The Trianon Viviani Theater in Naples will host, on Saturday March 2, 2024 at 9:00 PM (with a replay on Sunday 3), the debut of “Blues Velvet” subtitled as a Neapolitan jazz dream, a suitcase show by Maria Angela and Marianna Robustelli, which brings to the stage the emblematic and fascinating story of Billie and Lola.
Presented by the Tuscany Theater Foundation - National Theater, OTP Obeĉe Theater Project, the staging will see Maria Angela Robustelli, who also signs the direction, and Marianna Robustelli, with musical direction by Salvatore Torregrossa on piano, accordion, ukulele, electric guitar and kazoo, Nico Sommese on wind instruments, Antonello Buonocore, on bass and double bass, and Pasquale Ferraioli on percussion.
Blues Velvet is born and takes shape from notes written on a paper napkin, at a table at the Andy's Jazz Club in Chicago, during a work period of the Robustelli sisters in the American metropolis. Billie and Lola are two sisters born in the suburb of Taylor Street in Chicago, daughters of emigration, grown up listening to the interpretations and stories of their grandmother Dolores (Maria Addolorata) who, orphan and young girl, in 1929 fled from the misery of a popular neighborhood in Naples and crossed the ocean to arrive in America, only with her guitar, many songs and the desire to sing.
The memories of Dolores are for the two girls the only link with their cultural and emotional roots, which will feed their dream of becoming two stars and returning to Naples as divas. Blues Velvet catapults us into a smoky night club, a Neapolitan cave like a club on Taylor Street in Chicago, where the ancient Neapolitan melody merges with the rhythms of jazz and ballroom music of the post-war Italian-American community.
Era de Maggio becomes May is back, Passione is Passion, 'A vucchella is A pretty lovely kiss, Uocchie c’ arraggiunate instead Black eyes and so on, passing through Maruzzella, until arriving at a version of Dove sta Zazà with a more than nostalgic flavor, a claim of an Italian identity tested by emigration and never lost.
The spotlights turn on and the two Italian-American singers, in an Italian mixed with a distorted English and Neapolitan, will express themselves in broccolino, a language spoken by the large community of Italian emigrants in the States and will tell the public, in this fun and imaginative slang, their story, their dreams and sing their songs.