Inspired by the song of the same name by Giorgio Gaber takes shape How beautiful the city is. It is a 500 square metre work that covers the scaffolding covering the façade of the Lyric Theatre by Milanin the process of restorationThe construction site-event is making the city talk about its beauty and originality of design. The great installation of Via Larga was designed and composed by the Italian designer, costume designer and artist Antonio Marras and wants to portray three great histrionic figures, who take up the art of acting in the theatre, facing what can be interpreted as an urban stage. It is a tribute to the theatre itself but not only, to all performances and to the commedia dell'arte.
The presentation comes at a time of great excitement, when the city is in the throes of Milan's Art and Design Weeks. The work was strongly supported by the Gianfranco Dioguardi Foundationby the Garibaldi-Fragasso company, the City of Milan and accompanies the restoration of the Teatro Lirico, before its official reopening.
How beautiful the city is, how alive the city is.
How beautiful the city is is intended as a tribute to one of Italy's most famous singer-songwriters, fifteen years after his death, in light of the fact that the 'new' Teatro Lirico will be named after him, precisely to commemorate the many performances he brought to the structure undergoing restoration. An important initiative not only for Design Week, but also because it is organised as part of the "Yard-event"experiment that Dioguardi himself wanted. "We open the site to artistic activities," Dioguardi emphasised in an interview with Corriere - not to experience it as a place of discomfort, inaccessible, but on the contrary so that it is seen as a project capable of creating belonging in the urban context".
Satisfaction also came from the artist who, with colours, shapes, designs, fabrics and textiles, created a unique work. "This work allows the theatre to dialogue with the city," said Marras, "and portrays two men and a woman dancing, or perhaps joking and laughing. In Gaber's texts there was always a veiled melancholy, and these are three characters that come out of the theatre, out of the curtain and peacefully invade the city. Milan in this way is always more beautiful, more alive, just as Giorgio Gaber used to say'.
The programme of Yard-event was inaugurated last September with a fashion show by Antonio Marras inside the theatre itself, and since then 'that' Teatro Lirico has become a reference point throughout Milan, a constant appointment with art and numerous events, right up to the presentation of the review 'Milano con Gaber', in which Ivano Fossati also participated.
Installation How beautiful the city is will be visible from 12 April to 30 June at all hours of the day and night, thanks to lighting specially designed to make the work accessible to the public at all times.
Cover photo: Lorenzo Bacci
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