NOA + NAPOLI = NOAPOLIS

NOA SINGS NAPOLI

with Solis String Quartet e Gil Dor

Naples, Teatro San Carlo

6/6/2012

Inauguration of Napoli Teatro Festival 2012-06-07

 Review by Bruno Tredicine.

Noa, photo: Ronen Ackerman

NAPOLI: Let’s travel to Southern Italy, to Naples.

One thinks to this city and garbage troubles come to mind, or heavy traffic, noise, or maybe pizza. Problems, problems, but the history of this town, former capital of a Kingdom, and still proud of it, is also full of culture, and world famous traditional songs.

Speaking of culture, Napoli Teatro Festival has now reached its fifth edition: it’s a first class theatre manifestation hosting companies from all over the world, showing the state of modern acting and dancing.

It was born as a ‘traveling’ exhibition, every year in a different Italian town, then the neapolitan organisation was surprisingly so good, that the decision was taken, to let it take place always and only here. This year apart many Italian companies, the Festival is mainly focused on Argentine contemporary stage and Israeli dance companies, so no better occasion to have as guest for the special opening Israeli singer Noa.

As a baby she moved with her parents to New York, but as a teen ager she chosed to visit her Land, and stayed there, starting to learn music and singing in the Music school of the outstanding guitaristGil Dor who -surprise- still accompanies her in many of her exhibition, including this Italian occasion, and has showed how skilled a soloist he is, creating the right atmosphere at the beginning with one of the most heartfelt Neapolitan songs, ‘Munastero ‘e Santa Chiara’.

The accompaniment included also Solis String Quartet, a Neapolitan chamber ensemble, used to play with notable soloists

. They mix world music, jazz and contemporary sound often with a ‘classical’ touch that makes their music very refined. They gave the perfect mood and the best background for the songs chosen for this evening.

Thanks to her origins, Noa stays no indifferent when it’s about peace and tolerance among people from different countries and origins. So she was present in Oslo Peace Concert (in the occasion of the Rabin/Arafat meeting)  and in the White House Concert in Memory of Rabin after his death.But good will may bring also troubles: in Israel her proposals to a peaceful cohabitation between israelian and Palestinians are not well considered, and on the opposite side, left wing activists consider her representative of Israelian Government and also in Naples nasty banners ‘Boycott Noa’ could be seen in the places near Teatro San Carlo.

Noa on Sesame Street

NOA. photo: Ziv Koren

Apart that, the evening couldn’t be more successful: the singer has introduced her new CD devoted to old traditional Neapolitan songs, ‘Noapolis’, and to face the town’s audience while singing in their own dialect wasn’t the most relaxing task. Nevertheless, from the start all the presents haverecognized her artistry. The devotion of her preparation was a reflect of the love that she has for this repertoire, so with any doubt she was greeted as ‘one of the family’, no matter if her pronounce wasn’t the most perfect! Despict to that, the intensity that she has put in songs, many of which talkabout homesickness or emigration, was poignant
. As she herself has said (and her spoken Italian is almost perfect), when she lived in New York with her family, their neighbours were Neapolitan, and their feelings and way of living were very similar, so she can feel at ease and make her own the deep meaning of such songs.

Mixed to music from Southern Italy, Noa has sung melodies from her homeland, both modern and pop-style or traditional, such as the moving lullaby that her Yemenite grandmother used to sing to her. But there was also space for divertissement, such as an israelian baby song rearranged by Gil Dor and Solis String Quartet in operatic the style, hyronic but a good way for Noa to show her outstanding vocal range and surprising technique. Not to be forgotten that in some of her recital she includes arduous coloratura aria Glitter and be gay from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, and is very at ease singing it!

After the end, a real standing ovation came from the audience that could not leave her go away, and among the encore she’s sung Schubert’s Ave Maria with modern lyrics, which is part of her artistic history having sung it in 1994 in St. Peter Square in Rome before the Pope and more than one hudred thousand people. Last came the world famous song from the Oscar winning film ‘La vita è bella – Life is beautiful’, remembering that her is the official version.

5 Edition of Napoli Teatro Festival takes place from 7 to 24 june and i twill start again in september, 25 to 30.

In the whole, 24 days of spectacles and play, with more than 110 performances in 17 city locations.