Another unique thing to the island of Sicily is the Opera dei Pupi (or opera of the puppets). It was used as an entertainment activity before there were TVs and movies. People would come and see a puppet show and really get into the characters and everything. This little museum is downtown Catania in the harbor where the cruise ships come in. We had a hard time finding it but once we did it was quite unique and obviously made an impression because that is the souvenir Anthony chose and has put on many puppet shows since. This museum has the large puppets on display. They are not used today anymore, they have been replaced with a little smaller version as these are close to 75 pounds and as you can see taller than my children. The Opera dei pupi is in its 4th generation of the Napoli brothers. They write the scripts, they perform, they do it all I guess. They used to tell the stories of war and the puppets are even made to get cut in half if that is what their character does in the show, or get their head chopped off or even has a bottle inside to let blood out if they get a wound. Pretty realistic. It was really neat to see all these puppets and our only regret is that there isn't a show while we were here to see. We pulled some up on youtube for the kids to see and we all would have loved to see a live show. I guess that is reason enough to come back to Sicily someday!
1 comment:
Cool! I think it's funny that they make the war scenes so gory! Of course, my kids would probably think that was cool! :)
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