“When I have composed a work for Naples, I will be sought after everywhere: with a work in Naples, one earns more honor and credit than performing a hundred concerts in Germany.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The Show Among the many journeys undertaken by Mozart during his all too brief but miraculous life, the one to Naples, where he spent time as a fourteen-year-old in the city with four conservatories alongside his father, would resurface repeatedly in his memory, often serving as a creative stimulus. Torn between the desire for learning and the need for self-promotion, between the worldly and strictly cultured dimensions, Mozart’s stay in Naples was marked by illustrious encounters, as well as some missed opportunities that were even more resounding. We are left with the rich correspondence kept by Mozart and his father, which documents the astonishment experienced by a European capital of Music like Naples in the presence of the young Salzburg genius.

Moreover, we have above all Mozart’s music, imbued with imagination and in a state of constant effervescence, much like the lava from that restless volcano that he and his father watched in action during the spring of 1770, filled with feverish excitement.

The show narrates, through a blend of words and music, not only the events that marked Mozart’s whirlwind adventure in Naples but also the image of a city in full ferment and its complicated, vital, melancholic, and amazed relationship with the composer. It offers a light-hearted and entertaining portrait of the era and an homage to music whose breath is inevitably European.

The narrative, written and told by Stefano Valanzuolo, intertwines with the music of Mozart as performed by the Solis String Quartet and Ramin Bahrami in arrangements and reworkings by Antonio di Francia and Vincenzo di Donna. To complete the musical segment of the show, pages from other composers that are, for many engaging reasons, related to the history and cultural image of Naples are also included.