V. MARIO E IL MAGO, 1956

It was this “choreographic work by Luchino Visconti based on the story by Thomas Mann” – Mario und der Zauberer, published in 1930 – that was supposed to kick off Visconti’s collaboration with La Scala. Mario e il Mago had in fact been announced as part of the 1953–54 season, and Visconti, who had admired  Thomas Mann since his youth, had begun working on the project in 1951. The composer was Franco Mannino, Visconti’s brother-in-law, though the score also incorporated the popular song “Un’ora sola ti  vorrei.” The choreography was assigned to Léonide Massine, fresh from his work with the Ballets Russes. For the sets and costumes the theatre hired Lila De Nobili, for her first  collaboration with Visconti. In the spring of 1954 the production had reached pre-dress rehearsal, but the premiere was called off due to fears of an uproar among the audience over the appearance of bicycles on stage (that same season, a different opera had been withdrawn because of the furious reaction to an on-stage automobile). It was  not until 25 February 1956 that Mario e il mago managed to premiere. The plot does not literally follow  Mann’s story, set in 1926, when Italy was already under Fascist rule. Instead, Visconti uses it as a springboard for a work of even greater ambiguity, keeping the original setting on the Versilia summer holiday coast between Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi but shifting the time to around 1935.