Why does the Sicilian and Mediterranean Culture Study Center use this unprecedented superlative and never used by anyone when referring to Rosa Balistreri, to give the title to the event that will be held within the “Canta Ro” exhibition organized by the Municipality of Licata? Simple, because Rosa was “very elegant”, that is, she was superlative, and even if Cielo D’Alcamo, in this famous love “contrast” of his from the mid-1200s, clearly refers to the very fragrant flower of the rose that the suitor uses to conquer a young woman, in a lively jester dialogue, we discovered that a multitude of aspects link the figure and songs of Rosa Balistreri to the compositions of the Sicilian Poetic School and beyond.
This typical example of comic and jester poetry, which flourished in thirteenth-fourteenth century Italy and in particular in the Sicily of Frederick II, was intended for acting and music and was the starting point of the songs and cunti of the storytellers who reached nowadays, including Rosa Balistreri.
This is the ethnoanthropological study that the CSCSM has undertaken to discover Sicily, the center of the Mediterranean and the cradle of civilization, where Rosa Balistreri is undoubtedly, together with many others, an essential point of reference, and the birth of the “House of Rosa” , in Via Martinez in Licata, is proof of this. “Rosa Aulentissima” is the event that celebrates the anniversary of the birth of the “Casa di Rosa”, a project launched by the CSCSM directed by Nicolò La Perna in October 2023. This house, where Rosa lived as a child, welcomed thousands of visitors and hosted dozens of events in just a few months of activity.
At the “Re Grillo” Theater this evening a new vision of the work carried out by the Cantastorie Licatese will be presented, who did not start, in her capacity as an artist, from simple light and mass folk, but from intellectual environments that immediately understood the substance of an uncultured and instinctive character, but who contained within himself “the burnt land of Sicily”, as Buttitta stated. We will not fail to highlight the figure of Rosa the poet, who is still almost unknown today, given that the majority of her poems are still unpublished, having been written in the last years of her life when she was in decline. And it is only thanks to Felice Liotti that we can propose them again today, avoiding their definitive oblivion.
The artistic directors of the CSCSM Antonio Zarcone and Fulvio Cama have focused on this new story of a little-known and underestimated Rose and have made use of a series of guests and witnesses who will enliven the artistic-cultural salon at the Teatro Re Grillo, which will be presented by Paolo Di Giannantonio, former presenter of Tg1. Melo Freni and Nello Correale, Gaetano Savatteri and Katia Trifirò, who will speak during the evening via video, but also the live testimonies of Mario Gaziano and the Dioscuri who have so much to say about Rosa Balistreri. Nonò Salamone, historic Sicilian storyteller and friend of Rosa, will tell and sing, while the Calabrian storyteller Francesca Prestia will retrace, with voice, words and music, the collaboration between Rosa and Otello Profazio. Maria Cavallo, on the other hand, will explore and analyze Rosa’s poetics through her unpublished poems, which will then be performed live by Fulvio Cama, accompanied by the original music composed specifically for these unpublished works. Antonio Zarcone’s musical interventions will enrich the living room, with some traditional “pearls”.
