I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA, ITALIAN FOLK MUSIC, THEATRE & DANCE proudly presents under popular demand: "LA CANTATA DI NATALE" Saturday, December 13 at 8:00pm - Sunday, December 14 at 3:00pm - at the Italian American Museum - 155 Mulberry Street - Little Italy tickets: $25 - reservations:  italianamericanmuseum@gmail.com - tel (212) 965-9000 more information: Abelloni@aol.com - www.alessandrabelloni.com based on the Christmas production  LA CANTATA DEI PASTORI Told by masked characters of Commedia dell”Arte. A Neapolitan Renaissance Christmas  concert   written and directed by Alessandra Belloni music composed & arranged by John La Barbera   FEATURING THE NEAPOLITAN SINGER /ACTOR GIUSEPPE DE FALCO IN THE ROLE OF RAZZULLO the Pulcinella character that leads the story of la cantata dei pastori. Artistic director Alessandra Belloni also in the role of Mary -mezzo soprano, percussion, John La barbera music director,  guitar, renaissance folk guitar  Joe Deninzon – devil, violin    Susan Eberenz - flute , piccolo recorders, Join  I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA  and the commedia dell'arte characters who enact this beloved story of the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, and the triumph of good over evil.   The music - tarantellas, villanellas and pastorales - comes from traditional sources, with original music by John La Barbera.  Adaptation and direction are by Alessandra Belloni.   Songs are sung in Italian; costuming and music instrumentation is traditional Southern Italian; narration is in English.    The concert ends with a singing by the Company of the oldest known Neapolitan Christmas song. "La Cantata dei Pastori" is still performed annual during the Christmas season in the environs of Naples.   Written by Andrea Perrucci during the height of commedia dell'arte popularity in Italy, it combines commedia characteristics with those of the Italian medieval sacra rappresentazione.   These elements are fused in settings which borrow from a third genre, the Italian pastoral drama.The play's author, Andrea Perrucci, used the pseudonym of Dt. Casimiro Ruggiero Ugone when he wrote "La Cantata dei Pastori."   This Sicilian-born but Neapolitan-bred poet and dramatist, who had a reputation in Naples as a stage director,  was educated by the Jesuits and received a doctorate in letters.   "A musical play presented by the traditional Italian group I Giullari di Piazza (is) a rarity among Christmas programs; it somehow manages to be both riotously entertaining and   curiously haunting, even profound......a vibrant and uproarious performance."Jon Pareles The New York Times The music, directed by John La Barbera, is folkish, aiming for vitality above precision and often achieving both. The adaptation, by the troupe's director, Alessandra Belloni, is geared for action rather than quiet piety; in a climactic battle, Miss Belloni as Maria beat a large drum and sang out while the Angel Gabriel  took on the dragon. Giuseppe  de Falco as Razzullo (and Vincenzo Corrao as the birdlike Sarchiapone)  shared slapstick duties.

The play is set just before the birth Christ, during Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, and the devil has dispatched his demons to stop the saviour's birth. Their escapades are entwined with those of Razzullo, one of the Pulcinella masks here depicted as a comic, mischievous Neapolitan scribe to is always hungry.  Conjuring up tempests, dragons and other unseemly tricks, the demons try to do away with the play's characters but all are under the Angel Gabriel's protection and the holy couple finally reaches Bethlehem. Before good triumphs over evil, there is an incredible clash, in dance between the archangel and the devil and a grotesque, but humorous, depiction of heaven and hell...