OPERA DEI PUPI

Sicilian Opera dei Pupi or puppet theatre has its origins in the Norman conquest of Sicily and the concept of honour. The tales are based on La Chanson de Roland, the later Reali di Francia and the later still Orlando Furioso. They mainly deal with the battles between Christians and Saracens though stories of saints, bandits and even versions of Shakespearian drama were all enacted in bygone days. Most sources date the tradition back to the 15th century though one or two suggest that it is older, possibly beginning in the 12th century. The main characters recognisable today are Ruggiero [King Roger of Sicily], Carlo Magno [Charlemagne], Orlando [Roland], Tancredi, the lovely Angelica and of course the stereotypical Saracen.

If you attend a performance it is often quite hard to work out what is going on as, although the tales are old, the puppet masters are quite free to interpret them as they wish, and there is a lot of puppet-blood-letting and shouting in dialect. However, you will know when to cheer as everyone can tell a “goodie” from a “baddie” and it is all great fun. As Vincent Cronin points out in The Golden Honeycomb, there was a time when every member of the audience would have been familiar with all the tales [Sicilians still are] and he rightly draws a parallel here with Greek epic and drama.

The puppets used in the Palermo tradition are quite different from those of Catania: Palermo puppets are 80 cm tall and their knees bend, the puppets being manipulated from the wings of the small “stage”. Catania puppets are 120 cm tall and their knees are rigid, so they are manipulated from above the stage. [Naples has its own tradition, too.]

The puppet theatres enjoyed their heyday in the 19th century but with the advent of literacy, cinema and, of course, television their popularity diminished. There are still families who make the puppets, though they are most often sold as souvenirs these days, and there are puppet theatres in various locations in Sicily, notably Siracusa. The International Marionette Museum in Palermo is well worth a visit.

I began this post by stating that “honour” is depicted as the most important virtue in the puppet plays: was it a short step, then, to the honour codes of the Mafia?

In the photo are my own three puppets that I bought on early visits here. [My Saracen unfortunately lost a foot, not in battle, but during the move.] “Welcome home” I said to them as I unpacked them two years ago.