1. Once Upon A Time...
Music: R. Di Lazzaro - M. Riccia
Once upon a time… many stories begin with these words, which, once spoken, open a window to other times and worlds, connecting them to ours. Fairy tales are threads that intertwine, gathering themes and stories that are present wherever humanity has built a culture, and it is difficult—and perhaps pointless—to give them a precise origin: they speak of us, of our desires, of our passions, and of the trials that we are all called to face to reach an ending where we can be “happy ever after” … or simply to grow. Music, after all, has the same power: it traverses the ages and continues to speak to people, mutable and constant at the same time, always adding new voices without forgetting those of the past.
2. What's Beyond
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro - Music: R. Di Lazzaro
To what extent are we willing to go to conform to how society wants us to be? Beyond the mirror of appearances, there remains only the horror of what one has chosen to become: a person who, in order to escape the passage of time and the decay of the body, has allowed their soul to rot. This contrast emerges in the story of Snow White, which frames the song by giving voice to the Stepmother, but also evokes the literary tales of Dorian Gray and Erzsébet Báthory, one pouring the consequences of his actions into his portrait, the other bathing in the blood of virgins to keep her beauty and youth intact.
3. Jester’s Soul
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: M. Riccia
Making oneself great in the eyes of the world with crowns of tin and glitter, pretending to be brave knights waving plastic swords, filling one’s mouth with false praises—for fear of showing who one truly is. Creating a character, a false attire, to be seen as a hero: this is what the Brave Little Tailor of the Brothers Grimm does, better known as the Valiant Little Tailor, who instead of revealing the misunderstanding chooses to ride it and take advantage of it to conquer everything that would otherwise have been out of his reach—a kingdom and a princess for a bride. However, no matter how much one believes in their own lies, in the end, one finds oneself alone: from the cracks in the mask, the truth seeps through, the awareness of having wasted one’s real life to simulate an illusory one, holding nothing but a handful of flies.
4. Wrath Of God
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: R. Di Lazzaro
Bluebeard’s wrath mirrors the image of divine wrath that in many religions is unleashed when a prohibition is broken: the murderous husband from the tale transcribed by Charles Perrault, like many men in every era, feels authorized to dispose of his wives as the sole lord and master. Bluebeard’s violence is psychological before it is physical: he weaves an illusion of freedom that ends at the castle walls, sets a precise prohibition with the sole intent of pushing it to be broken, and hides behind gifts and words the simple desire for possession—collecting one wife after another, one corpse after another, preserved like trophies. The last of the wives finally realizes she is a victim of this perverse game, and only then is she able to imagine an alternative, a way out, and invokes in turn a rightful “divine wrath”: one called to avenge those who destroy the lives of others.
5. Silence Of The Waves
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: R. Di Lazzaro
Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid gives up her voice, the ability to speak and sing, to gain human legs and feet and reach the humans on the surface. Once up there, however, she realizes she has given the Sea Witch precisely what most represented her essence, discovering herself not only without a voice but also without an identity and a story, destined to dissolve into the foam of the waves. In the same way, the desire to be understood and comprehended is something that unites all of us. Often, we wish to be heard even by those who refuse to make the effort to learn our language, our way of expressing ourselves: the only possible choice then is to bend to the language of others, to adapt to others, like the young mermaid, but risking losing our own voice and the ability to express who we are.
6. Shahrazad
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: R. Di Lazzaro
Shahrazad in One Thousand and One Nights saves her life and that of all the other women of the harem by telling a new story to the sultan every night, stopping at dawn, and postponing her execution for another day. How many times are we saved, in the same way, by a song that screams our anger together with us, by a book that makes us feel understood on our worst days? How many times do we watch and rewatch a film, knowing that each time it will ease our sadness, and how many times does a photo or painting express what is in our minds and that cannot find words? How many men and women have crossed the dark moments of History clinging to the thin and tenacious thread of stories, encouraging each other, resisting one day at a time, one night at a time, until the next dawn?
7. A Bird Of Gold
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: R. Di Lazzaro
In this story, the youngest of a king’s sons must overcome a series of trials and bring back to his father a bird with golden plumage, as in the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale of the same name. Unlike his greedy and arrogant brothers, the boy does not refuse the help offered by a magical fox and, despite the difficulties, succeeds in his mission. As with the young prince, for all of us too, the road to becoming who we are or who we could be constantly intertwines with that of others, and every mistake or fall is a lesson to be learned, every encounter an opportunity to expand our minds and our world.
8. Gashadokuro
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: R. Di Lazzaro
If in many Western narratives the focus of the story is the exceptional appearance of a monster that is defeated by the hero, moving to the East, the presence of yokai—the ghosts and supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore—becomes more pervasive and everyday. And, at the same time, there are things that not even the bravest of samurai can face: not so much the monster itself, but the fear of the monster, capable of paralyzing and annihilating, without exceptions and without escape. The Gashadokuro, in this case, is a particular type of yokai that takes the form of a gigantic skeleton made up of all the bones of those who have fallen on a battlefield, casting the dark shadow of the violence committed and the terror of a dishonorable death.
9. The Sleeping Beauty
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: R. Di Lazzaro
Sleeping Beauty is one of the most famous and variant-rich fairy tales and lends itself to multiple interpretations. In our vision, a desolate world wrapped in silence and grayness awaits someone to break the curse that forces everyone into immobility, into apathy: perhaps music can be the key to giving meaning back to that immense void, and dissolving the nightmares of the mind.
10. The Nightingale
Lyrics: R. Di Lazzaro – Music: P. Biscardi; R. Di Lazzaro
The nightingale imagined by Hans Christian Andersen rebels by remaining silent against the captivity imposed by the emperor, who has locked it in a golden cage, believing he possesses its song. The mechanical nightingale built by the courtiers is of no use, as its voice is false and monotonous, and it gives no emotion. Only once the emperor understands that the song is a spontaneous gift and cannot be born from coercion, he frees the nightingale, and the real nightingale fills the garden with its music.
