Fabrizio Clerici at La Scala
by Vittoria Crespi Morbio.
Essay by Vittoria Crespi Morbio, For the sake of the invisible. Appendices: biography; catalogue of works; chronology of performances.
Collection «Performing Artists at La Scala».
Amici della Scala – Grafiche Step Editrice, Parma, 2014. Italian edition, pp. 175.
A visionary artist, creator of phantasmagoria, Fabrizio Clerici (1913–1993) reveals a theatrical dimension throughout his painting, a stage upon which are represented a lavish past, myths, enigmatic vestiges, “things” and presences investigated with the bizarre passion of a collector. After the Second World War Clerici decided to devote himself specifically to the stage: drama, music, dance. At La Scala he staged rarely performed operas, bringing to the music of Cesti, Busoni, Britten, the vital, moist texture of his mysterious vegetations, but also the ironic, festive splendour of Mediterranean light. A glorious epiphany of the visible, always “for the sake of the invisible”, to quote Leonardo Sciascia.