Rent-A-Past: Italian Responses to Shakespeare's Histories (1800-1950)

The article analyzes translations and stagings of the History Plays in Italy up to 1950. It shows their relevance to the 19th century revolutionary movements (when translating Shakespeare's history became a way of making political statements that would have been censored if referred to episodes of Italian history. It explores their presence and transformation in little known operatic librettos. The final part is devoted to Giorgio Strehler's stagings of Richard II (1948) and Richard III (1950). Once again, the Histories were being used to comment on Italian political events (the last years of World War II) that were still too controversial to be dealt with directly