Antonio e Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra are the overflowing protagonists of a play based on oppositions: male and female, duty and desire, bed and battlefield, youth and old age, ancient Egyptian truth and Roman realpolitik. Politically incorrect and dangerously vital, with the mysterious and furious rhythm of an Egyptian Bacchanal, they go beyond reason and the games of politics. Inimitable and incomparable, not even death can contain them.

“The monumental and exotic image of the play,” says Valter Malosti, “which comes to us straight from the nineteenth century, has not contributed to its appreciation. Therefore, we need to make radical dramaturgical choices to make it readable while preserving its spirit and integrity. A new translation was necessary, on which Nadia Fusini and I worked. A sort of bold restoration that I believe has brought to light the shimmering colours of this disenchanted and mysterious work, which mixes tragic, comic, sacred, and grotesque: a wonderful philosophical and mystical (and alchemical) poem that sanctifies eros, that plays with the high and the low, written in verses that are among the highest and most evocative in all of Shakespeare’s works.”

Extracts from press review

HYSTRIO – Giuseppe Liotta – June 2024
We are really facing something unexpected and unique, tragic and fun at the same time, that “plays” theatrically with the Shakespearean text.

IL MATTINO – Fabrizio Coscia – 5/04/2024
Malosti, who plays an Antonio a little ham and a little disenchanted, driven by a self-destructive charge that constitutes a real charm of the character, relies on a very talented actress, Anna Della Rosa, to give body and voice to this mystery.

IL VENERDI DE LA REPUBBLICA – Marino Niola – 15/03/2024
A splendid theatrical show. (…9 a new version of Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare masterfully directed and interpreted by Valter Malosti in the role of the Roman commander, with a breathtaking Anna Della Rosa in the role of the sovereign of ruinous beauty.

CORRIERE DEL MEZZOGIORNO – Stefano de Stefano – 10/03/2024
The crossing of atmospheres (…) makes Antony and Cleopatra (…) one of the most intriguing shows of the season.

LA REPUBBLICA – Anna Bandettini – 29/02/2024
A praise to Emilia Romagna Teatro for having produced it, directed by Valter Malosti. (…) On a company of first order (…) stands the couple, (…) the Antony of Malosti and (…) the bright Cleopatra of Anna Della Rosa, an actress who has worked a lot on herself and here is in a mature test: dismissive goose and exemplary power woman, has a beautiful physicality that integrates with the abstract sounds of GUP Alcaro and words of extraordinary intensity.

CORRIERE DELLA SERA – Magda Poli – 22/02/2024
Complex, poetic, hostile, passionate and not often staged opera, Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare directed by Valter Malosti (…) seems a precise ritual of love and death in the metaphysical, material and abstract mausoleum-scene of Margherita Palli.

CORRIERE DEL MEZZOGIORNO – Enrico Fiore – 16/02/2024
I speak, now, of one of the cases – now very rare, to the limit of the unimaginable – in which the theatre manages to exit commercial to flow into a culturally significant project. This is the staging of Antony and Cleopatra.

IL SOLE 24 ORE – Antonio Audino – 04/02/2024
Malosti (…) propose a clear and understandable language, without, however, reducing the original force and providing a well-defined rhythm.

AVVENIRE – Roberto Mussapi – 24/01/2024
Memorable this Antony and Cleopatra by Valter Malosti, Shakespeare’s masterpiece (…). The acting of Malosti-Antonio and Della Rosa-Cleopatra is extraordinarily high and strong, but all the actors are caught up in this vertigo.

LA STAMPA – Masolino D’Amico – 15/01/2024
The real irresistible invention is Cleopatra, […] an inspired Anna Della Rosa, seductive, unscrupulous, ready to pass from one state of mind to another, courageous yet cowardly, domineering, actress but in the supreme moment […] sincere with herself.

GAZZETTA DI MODENA – Andrea Marcheselli – 13/01/2024
Rich in mood variations is the staging by Malosti (…) a particular note deserves Anna Della Rosa multifaceted in providing Cleopatra the infinity of nuances (…). Next to her, Malosti himself gives shape and life to a deep and persuasive Marco Antonio.

IL RESTO DEL CARLINO – Stefano Marchetti – 12/01/2024
(…) In Valter Malosti’s vision, therefore, we fly between the theatrical genres, the comic and the tragic, the irony and the poetry […]. The excellence of the entire cast, called to a demanding actor’s test, emerges even more.

Antonio e Cleopatra – trailer from Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione on Vimeo.