Cirque makes long-awaited return to Bay Area stages
Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose to be sites for the hit show `Corteo'
Always a frequent visitor to the Bay Area, Canadian circus juggernaut Cirque du Soleil is finally returning for the first time in three years with its hit show “Corteo.” This particular piece previously came to town in 2005, the same year that it had premiered in Montreal.
The current visit is a whirlwind one — one weekend each in San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. In January the company will return to San Francisco for a nearly two-month run of “Kooza,” another returning show that had its U.S. premiere in San Francisco in 2007. Cirque du Soleil's last visit to the Bay Area was “Amaluna” in late 2019 and early 2020.
Like the similar English word cortege, “Corteo” in Italian means a procession, such as that for a funeral. The show takes the form of a celebratory procession imagined by a clown dreaming of his own funeral.
Written and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, “Corteo” features angels and human marionettes, bouncing trampoline beds and women swinging from giant chandeliers.
On a video call from his home in Switzerland, Finzi Pasca says the show is inspired by “my dreams.”
“I am a Swiss Italian guy,” he explains. “The Italian concept of clownery is so related with commedia dell'arte. For us, the clown is a mix between the tragic and the comic. It's not slapstick, for example. If you're think of Dario Fo and (Roberto) Benigni, (Massimo) Troisi, that's our reference. When I met (Cirque du Soleil co-founder) Guy Laliberté and he proposed I direct the new creation of Cirque du Soleil some years ago, I told him, what do you think if I do a giant parade, a dream of a funeral, a clown funeral with a lot of friends that arrive to celebrate his life? And he said, `OK, go. It's the perfect idea.'”
“In general, I start from a dream,” Finzi Pasca added, “and I cook my show using my kinds of spice and flour that are very related with Italian culture.”
A longtime circus artist born to a family of photographers and painters, Finzi Pasca founded his own company, Teatro Sunil, 40 years ago. Having also become known for pieces he created for Cirque Eloize, such as “Nomade” and “Rain,” he went on to create another show for Cirque du Soleil, the Mexico-themed “Luzia.” He also directed the closing ceremonies for both the 2006 Torino and 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Though it's been 18 years since “Corteo” premiered, there's more continuity among the company than one might think. The central Dreamer Clown Mauro Mozzani, for example, is the same one who played the role when the show premiered and is a longtime collaborator of Finzi Pasca's.
“The first clown that you will see on stage in San Francisco has been part of my team many years,” Finzi Pasca says. “Maria (Bonzanigo), one of the composers of the music of “Corteo,” we created our company here in Switzerland together 40 years ago.”
Also returning from the original cast are acrobat Julie Dionne, Valentyna and Grigor Pahlevanyan as the little clowns and Victorino Lujan as the Giant.
“After so many years, there are some artists that were there from the beginning,” Finzi Pasca says. “Some leave the show and come back later, but we still have a person on stage that was part of the original cast. So the soul of the show is preserved. And of course we try always to do something new, something better.”
Unlike other Cirque du Soleil shows, “Corteo's” setup divides the venue in two, with audience members facing each other on both sides of the rotating stage.
“That was something absolutely new in the world of the circus,” Finzi Pasca says. “I think that was and continues to be one of the most surprising elements in `Corteo,' the morphology, the change of the perspective of the form.”
Some of the more fanciful elements in the show are drawn from his own life, he says, such as the acrobats — representing all the women the central clown has loved in his life — swinging from giant chandeliers called “Lustres” in the show, after the French word for chandeliers.
“When I was a kid in the house of my grandmother, she had in the center of the salon a Venetian lustre,” Finzi Pasca explains. “My brother, Marco, we've worked many years together from the beginning, and he was also my assistant in `Corteo.' And one day my brother and me, we went on top of the table and we hung together on the lustre. And when my grandmother entered in the room and discovered us both hanging on the lustre, it was really a big scandal. So it is not just a dream. It's also to tell the pleasure of when I was a kid.”
It's that childlike lust for life that Finzi Pasca really wants to convey.
“This show maybe will bring in this idea that we can see life with the same naivete, where everything is possible, everything is dangerous, everything can scare, and everything is full of love,” he says. “That is what I want to bring for the spectator.”