The double bill of Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni and Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna playing at the Paris Opera from November 29^th to December 23^rd, is an unexpected association. However, between the Sicilian tragedy and the mysterious fervour that leads a nun to kiss the body of Christ, director Mario Martone sees a common dramatic thread running through them both. Here he reveals the key ideas of his production.

Mario Martone: In fact, music has always been present in my career. I started working when I was very young, in the late seventies. I was 17 or 18. At the time, I was part of an avant-garde group called Falso Movimento (False Movement). We organised visual and musical performances. One of my first performances in fact used the music of Verdi’s Otello, arranged by the America composer, Peter Gordon. The production was presented at the MaMa, the New York experimental art centre, before touring in various other countries… Cinema came into my life later, when I was about thirty. Soon after the turn of the century, I staged my first opera: Così fan tutte with Claudio Abbado. My career has been made up of lines, threads which, at a certain point, began to intersect: after that, in 2010, I made Noi Credevamo¹ for which I used 19^th century Italian music – Verdi, Rossini, Bellini… I was working on the interactions between Art and History, and Roberto Abbado conducted the Turin Orchestra. To return to your question, I would say then that I have always used music in my work but with great freedom. My artistic career is like an archipelago: my creations are distinct from each other, often far apart, but they end up intersecting each other after several years.

M.M.: When La Scala asked me to stage the diptych Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci, I hesitated for a long time. Italian Verismo is certainly not my favourite repertoire. There is something that disturbs me in its rhetoric. I finally took on the project when I realised that I could adopt an aesthetic of sobriety: rather than adding images I could take them out. In Cavalleria Rusticana, I thus decided to eliminate all the Sicilian folklore – the market place, the church bells, the farmers’ wagons…: everything that seemed to me to weigh down the drama and obscure its essence, which is that of a Greek tragedy. One mustn’t forget that before it became that picturesque world full of farm carts, Sicily was part of Ancient Greece. [laughs].

If we look at Cavalleria from that angle, the piece takes on a different meaning. I emptied the stage until I had this almost bare space in which the liturgical ritual, the Easter Mass, takes place [mentioned in the libretto]. This arrangement gives the chorus central importance. In focussing on the singers of the chorus, I wanted to return to the sacred dimension of the opera.

M.M.: No, I thought of them as two completely different productions. I didn’t try to unify them through a single dramaturgical approach. In fact, for Pagliacci, the scenography was not sparse: it was filled with visual suggestivity.

M.M.: To understand the link between the two works, one must begin with my staging of Cavalleria, which is set in a church during the Easter mass. This mass takes place in front of an altar and a crucifix that visually dominates the tragedy. On that premise, my interpretation exacerbates the eroticism and the sensuality of the drama by interweaving them with the sacred. Cavalleria is a tragedy about passion and betrayal. It is self-abandon and exaltation of the senses that lead to the catastrophe. What I find interesting, personally, is this huge contrast that Mascagni draws out of Verga’s novella and dramatises: the composer underlines the sacred dimension very strongly – far more strongly than in Verga –and the contrast with the sensual dimension and bodily desire, with longing that must be satisfied in spite of everything and at any price creates an obvious link with Sancta Susanna. This articulation between the two works was born therefore, I think, out of my vision of Cavalleria Rusticana.

M.M. Yes, at the beginning of Cavalleria we hear off-stage voices, that far-off song we imagine comes from the Sicilian countryside, redolent with the scent of oranges, luxuriant vines, blossoming myrtles and golden ears of wheat… They are just voices, an essential moment of opera, an instant of euphoria produced by the earth and the sun: a sort of pagan sensuality, a surrender to nature. In a certain way, Sancta Susanna takes up and amplifies this theme. Indeed, nature also plays an important role in Hindemith’s opera: the spring night, the perfume of the lilac, the bush behind which the gardener and the servant make love…

M.M.: The two operas effectively present a huge contrast. Whilst Cavalleria rusticana has a firm, horizontal narrative line, I see Sancta Susanna more as a vision, an expression emanating from within. In Hindemith’s opera, I tried to render visible on stage what Susanna was feeling within herself. But this contrast did not prevent me from weaving links between the two halves of the programme. First of all, there is the presence of the crucifix, which assures visual continuity. Furthermore, both works raise questions about our relationship with space: how does space open up? How does it retract? I play with these spatial expansions and retractions to find a certain rhythm.

