Nov. 6 – An Italian documentary inaugurates the celebrations in honor of the bicentenary since the birth of Wagner and Verdi at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The event, sponsored by the Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Embassy in the United States, is part of Year of Italian culture in the United States. The ceremony will be held tomorrow at Mary Pickford Theater with the screening of the documentary “Richard Wagner: a Venetian Diary of the symphony,” written and directed by Gianni Di Capua and produced by Kublai Film in association with Tunastudio and Tiven Group. Made with the support of the Regional Fund for the cinema of the Veneto Region and the Chamber of Commerce of Venice, the documentary recounts the last days spent in Venice of the German composer. A little-known episode in his life, the film explores the privileged relationship between Wagner and Venice, a city he loved and in which he died in 1883. The story centers on the discovery and execution of a symphony from Wagner’s youth believed to have been lost. Wagner instead performed it on Christmas Eve 1882 in front of his family alongside his fellow teachers and students of the Liceo Musicale Benedetto Marcello in Venice. The project is the result of extensive archival research, and is based on historical documents; it uses disparate narrative material that follows several narratives, including excerpts from the diaries of Cosima Wagner – Tagebücher Lizst and the Bericht account of the concert written by Wagner in Venice, a few days after that historic event.
