AN ITALIAN STREET SCENE
Note: This is a side show or interlude in a larger entertainment rather than a party in the usual sense of the word.
The setting is a gay, sunny Italian street or corner in the market place. Across the center-back is a fruit stand piled high with vegetables and fruits and bunches of hanging bananas. At one side is a two-wheeled pushcart; at the other, a wooden bench. When the curtain goes up everything suggests the happy, lazy activity of an Italian street on a bright summer day. The fat, good-natured looking fruit dealer, in gay peasant costume, is selling vegetables to a chattering peasant woman who carries a huge basket on her arm. A handsome Italian youth lounging on the bench is being persuaded by a pretty Italian flower girl to buy her flowers. “Fiori, belli fiori, un soldo al’uno” (Flowers, flowers, one cent apiece), she urges. He feigns amused indifference and goes on smoking his cigarette. An Italian boy, sitting on the floor against the wheel of the pushcart, is playing a harmonica, utterly oblivious to his surroundings. An old bent-over vender, pushing his cart across the back of the stage, cries, “Tomati, potati, e pepperone freschi” (Tomatoes, potatoes and fresh peppers). Two pretty Italian girls stroll by.
This action goes on in pantomime until way in the distance “O Sole Mio” can be heard. The boy with his harmonica stops his playing and runs in the direction from which the music comes. The music grows nearer and a group of strolling Italian street musicians enter. They are dressed in the bright costumes of the troubadour type. Some of them are playing stringed instruments. The singers carry tambourines. One of the girls in the group, who is evidently a dancer, catches sight of the handsome Italian youth and goes over toward him. Two peasant girls who chance to be passing by stop and watch her. The fruit dealer, his customer and several other passers-by stop and listen to the music. From “O Sole Mio” it changes into the well-known solo from “Il Trovatore,” “Oh, I Have Sighed to Rest Me,” sung by one of the men in the group. Without a pause, two others, a man and a woman, sing the duet from the same opera, “Home to Our Mountains.”
The crowd applauds with great enthusiasm, and the music begins again in a gayer strain. “Fickle Is Woman,” from “Rigoletto,” is sung with spirit. The men sing the first line, the women the next, and so on, alternating, until the last refrain, “Borne on the Breezes,” which is sung together. From that they swing into “Finiculi, Funicula,” which pleases the crowd immensely. The music changes to a lively Italian dance rhythm. The dancer who has been trying to attract the attention of the Italian youth strikes her tambourine and dances a wild, spirited dance, without taking her eyes off him. She ends the dance with several fast turns down-stage, stopping directly in front of him. The crowds applaud, the youth rises and together they dance the Tarantella to gay Tarantella music. Some of the singers and several of the onlookers join them, dancing and singing “La Peppinetta.” They dance round and round in a glad carefree fashion, laughing and throwing flowers at each other.
The music swings back into “Finiculi, Funicula,” which everyone sings and applauds wildly. The musicians collect their pennies from the crowd and start off, singing “O Sole Mio,” the song with which they entered. Some of the crowd follow, others wander off. The Italian youth watches the dancer for a minute and then resumes his lazy pose on the bench. The music grows fainter and fainter in the distance. The peasant woman continues her bargaining with the fruit dealer. The boy takes his place by the pushcart and goes on playing his harmonica. Gradually the street resumes its accustomed lazy atmosphere, which had been interrupted for a moment by a group of strolling players.
LA PEPPINETTA
From “Songs of Italy,” collected by Marzo, published by Schirmer, New York.
Milan (Lombardy). Sung by the group or by the dancers.