M.M.: Yes, Giotto: at the beginning of the opera, Susanna’s cell is inspired by his very Italian vision, before the invention of perspective. But this inspiration is only visible at the beginning of the opera. Afterwards, everything explodes…

Interviewed by Simon Hatab and Farah Makki
Translated from the Italian by Farah Makki

Playing alongside Cavalleria rusticana this season, Paul Hindemith’s smouldering opera Sancta Susanna, recounts the story of a young nun torn between morality and sensual desire. A turmoil embodied by the figure of Christ, to whom director Mario Martone wanted to give a spectacular appearance. José Sciuto, deputy director of the technical department and the artistic director of the Opera’s Studios, tells us about the conception of this particular component of the set.

“Without wanting to reveal all the surprises that Mario Martone has reserved for audiences in his production of Sancta Susanna, at a specific moment in the performance a monumental statue of Christ appears. The body is visible only as far as the pelvis. It evokes the burden of religious morality, intertwined with the themes of sensuality and sexuality which forms of the main themes of Mario Martone’s interpretation, both for Sancta Susanna and for “Cavalleria”.

The idea was to create the impression of sculpted and painted wood. We were inspired by a rather morbid, “suffering” Spanish Christ with droplets of blood trickling over his knees, similar to those found in the work of painter Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) for example. The director also insisted that the nail be clearly visible to further emphasise the impression of suffering. He wanted the sculpture to look like an old crucifix from the 14th or 15th centuries. It had to seem to be in poor condition as if it had been manhandled, broken and patched up again.

Just as painters sometimes do, to better represent the appearance of the human body – irrespective of its state –, we used a “cut-away”, or a model which allowed us to study the appearance and connections of the muscles and joints.

Five sculptors worked together to create the imposing eleven-meter-high Christ. The statue is sculpted entirely out of polystyrene and reinforced with resin and fibreglass on the outside for structural solidity.

For the perizoma – Christ’s loincloth – stage designer Sergio Tramonti wanted us to use a simple plastic tarp, like those used to protect floors during renovation work. This material, with its rather sordid and seedy appearance, goes well with the idea of a dilapidated crumbling old cross. It was also necessary for the loincloth to retain some of its transparency to reflect Susanna’s own turmoil.

The Opera often makes use of statues of Christ. Even so, the originality of Mario Martone’s approach lies in the fact that his crucifix is not just merely decorative: He asked us to build it in such a way that at a specific moment in the performance, Susanna could interact with it. What is the nature of that interaction? What does Susanna do with the statue? I’d rather not say too much as I don’t want to undermine the element of surprise…”    

Interviewed by Juliette Puaux

One of the particularities of the Cavalleria Rusticana / Sancta Susanna programme opening soon at Opera Bastille is that the production of Cavalleria Rusticana in the first half of the programme is a revival: Mario Martone staged it in 2011 for La Scala Milan. At that time the work was coupled with Pagliacci, whereas at the Opéra Bastille, it will be followed by Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna. A number of critics praised the finesse and virtuosity of the Italian director’s production.

“ We were expecting Mario Martone to have remained in the 19^th century atmosphere that infused his film Noi credevamo. We were delighted by his decision to transpose the action of both operas to the end of the 20^th century […]. The ensemble scenes are dazzlingly natural, in both the summer festivities of Pagliacci […] and the Easter celebrations in “Cavalleria”. In the latter, […] Martone places the chorus on an empty stage, some facing the audience, others facing away from it and shrouded in darkness. They are listening to a sermon, which has been perfectly reconstituted, and seem to be both part of the production and something external to it, sitting on their chairs in the church. Martone is well served by Pasquale Mari’s marvellous lighting design.”

Michelangelo Zurletti, La Repubblica, 20^th January 2011

“Mario Martone’s production, created in 2011, shows a sobriety both revealing and spectacular […]. The rift between ritual and individual drama, so well represented on the stage, is reflected in the orchestra.”

Angelo Folletto, La Repubblica, 19^th January 2014 

“The director, Mario Martone, usually expresses himself from behind the camera or in writing. Recently he has taken part in a number of operatic productions […] Martone has chosen to differentiate the two works [Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci], by giving us a minimalist reading of “Cavalleria” stripped of all its usual flowery rusticity. He has given the characters, freshly emerged from Verga’s play, the masks of a “human tragedy” both passionate and universal.

Daniela Zacconi, Il Corriere della Sera, 11^th January 2011

“Cavalleria Rusticana has been conceived as a choreography: on stage, movements and stage props are as rare as they are significant, necessary and essential. Spaces are created solely by light: amongst the other highly inspired ideas, we should mention the assimilation of the house and the church into a single location, the constant presence of the chorus on stage and its position either facing the audience or with its back to it, signifying inclusion or exclusion, tolerance or condemnation of the heroine.”

