Novecento (monologue)

Novecento (Italian: "Nineteen Hundred", actually "nine hundred"), in German-speaking countries also with the subtitle " The Legend of the Ocean Pianist ", is a monologue by the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco . Novecento was written in 1994 and premiered in July of the same year by actor Eugenio Allegri in the lead role and director Gabriele Vacis at the festival in Asti. The monologue is about a fictional, extraordinarily virtuoso pianist named Novecento at the beginning of the 20th century and is one of the most influential and successful postmodern Italian theater plays.

action

Tim Tooney tells the story of the fictional main character Danny Boodman TD Lemon Novecento , who was found abandoned on January 1, 1900 as an infant on the Virginian liner . His parents, apparently poor emigrants, left him in a cardboard box for lemons on the piano in the ballroom . Danny Boodman , a black machinist, finds the child and raises it. In addition to its own name, the child receives the name TD Lemon, based on the lettering on the lemon cardboard box, and the name Novecento because of the time it was found .

After Danny's death, Novecento seems to have disappeared, but one day reappears as a young piano talent and from then on entertains passengers of all classes with his ingenious piano playing between folk music and jazz .

Novecento steadfastly refuses to leave the ship that has become his home. The tours of the Virginian make him world famous as an ocean pianist , which challenges the self-proclaimed “inventor of jazz”, the American pianist Jelly Roll Morton , to open a piano “ duel ” against Novecento, which Morton loses. But Novecento still refuses to leave the ship, despite his now increased fame.

Novecento's best friend, the trumpeter Tim Tooney , who tells the story of Novecento most of the time, left the ship in the 1930s and lost sight of Novecento. After World War II , however, Tim learns that the Virginian is about to be scrapped in Plymouth . On board the doomed ship, Tim finds his old friend, who has now completely withdrawn. But even now he does not want to leave the ship because - as we now learn - he cannot cope with the "infinite" world and he prefers his spatially clearly delimited and familiar surroundings. The Virginian will be blown up, and Novecento would like to go under with her; he imagines how he arrives in heaven and because of his "unofficial" existence has difficulties to find entrance. Tim appeals one last time to Novecento to leave the ship and leaves.

style

Novecento is designed as a monologue , but written in prose , because the greater part of the monologue consists of the story of Novecento's life by his friend Tim. The actor acting alone takes on the roles of all persons involved.

filming

In 1998 , Novecento was filmed under the title La Legenda del pianista sull'oceano (see The Legend of the Ocean Pianist ) by the director Giuseppe Tornatore , but deviated from the style of the monologue and presented a partially new plot ( a unique record by Novecento, which arose under the impression of a futile love affair, brings the trumpeter back to Novecento ). The reactions to the film were therefore rather mixed.

Stage version

For the past twelve seasons is Novecento - The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean in the theater Krefeld and Mönchengladbach with actor Adrian Linke listed (as of 2015/16). Till Ufer is responsible for the staging and Patrick Durwael is responsible for the stage and costume.

The play ran from January 2000 at the Braunschweig State Theater , from October 2009 at the Theater Lübeck and from September 2010 at the Polish Theater in Kiel. In the summer of 2014 and 2015 the play was performed in Braunschweig as part of the “Okersommertheater” on weekends on a raft.

From January 2012 it was performed in the Rostock Shipping Museum. In 2013, Jürg Kienberger and the Atlantic Jazz Orchestra brought the piece to the stage as a musical theater in Germany and Switzerland.

In 2015, Peter Lewys Preston brought the play under the title The Legend of 1900 in a musical adaptation on the stage of the Bavarian Theater Academy August Everding in the Prinzregententheater . In the summer of 2015, the legend of the ocean pianist went on tour for the first time as a boat theater and made stops in various Baltic Sea ports (director: Dorothea Lübbe, actor: Günter Schanzmann).

Others

The Austrian band Edenbridge used the material in their song Centennial Legend (German: The One Hundred Years Old ). This was on the album Shine of 2004 published.

literature

Alessandro Baricco: Novecento , Feltrinelli 1994, ISBN 88-07-81302-5 (original edition).
Alessandro Baricco: Novecento , Piper Verlag 1999, ISBN 3-492-04104-3 , German by Karin Krieger.

Web links

Review of Novecento on lettern.de

Individual evidence

↑ Lyrics of "Centennial Legend" on the band's homepage: Lyrics.
↑ The second translation by Erika Christiani, later published by Piper Verlag, led to a test case by the translator Karin Krieger against Piper Verlag, which she won five years later in the last instance through a decision of the Federal Court of Justice on all essential points; s. More details can be found in the Wikipedia article on Karin Krieger and in the press release of the Association of German Language Translators (VdÜ) of June 21, 2004 [1] .

[1] Lyrics of "Centennial Legend" on the band's homepage: Lyrics.

[2] The second translation by Erika Christiani, later published by Piper Verlag, led to a test case by the translator Karin Krieger against Piper Verlag, which she won five years later in the last instance through a decision of the Federal Court of Justice on all essential points; s. More details can be found in the Wikipedia article on Karin Krieger and in the press release of the Association of German Language Translators (VdÜ) of June 21, 2004 [1] .