Per Aspera Ad Astra

... emotions ... live from the Stadio San Paolo

It was during the Autumn of 2011,  I was approached by the president of the Lions of Mercato San Severino, Avv.Maria Pia Arcangelo, which, on the advice of another member of the club, Mrs. Linda Scarano, talked to me about a national project called Martina, who was a girl less fortunate than ourselves.This project taught children of secondary schools about cancer prevention. I was asked to take part in this project which  I accepted willingly, so, I found myself teaching and explaining precisely, in a simple and even fun way, the delicate chapter of primary prevention.I then took this project to the municipalities of the district: Roccapiemonte, Mercato San Severino etc.etc. One evening the reppresentatives of the Lion, to thank me for these project, invited  me to dinner and,during the dinner, while conversing, I told them that I was devoted to the study of the third canto as the thought was very close to our hospital life; The Canto begins:

"Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost."

Well, with regard to our hospital world, this triplet is suitable for a two- way interpretation: Imagine a patient who walks through the door of a hospital, but imagine even the staff, medical or otherwise, that works there. And then:

"There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud 
    Resounded through the air without a star,
  Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.
Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
  Accents of anger, words of agony,
  And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
  For ever in that air for ever black,
  Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes."

However imagine what can happen in a hospital ward: who screams in pain, who cries and does not know why, those who need a nurse, others who want a doctor,  very tumultus! Often  we've had to ferry the souls to the other side!

Then there was a event at  the municipality of Mercato San Severino where the parts were reversed, in the sense that the children became teachers, bringing with  them slides and interviews with cancer patients.These showed what what they had understood about my lessons, which I took to school reciting the third canto of hell. It was a huge success, beyond all my expectations and I was asked to repeat it.

By this time, it was in May 2012, just before Easter, and we, in the hospital, having a theater company, made up of doctors which, every year, we produce a show in which the funds were donated to buy things such as, T.V's, mini-fridges and air-conditioning etc.etc to make life more confortable for our patients and their families who were obliged to stay within the hospital. The eve of Easter we did the Via Crucis in the Neapolitan language; then an idea came to me and I asked myself  " Is there a possibility that someone may have translated the Divine Comedy into the  Napolitan language ?" He who seeks finds ... I found a text Nfierno, Priatorio Paraviso  written by the poet Nazario Napoli Bruno in the Neapolitan language in 1500. So I told the President of the Lions, that I would use this text but on my own terms and that no one had to know.

At the end of Spring, throughout the summer and into  the early Autumn I memorized three Canti of the Divine Comedy, namely the V Hell and the I Purgatory and Paradise XXXIII, but this time in  the Neapolitan language. I was then joined in this adventure by the Corps de Ballet of the city of Mercato San Severino headed by Ms. Paola Tesone and with the prologue and epilogue of prof. Sanguineti, we went to represent for the first time,in October 27 2012 at the church of Santa Croce in Spiano, a hamlet of Mercato San Severino, Per Aspera ad Astra. I remember it was an evening marred by bad weather and that the church was full of people who remained astonished when I began to recite in the Neapolitan language. Needless to say,it was a huge success. Then, as the appetite comes from eating, we went to various locations in the province of Salerno and the Canti grew from three  to eight, replacing movements choreutic the melody of the piano with the  precious collaboration of my sister- in -law Patrizia who is a wonderful interpreter of contemporary music