“Invention of echoes, invention of the future”. The choir between direction and pedagogy in Orazio Costa

Abstract

The convergence of directorial and pedagogical instances is a constant in Orazio Costa’s research. The vocation to the choir was suggested by the encounter in 1937 with the chœur parlé directed by Madeleine Renaud-Thévenet and was enhanced by the directing experiences at the Greek theatre of Syracuse. It announced itself early on the scene, marking some of Costa’s most significant directions of “unique show” productions. But it was in the 1980s that Costa conceived productions with an entirely choral structure, in which the theatricality of the choir space was forcefully revealed, and at the same time introduced a choral perspective into pedagogical practice. For Costa, the choir preserves the participatory dimension of the ritual with its ability to renew the contact between speaker and audience, to make the scene a pulsating vision, always renewed. By condensing all forms of expression, it also acts as a basic experience for the actor’s training activity. In the choir, the opening to polyphony and to the multiplication of the variables of the voice, is achieved, triggering a form of invention that “will restore dignity to free monody, because it will achieve its attitude to explode in polyphony”.