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The Passion of Christ: in a natural setting of hills, woods and mountains, for over two centuries from the beginning of '800, the representation of the Passion takes place every five years. Expression of the ancient popular theatre, the event actively involves the entire community of Sordevolo.
2005 Edition - The performance - |
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Sordevolo
inhabitants have been playing the Passion of Christ since 1816,
but the history of this stately sacred representation is much
more ancient. In Rome, already during last years of fifteenth
century, the play of the Passion was a choral and magnificent
event, by which the Church commemorated Christ's death on Holy
Friday. The Confraternities performed the representation at
Colosseum, with a large attendance of people, pilgrims and
notables.
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The Passion of Sordevolo is certainly the greatest choral play never performed in Italy by amateur actors, young and older, who work and prepare themselves for this big event in all seriousness and devotion. The performance takes place in a 4,000 square metres open space, a reconstructed corner of Jerusalem, dating back to 33 A.D.: Herod's Palace, Synedrium, Pontius Pilate's Praetorium, the Garden of Gethsemane, the cenacle, the Calvary.
The 3-hours
performance consists of a prologue and 29 scenes, with an overall
participation of about 400 actors and walk-on characters.
The representation is based on a late 15th century text, written in
lines by the Florentine Giuliano Dati, chaplain of the church of Santi
Martiri in Trastevere, in Rome.
Since about 1490, the play was performed on Good Friday in the
Colosseum, by the Roman Company of Gonfalon Confraternity, with a
large attendance of people, pilgrims, travellers and notables. This
tradition was interrupted in 1539 by Pope Paul III 's prohibition of
such representations, due to the dramatic Reformation period and the
subsequent Luther's, Calvino's and other religious movements
detachment from the Roman Catholic Church.
The "Roman" passion text reached Sordevolo through still
mysterious ways. The first hypothesis is that the original text may be
arrived in Piedmont thanks to the relationships existing between the
Roman Gonfalon Confraternity and Sordevolo St Lucy Confraternity, its
direct affiliate. A second hypothesis takes into consideration the
commercial contacts between the family Ambrosetti, weavers and
merchants of Sordevolo "fine cloth", and its own buyers in
Rome.
2005 Edition - The Performance - Calendar and tickets prices |
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PERFORMANCES |
MATINEE 4:00 PM |
EVENING 9:30 PM |
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MONTH |
DAY |
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June |
19-26 |
18-25 |
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July |
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1-2-8-9-15-16-22-23-29-30 |
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PERFORMANCES |
MATINEE 4:00 PM |
EVENING 9:00 PM |
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MONTH |
DAY |
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August |
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5-6-12-13-19-20-21-26-27 |
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September |
4-11-18-25 |
3-10-17-24 |
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N.B.: on 2nd and 9th September at 9:00 PM there will be two repeat performances of the "Passion of Children", entirely played by Sordevolo's children and young. |