Fabio Vittorini, Il Manifesto 20^th June 2015

“The intention of Martone is clear: to reduce as much as possible – almost to eradicate – the distance that separates the audience from the stage and to create a continuum between the artists and the spectators, between the action represented and the emotion experienced. The Neapolitan director aims to affirm that what we see on stage is real life and he explores this axiom through his highly individual vision of these two major works of musical verismo. Martone installs, elongates and stretches the stage, extending it right into the stalls to achieve his objective. […] His “Cavalleria” is characterised by an almost sacred stillness. Here, all is static, governed by a densely significant and perfect geometry.”

Andrea Dellabianca, gbopera.it, 1^st February 2011

The director of the film Morto di un matematico napoletano celebrates the unexpected marriage between Sancta Susanna by Hindemith and Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana at the Opera.

Running from the 23^rd November to the 23^rd of December, this is a combination that will have audiences flocking to the Opéra Bastille. It is indeed a highly unexpected operatic diptych that the Italian film maker, Mario Martone (Morto di un matematico napoletano, L’odore del sangue, Noi credevamo) has been commissioned to direct. An intriguing head to head. On my left, the archi-well-known Cavalleria rusticana, a one-act opera by Mascagni (1890) which takes place on Easter Sunday in a Sicilian village, with its Intermezzo so beloved of admirers of the theme music to Raging Bull and the epilogue of Godfather III. On my right, a vigorous challenger who, at the last minute, has replaced the usual Pagliacci by Leoncavallo: Sancta Susanna, Paul Hindemith’s lightning short – only 25 minutes long - expressionist opera, an object of such scandal in its day (created in 1922 it portrayed a naked nun kissing the body of Christ on the cross), that initially performances were banned… during Holy Week. The privilege of witnessing rehearsals of this production, in particular a run-through of Sancta Susanna, proved to be an amazing experience. Far from merely filling up a gap in the programme, the “sparring partner” seems to be of one body with the verismo star and illuminates it with its own provocative radicality. Under Martone’s guidance, each opera seems to have taken a step towards the other. An austere Cavelleria, a card this director, no stranger to the operatic stage, has played before at La Scala Milan in 2011: local colour and folklore fade from the mind of the spectator and give way to an altar that the libretto merely alludes to. Susanna, on the other hand, leaves its usual habitat, the church, in order to emphasise the contrast between sacred and erotic passion and to generate multiple spaces. The convent cell, a niche that explodes into a 13^th century polyptich, is a marvellous bit of stage scenery, ultimately revealing, at a subterranean level, the phantasmagorical dimension of Hindemith’s opera, in the image of a ghostly nun condemned to be buried alive on account of her carnal desire for Christ crucified. The strength of the production, over and above the pictorial references, lies as much in its theatrical genes as in its cinematic heritage: the fragmentation of the performing space providing an exact parallel with split screen technique as used by Fleischer in The Boston Strangler in 1968.

       The direction of the gaze of spectators and singers alike, is the main pitch of Martone’s production in which the links woven simultaneously between one space and another are regulated with a pitilessly ingenuous meticulousness. Consequently, the disruption of proportion in Sancta Susanna comes as a surprise: spiders and the body of Christ, all unnaturally large, appear suddenly from the wings or the fly loft… The director gives the following explanation: “The sense of proportion for the mystic act of retreat, like that studied by painters such as Giotto and Fra Angelico, is very contained at first, severe and compact. Then with the explosion of the wall, which opens on every side, it loses its sense of scale: everything becomes completely disproportionate: the figure of Christ is gigantic, a spider spins its way down…” It is scarcely difficult to understand that these changes of scale, which reflect Susanna’s vision, are so many close-ups giving substance to her fantasies. The proliferation of viewpoints associated with the fragmentation of the set provides each spectator with a uniquely individual experience. To quote Martone himself, the production was conceived so that “no two people will see the same thing, depending on where they are sitting. With this compartmentalised set, nobody sees everything. There will always be something hidden from view, even when the set explodes.” Does this question of the position of the spectator constitute a major difference between theatre and cinema direction? The maestro denies any such differentiation. “It’s the same thing in the cinema: what you don’t see is just as important as what you do. My films also often operate by omission, including the narrative. In my first film, Morto di un matematico Napolitano, I chose to recount only the last week in the life of my protagonist, as if everything from before were hidden from view. It’s a way of maintaining the viewer's tension”. And he concludes with advice which, in all logic, should gratify, in a single dictum, director, spectator and protagonist alike: “It is better to wonder why rather than be satisfied with everything.”

Thierry Méranger is a journalist and has been a member of the editorial committee of the Cahiers du Cinéma since 2004.