If This Is a Man
|| concert version ||
based on Primo Levi

stage adaptation by Domenico Scarpa and Valter Malosti
a show by and with Valter Malosti
sound design and live electronics by G.U.P. Alcaro
three madrigals (from the poetic works of Primo Levi) by Carlo Boccadoro
a TPE - Teatro Piemonte Europa production

language: Italian, with Romanian subtitles

the event is open and free of charge.

---

Primo Levi’s voice is the voice that knew how to speak about Auschwitz better than any other: the voice that, for more than 70 years, through If This Is a Man, has been telling readers around the world the truth about the Nazi extermination.
Valter Malosti brings to the stage the voice of this unique debut work, the most atrocious adventure story of the 20th century, without any other mediation. A voice that, in its emptiness, knows how to convey the chaos of the camp — the sounds, the threats, the horrors, the noise produced by the death factory. A language, that of Levi, seemingly whispered, but with enormous acoustic potential.

In this “concert version”, Is This Still a Man becomes first and foremost a sound adaptation: Primo Levi’s text passes from the page to the voice, and the voice — like a living body — makes it immediately intelligible and disturbing, beyond its meaning. Constructed as an acoustic piece (stage adaptation by Domenico Scarpa and Valter Malosti), the show relies on a polyphony of registers — testimony, reflection, flashback/flash-forward — supported by the live sound project by Gup Alcaro and three original madrigals composed by Carlo Boccadoro on lyrics written by Levi in 1945–46, offering a collective listening experience.

The project was realized in collaboration with the Primo Levi International Study Center, the National Committee for the Celebration of the Centenary of Primo Levi’s Birth, Polo del '900, and Giulio Einaudi Publishing on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Primo Levi (1919–1987).

---

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐲, observed annually on January 27th, commemorates the victims of Nazi atrocities during World War II, coinciding with the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The date was designated by the United Nations General Assembly on 1 November 2005. Italy formally established the day of remembrance on the same date, several years before a similar UN resolution. The day commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, of racial laws, and those who risked their lives to protect persecuted Jews.