L’uomo che amava le isole (2006)

This work, written in 2005, expands Riccardi’s earlier work in English for three actors and piano, The Man Who Loved Islands. In the new work the narration is given to a single actor and a soprano adds an emotion-filled commentary.


SYNOPSIS
The Man Who Loved Islands tells the story of a man who, tired of civilization, decides to move to an island and make it a small perfect world, a world in his own image and likeness. The man seems to be happy, at least during the day, but his nights are crowded with ghosts foretelling misfortune. His hired hands, under a guise of respect, see the hostility and plot fraud. Soon he realizes they have all swindled him. He is bankrupt and forced to move. Instead of returning to the mainland, he goes to an even smaller island
with the companionship of few trustworthy people. Nothing in particular seems to happen, so he wonders whether a lack of desire is the true happiness. But one day this calm is also shaken. A woman who has followed him succeeds in attracting his attention. He lets himself enter into a passive relationship without enthusiasm, nothing that resembles the ideal meeting of two souls when there is a “true, delicate desire between them.” This relationship, endured and not really wanted, besmirches and spoils this
second island. He grows uneasy and has to leave it. He goes straight north to a third
island---just a few acres of rock with a hut, and inhabited only by a half dozen sheep. At last he is alone. He can no longer bear contact with the living. Near the end of winter a snowstorm strikes and lasts for days. The man struggles desperately against the fury of the elements…

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