Franca Florio, regina di Palermo
Franca Florio, regina di Palermo is a full-length narrative ballet in two acts, with music by Lorenzo Ferrero and scenario, choreography and staging by Luciano Cannito. A commission by the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the work premiered there on 22 November 2007 with Carla Fracci in the title role, and was restaged in June 2010. Set in Sicily, the story is based on the life of Franca Jacona Notarbartolo di San Giuliano (1873-1950), a famous Sicilian aristocrat whose beauty inspired many artists, musicians, and poets during the Belle Époque, who retraces the highlights of her life from her retreat on the island of Favignana. Her past is explored chronologically, by means of extensive flashbacks of events. Florio's story, replete with worldly success but also with tragic events, is in part the metaphor of the failure of the industrial development in Sicily at the beginning of the twentieth century.