Come in Sicily, an amazing mototouring experience: THE 382nd FESTINO OF SANTA ROSALIA
Since Palermo was miraculously rid of the plague in 1624
the terrible days of the epidemic and of the salvation have been relived
on the night of the 14th of July in the streets of the old city centre
in the Mediterranean's most widely celebrated and spectacular Festivity
The spectacle will commence at 9 p.m. in the open space in front of the Royal Palace, transformed into a gigantic gazebo, which at first will be covered in a great black cloth.
A stirring dialogue will go on between the Narrator (Scaldati) and the Doctor (played by Vincenzo Ferrera): the one describing in dialect the woeful atmosphere of the days of the plague, a timeless evil, obscure and inexorable; the other, in Italian, attempting to study the pustules in order to find a cure.
The stage will then shift to the open space in front of the Cathedral. The scene here will present what looks like a gigantic cupboard, surrounded by four smaller ones. These four, through a series of spectacular effects, will one by one reveal their contents.
From the Cathedral onwards, a gigantic triumphal car, in the form of a ship and a great stage machine, pushed by twenty-four sailors, with the statue of the Saint at the top and preceded by a procession of drummers in traditional costume, will mark the joy of a city liberated from the plague thanks to Rosalia's intercession. The route will follow the main thoroughfare of the ancient city, decorated with spectacular ephemera setting off its baroque architecture.
The sumptuous triumphal car will then proceed again down to the sea, where - in a spectacle within the spectacle - a fireworks display will explode in a fantasy of light and sound that will last for nearly an hour.
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