The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Malika Ayane, Grizabella and the right of the excluded to exist

2022-12-04T08:26:57.360Z


From 7 December at the Sistina with Cats, 'the theater is a sacred place for me' (ANSA) "With the role of Grizabella I hope to be able to affirm very intensely on stage the right that everyone has to exist like the others, because I have always been interested in the different, the excluded. I would like this to reach the people who will come to see us. I am super excited, with that emotion that doesn't paralyze but galvanizes you". Thus Malika Ayane in an interview with ANSA recount


"With the role of Grizabella I hope to be able to affirm very intensely on stage the right that everyone has to exist like the others, because I have always been interested in the different, the excluded. I would like this to reach the people who will come to see us. I am super excited, with that emotion that doesn't paralyze but galvanizes you".

Thus Malika Ayane in an interview with ANSA recounts her enthusiasm to be part of the great, unprecedented adventure of "Cats", the new musical by Massimo Romeo Piparo, staged from December 7 to January 22 at the Sistina Theater in Rome.

40 years after its Broadway debut, Piparo's show, produced by Peep Arrow Entertainment, with music by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Nobel Prize winner Thomas Stearns Eliot, will be adapted into Italian, obtaining authorization for the first time in the world by the author to be set in Rome, in a hypothetical and futuristic "dump" of works of art and archaeological finds, with the Colosseum in the background.

In the role of Grizabella, the glamorous cat who will sing the timeless "Memory", Malika Ayane - who has already worked with Piparo in the musical Evita - will be part of an irresistible colony of humanized cats who sing and dance on the ruins of the Eternal City in a magical atmosphere punctuated by fantasy, drama, romance and great music.

With her a large cast of artists and the

Live orchestra conducted by Maestro Emanuele Friello;

to sign the choreography is Billy Mitchell, acclaimed choreographer of London's West End.

Do you feel the 'weight' of the tradition of a historical musical like Cats?

"Thanks to Evita's experience, which was an incredible training ground, I already know my 'monsters', and I made them all sit in the dressing room", jokes the artist.

"I try to keep the weight of the tension away from the theatre, which is a sacred place and for me it is a serious thing, perhaps the most serious of all the things I do. But in Evita I was practically always on stage, here I am part of a overall show. And then it's nice to go back to work with Massimo, we enjoy mutual trust and there is great autonomy".

Do you think the public will appreciate this Italian version of Cats?

"I'm always perplexed by adaptations, but in this case the audience will simply see Cats, and will understand it without any effort of linguistic comprehension",

explains Malika Ayane.

"A universally known story like that of Jesus Christ Superstar you can also see it in Turkish and understand it; but sometimes for other foreign language shows it can happen that the audience loses half the fascination of what happens on stage. Here it is as if we were offering privileged passages to enter this marvel".

How did you prepare to play Grizabella?

"I resumed singing lessons, I always do it whenever I am faced with important tests, while on a character level I went to dig into my melancholy".

Are you excited about having to perform a famous song like "Memory"?

"I think I've sung Memory a million times, it's a great classic to sing with a hair dryer in front of the mirror!", the artist still says, laughing.

"It's a difficult piece, also for the linguistic adaptation, but the choreographer who doesn't speak Italian assured me during the rehearsals that he had perceived the intensity of the sensation, so I'm a little calmer".

"The musical is in my comfort zone", she continues.

"I who am a wanderer,

always in need of adrenaline and dynamism, and having just returned from a long tour, I am now enjoying the theater season.

In the theater every night you enter a place that makes you leave the world outside while you build a new one".

What are the plans for the future?

"I would finally like to go on a trip to Guadeloupe, I see myself in a straw hat going fishing and talking to everyone," she says.

"And I plan on figuring out what sounds will be needed for the songs I've written in recent months, in view of the new album. Then I'd like to continue with acting, I think that due to my age and experience this could be the right time for me to study well and take a leap, perhaps starting with small things".

And San Remo?

"I still don't know, but last year for example it wasn't in the plans, then they asked me to accompany Matteo Romano, a talented boy", she concludes.

"I like things to make sense, then anything can be done".

Source: ansa

All life articles on 2022-12-04

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-09T19:33:37.090Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.