The D’Artagnan festival in Amsterdam has finished and, thanks to Pietro and Mary Norris, news is trickling through. Sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute, the festival covered a seven day period, with contrasting events held in different places around the city, to illustrate the multi-faceted talents of D’Artagnan. His youthful passion for music was honored with an opening concert on June 4th at the Keizersgracht church, where the Ensemble Duomo played Fellini film music by Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone. June 6th brought a street party at the Paramariboplein, with Fellinian costumes, Venetian masks and a circus show by Triomfo Infanti. Mary arrived from New York in time for that event, and described it as “a Dolce Vita party, with people dressed as Fellini and Giulietta Massina and clownish puttane (Gradisca?) . . . There was a runway, and a lot of strutting in dark glasses.” A troupe from Italian RAI TV was there, collecting material for a future D’Artagnan documentary. Mary raved about the six musicians of the Fietsarmonik Orkestra (a cymballist, tuba, accordion, two saxes, and a cornet), that arrived–lined up on a bicycle. “They rode around the park a few times and then came in and played. It got better later, when the cook (they made pasta for fifty) started strumming a guitar and singing, and the old accordionist tried to jam with him, and finally all the other band members went and got their instruments and just played all night and everybody danced in the square. Roberto Rizzo, the wonderful photographer that went with Ella to Ribeira, was there, dancing around with his camera.” Mary sent the photos below, but there are hundreds more at
www.buurt-online.nl/amsterdam/baarsjes/.
June 7th was the busiest day, with a 5 PM vernissage of the exhibition of D’Artagnan mask-portraits (which continues until June 30th) at the D&T Fenice Hotel on the Prinsengracht, and a cocktail at its wonderful old bar. Mary enjoyed both the art and the venue: “I’d never thought of them as a separate genre–in fact, I thought of it as a portrait gallery when I came in. It’s a sweet show, and the bar is very low and dark, with a door onto a road along a canal, with some trees. It stays light out here till almost eleven at night. There was free-flowing prosecco, just the way I like it.” (Mary has posted some pictures of the show on her blog: http://alternatesideparking.blogspot.com/.) But there was no time to linger. At 8:30 PM came an exclusive, invitations-only evening at the Italian Cultural Institute, where amidst an assortment of D’Artagnan memorabilia and photos, our own Professor Pietro Gallina gave a lecture that centered upon his new biography, while Mary Norris and Ella Arps added their appreciation of the master’s genius. A fine new film, “Sognando Fellini,” by Alberto Felicetti was shown, where D’Artagnan drawings are superimposed over snippets from three Fellini movies made at the time as the sketches. The evening was again filmed by the Italian documentary team, led by Pietro’s talented former student, Monica.
The D’Artagnan celebrations finished on Sunday, June 10th, with a 3:30 PM showing of Fellini’s Amarcord and Toby Damitt at the Filmmuseum in the Vondelpark. Pietro, rather than returning straight to Rome, suddenly veered off to Brussels, where he is making new artistic contacts for the ICBIE.
