IL GATTOPARDO

The Sicilian Prince Salina is tall, strong, educated, and infallible – a patriarch of old Europe. However, the prestige of his noble family is visibly beginning to crumble. 19th-century Italy is marked by political upheaval. The triumphant advance of the freedom fighter Garibaldi helps the bourgeoisie flourish and throws the old order into disarray. Suddenly, the mayor wears a tailcoat, his daughter attends an elite boarding school, and, as a commoner, turns the head of the prince's blue-blooded nephew.

Based on his own family history, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel episodically recounts no less than 50 years of social change. The rise of the bourgeoisie, the transnational and political entanglements of the island, and the individual wishes and longings of his characters: "If everything is to remain as it is, everything must change." The places where the author sets the action seem to emerge plastically from the pages of the novel. The heat on the barren land, the dusty smell of the streets in Palermo, the clinking of chandeliers, the colors of the clothes and paintings, the marble in the city palace, and the tin bathtub in the holiday castle Donnafugata – the literary magic of the novel continues to captivate us to this day.

Pınar Karabulut brings the novel to the stage of the Schiffbau Halle in grand style for the festive beginning of her co-intendancy at the Schauspielhaus. She uses the possibilities of the unique venue to bring the captivating power of the world in the book to life and invites her audience to experience the story up close. Through her playfully surreal staging aesthetic, the director links the modern classic with a sharply contemporary interpretation: How do we change the world and how does the world change us, in a time of absolute upheaval?

Supported by Zürcher Kantonalbank

and Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Zurigo, Società Dante Alighieri Zurigo and Gruppo Gattopardo Svizzero