Four sections of the rebuilt dome at Bari’s Teatro Petruzzelli have remained white since the frescoes that decorated them were lost. Those surfaces now hold projections by Leandro Summo, whose digital reinterpretation of scenes by Raffaele Armenise was presented on 17 September.
The original cycle depicted the Chariot of Thespis, a Roman race, a bullfight and a medieval tournament. Fire destroyed the paintings and the dome in 1991. When the theatre reopened in 2009 after reconstruction, the formerly frescoed sections had been left undecorated. Digital projections showing the lost images had already been tried for several months after the reopening.
Summo, whose practice includes 3D modelling, virtual and augmented reality, and video mapping, develops that earlier possibility. His projections give movement to the subjects of Armenise’s cycle in the place for which they were conceived. This is a contemporary work based on the lost scenes, not a restoration of the painted decoration on the dome.
At the presentation, Bari’s mayor and president of the Petruzzelli Foundation, Vito Leccese, said the work could introduce the images to generations who never saw the theatre before the fire. He also raised a possible future use: directors could incorporate the dome into opera sets through the projection system.
