Francesca da Rimini

Francesca Da Polenta and Paolo Malatesti, lovers and in-laws, had the fortune of finding the narrator of their story in the greatest poet: Dante Alighieri, and once again Ravenna is a privileged place of lived, intense emotions. Yet as far as ancient chronicles go, everything is shrouded in a tangle of conflicting accounts, particularly regarding the place of the crime.

Like every myth, it transcends time and drifts along the raft of human miseries with ancient yet ever-relevant passions. This Francesca wishes to be both a song-lament of love and, at the same time, the outcry of a woman victimized by intrigues and schemes that rob her of the deepest truth about herself — that yearning each of us carries to live love fully and freely. Francesca is forced to endure a misplaced calling and she rebels; her voice does not cease accusing the figures and realities of her time with harsh and recriminating tones, yet at the same time, the thread with Paolo has not broken. In a distant space, free at last from that infernal storm that never rests, they are destined to meet, and their love — despite petty bargains and human schemes — endures, though in another realm.

Our love on earth was like flint without steel.
Here, now, it burns, transforms, and does not consume.

(Nevio Spadoni)