Cose mai accadute - omaggio a J.L. Borges

Produced by Ex Novo and Compagnia inauDita
with Massimiliano Zampetti and Begoña Feijoo Fariña
Live music by Federico Maio

In 2026, forty years after the death of Jorge Luis Borges, this reading serves as a tribute to his work and his imagination, bringing his invented worlds to life through the direct and shared language of the stage.

The structure of the performance unfolds like a true score of voices, sounds, and images, built in continuity with the thematic themes evoked in the previous chapter. The five stories are presented as universal pieces, stages of a single poetic and inner journey. The staged reading is based on the presence of two voices on stage, Massimiliano Zampetti and Begoña Feijoo Fariña, who bring the texts to life through an alternation of registers and rhythms, including choral passages and songs. Their voices do not merely narrate but construct a continuous dialogue—at times complementary, at times contrasting—capable of conveying the multiplicity of viewpoints and the suspended, ambiguous, and visionary nature of the stories. The spoken word on stage thus takes on an almost musical dimension: it draws near, recedes, overlaps, and is interrupted, allowing pauses and silences to emerge.

Alongside the live presence of the two performers, recordings in Spanish introduce the original poems that inspired the stories onto the stage. The recorded voice evokes Borges’s language and acts as a sonic memory that permeates the performance. It is not merely a commentary or a counterpoint, but a presence intended to open up passages within the narrative and continually reconnect the stories with the poetic source from which they sprang. Supporting and amplifying this device is the live music performed by Federico Maio, who accompanies the on-stage action with the santur, percussion, and theremin.