“Caro Luchino” - a Tribute to the Life and Work of Luchino Visconti through the Creation in New York of a Theatre Piece  

Project location: United States, New York
Project start date: May 2012 - Project end date: May 2012
Project number: 2011-63
Beneficiary: Associazione Culturale Caro Amico

Associazione Culturale Caro Amico, in collaboration with Venetian Heritage Inc.   presents "Caro Luchino", tribute to Luchino Visconti, in New York, to celebrate the life and work of this great Italian director. The script has been delivered to The Nando Peretti Foundation, and has received a grant, in two versions, Italian and English. The English one will be presented in New York. Caro Luchino is a tribute to Luchino Visconti produced on the occasion of the centennial of his birth in 2006.
Originally conceived and directed by Guido Torlonia in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture in Paris and interpreted in the French version by Jean Sorel, unforgettable leading man of Sandra of a Thousand Delights (Vaghe Stelle dell'Orsa) and, in the Italian version, by Giancarlo Dettori, extraordinary Strehlerian actor.
For this production at The Pershing Square Signature Theater, actors Richard Gere and Tilda Swinton will perform for free. The audience will then participate to a fund raising gala dinner organized by Venetian Heritage Inc..
The purpose of this project is hence double, on one hand The Nando Peretti Foundation contributes to the realization of a theater piece tribute to Luchino Visconti, the greatest Italian filmmaker. The theater piece is the core of Venetian Heritage's evening, whose funds raised will go towards the restoration of the Treasure Rooms Museum of the Church of San Salvador in Venice, and the restoration of the Façade of the Cathedral of Korcula on the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia.
The theatre play will be performed in April 23rd 2012, at The Pershing Square Signature Theater, New York, NY.

Since 2007 the Associazione Culturale Caro Amico organizes and produces cultural events, at national and international level, promoting Italian cultural excellence like theatre, cinema and literature, often in collaboration with the Italian Institutes of Culture around the world.
Caro Luchino, is the first play of the Tribute to the Great Masters, a project by Ludovica Damiani and Guido Torlonia, recognized Special Project of the General Direction for Cinema of the Italian Ministry of Culture in 2007. Followed by Caro Giorgio and Caro Federico, tributes to Giorgio Strehler and Federico Fellini, it is an Associazione Culturale Caro Amico production.
In Italy the play has obtained a great deal of success both from audiences and critics and it has been presented on June 2007 at the Ridotto dei Palchi of the Teatro alla Scala di Milano, at the Sala Apollinea of the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Teatro Valle in Rome. Two reprises at the Piccolo Eliseo in Rome in November 2007 and at the Atellani Courtyard in Milan on May 2008.
Caro Giorgio, is a tribute to Giorgio Strehler, extraordinary personality in European theatre, who, together with Luchino Visconti, legitimated the direction as a form of art. Like Visconti, Strehler has broken the schemes of the theater and marked everyone who ever worked with him. He created a school, that still today carries his name. He recuperated the tradition of the Commedia dell'Arte, the gem of Italian theater, and still today Harlequin Servant of Two Masters, is the Italian show that has traveled the world the most.
As Fellini for cinema, Strehler for the theater is the one and only "Maestro". Caro Giorgio debuted on December 2007 in the historical Piccolo Teatro di Milano, produced in collaboration with the Fondazione Piccolo Teatro di Milano on the occasion of the celebrations for the 20 years anniversary of the School, 60 years of the Theater, and 10 years from Giorgio Strehler's death.
Caro Federico, tribute to Federico Fellini, has opened in Rome in June 2008 at the Teatro Quirino. The production has been invited to Paris in the Fall of 2009 for the celebration of "Tutto Fellini" in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture. In the Fall of 2011 Caro Federico has been brought to Moscow for the Italian Cultural Year in Russia, in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture and the Italian Embassy in Moscow.

Caro Luchino consists of a reading, accompanied by images displayed on a screen. The narrator portrays Luchino Visconti himself and drives the audience throughout his life, theater and cinema. A collage of memories, interviews, letters, discovering the lost world of the great director, depicted with clips from his films, the rehearsal with the actors, the work on the stage and the testimony of friends and artists who had the luck to know him and work with him. (In order of appearance: Silvana Mangano, Anna Magnani, Jean Marais, Alain Delon, Marcello Mastroianni, Adriana Asti, Vittorio Gassman, Maria Callas, Claudia Cardinale).

The play, which has received funding from the Nando Peretti Foundation, has had public and critics success in Italy and in France, and it will lead to a better knowledge of the work of Luchino Visconti also to the American audiences.