demuru, Petra Magoni, Mauro Mengali

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