CARNIVAL BREAKS THROUGH THE FOG. VENICE, SCAPARRO, LA BIENNALE 1980, 1981, 1982, 2006

In conjunction with Carnival 2022 and as a tribute on the 90th birthday of the great director Maurizio Scaparro, Director of the Theatre Department from 1979 to 1982 and from 2006 to 2009, the Historical Archives of the Cotemporary Arts (ASAC) has organized the exhibition titled Carnival breaks through the fog. Venice, Scaparro, La Biennale 1980, 1981, 1982, 2006, open to the public from February 17th to May 15th 2022 in the Portego at Ca’ Giustinian.

The catalogue, published for the occasion, illustrates the entire exhibition starting with the first Carnival of Theatre(1980) which invaded the streets and squares of Venice. It reconstructs the story of Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo, documenting the performances that it housed before it left, by sea, on its journey in 1980 from Venice to the city of Dubrovnik.
It documents the Carnival of Reason (1981), which analysed the language of eighteenth-century theatre, and the third Carnival of Theatre, titled Naples in Venice (1982), which united the “two capitals of the comedy of masks”.
The story ends with the fourth edition of the Carnival of Theatre(2006), titled The Dragon and the Lion, which connected Venice to China, following in the wake of Marco Polo’s travels.

The catalogue is introduced by a text by Carmelo Alberti, formerly a Professor of the Disciplines of the Performing Arts at the University of Ca’ Foscari, titled Maurizio Scaparro’s Biennale «Carnivals», or utopia that comes back to life in the dream of a dream.It features materials gathered and preserved in the Historical Archives of La Biennale. In addition to the images on exhibit, the catalogue also contains the presentations written by Maurizio Scaparro, published with the original editorial materials, the press releases, the videos and in chronological order, the Companies, the performances and the events in the programmes.