Against "Sire Le Mot": Achille Ricciardi "régisseur" and reformer

Abstract

This essay focuses on Achille Ricciardi’s experiment, called Teatro del Colore, which is commonly seen, on the one hand, as a not well-done enterprise, on the other, as an old aesthetic proposal made by a "decadent obsessed with symbolism". The essay will try to weaken this last interpretation with the support of unpublished material, present in the correspondence with d'Annunzio (1911-1921). There, Ricciardi affirms the principle of autonomy of the performance and of the régisseur, with respect to whom the spoken word plays an ancillary role. There, a concern about the irremediable delay with which his experiments appeared on the scene is expressed, too. About this, Ricciardi was fully aware, despite what is commonly understood. The correspondence also allows to establish some chronological and compositional issues of the essay on color more precisely and to confirm its inorganic nature, rich in innovative impulses, but in some parts obscure and contradictory.