ARCHIVES 1999 / La Tempesta

Prospero's island can neither be located geographically nor situated in time. True to its Shakespearean form, it contains the whole world and exposes power struggles and intrigues. Prospero, shipwrecked there for the last ten years, stripped of his duchy of Milan by an ambitious brother, has the spoliation of a throne re-enacted by castaways - the very same who were henchmen yesterday are the victims today. Prospero is the magician of this Tempest: he orchestrates the passions in order to live them out better - from the inside - to free himself from them - once and for all, and thus return to the world.For Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Prospero is not aged, but a man in full maturity, the time when one observes oneself and wants to dominate one's own story. The island is the place where personal histories are woven into History. The island is also the symbolic representation of one's body, with Ariel on the head and Caliban below the belt. In this symbolic body, tales flow and each scene represents one passion: love, ambition, lust, hate, violence, politics...