In 1822 Adelaide Ristori was born in Cividale del Friuli, considered the first great international diva of Italian theater, acclaimed by kings and queens, poets and intellectuals, patriots and people of the people.
Mother and father wandering actors, she was only three months old when she first staged the stage. Its definitive consecration took place in 1855, during the tour of his company in Paris. Here she met the favor of great intellectuals such as Alexandre Dumas, Théophile Gautier and George Sand and some of the Italian patriots exiled to the French capital, above all Giuseppe Montanelli who wrote the tragedy "Camma" for her.
He worked on tour in all the major European capitals, Vienna, Berlin, London, Madrid, even in Brazil and Australia. In the second half of the nineteenth century she was one of the most important ambassadors of the Italian language and culture in Europe and in the world. He participated with fervor in the unitary uprisings, as the letters and commendations from Cavour and Garibaldi show.
At the height of her career, then, with the help of her husband Giuliano Capranica del Grillo, she founded her own company. In 1885 she retired from the stage becoming queen Margherita's lady-in-waiting. He then devoted himself to writing his memoirs, "Memories and artistic studies", and on 29 January 1902, the day of his eightieth birthday, he received the homages of King Vittorio Emanuele III in his Roman house in via Monterone, an honor never reserved before for an artist. He died in Rome on October 9, 1906.
In honor of this sparkling biography, Rai Cultura dedicates the documentary by Giancarlo Mancini to her, directed by Leonardo Sicurello, on Wednesday 19 January at 9.10 pm on Rai Storia for the "Italians" cycle. A doc made as a fiction, with the actress Alvia Reali in the role of Ristori and with images also shot at the Civic Museum of the actor in Genoa, where the heirs donated his rich legacy, made up not only of documents but also of clothes scene and photographs.
(Unioneonline / D)
