Cunziria

Architecture

The village's huts were created from local stone in an iron color. These huts were strategically positioned on the hillocks to increase sun exposure and quicken drying animal skins. The wall structure and the architectural details are tightly linked to the local Sicilian architecture. Due to its proximity to a water spring, the village is rich in tannin. This is extracted from the sumac plant and is valuable for the crafting process. The cleaning was done within tanks dug into rocks. Some of these rocks were then buried, but now are visible again thanks to recent excavations. It represents an example of the architecture and the rural agricultural culture of that time. The ruins of the church of Saint 'Egidio, which seems to date back to the Roman times, still remain. The tannery activities began to decline around the end of the 1920's and continued until the sixties when the practice of tanning was abandoned. The village maintains its scenic aspect, due to its location within an open valley, with the background highlands covered with prickly pear plants.

The Charm

The Cunziria became the scene of the famous Rustic Duel narrated by Giovanni Verga and also the romantic place where the characters Turiddu and Lola secretly lived. According to legend, the two lovers met under the light of a full moon to consummate their love and ridicule Alfio, Lola’s husband, who was a carter from Licodia. Their affair was shortly discovered and rumors spread around the village, reaching her husband that had just returned from Francofonte. The man, feeling dishonored, challenges the young Turiddu to a historic duel. The story of a love triangle that the verist writer repeated in his novel, amplifying tones of passion, feelings of a land that continues to fascinate for the traditions and the folklore.

Set

In 1983, at Cunziria was set the film adaptation of the Cavalleria Rusticana directed by the Maestro Franco Zeffirelli. The Florentine director exalted the splendor of the place in the film which defined as "a strange mixture of theatrical fiction and reality of rural life, a flow and a reflux of the theater in the truth and of the truth in the theater". Lola's infidelity and jealousy that unleashes the wrath of Santuzza, is manifested along the scenario of an exotic and architectural charm that capture the viewer. A Sicily with its colors, its passions, its violent expressions and its impulsive attitudes. Characters, symbols of a historic Sicily, taciturn elders wearing their cap, women who wash at the river, the process of devotion, typical costumes of a reserved an mysterious society. In 1996 it was the turn of Gabriele Lavia to make out of the scenario of Verga, the location of ‘’La Lupa’’. A story that explores the psychological dynamics of the characters, in a climate threatening and obscure, around a landscape that remained still throughout the years, an archaic society where one can see, men, busy women working the fields in a continuous state. An abyss of stillness where it is pierced by the sexual provocation of a hungry woman and her eager flesh.

Artistic redevelopment

Almost 20 years since the film release, the place turns back to life thanks to the efforts of the director Lorenzo Muscoso, who invents a new way of thinking about the place. A scenic outdoors theater where it will be possible to perform the suggestive theatrical scenes. He is working on Cavalleria Rusticana by denominating the opera as The Duel which was performed on April 25 on the occasion of the Festa dei Sapori e Saperi, with the participation of nearly 2000 people. A moment that will be remembered in the history of Cunziria and Vizzini. He continues his efforts to redevelop the village creating the project Marines meet Verga and two years after the Marines Revisit Verga, a collaboration between his association and the American base at Sigonella, the municipality of Vizzini and the forestry company of the town, in an attempt for the restoration of the ancient village. The operation was concluded successfully, as shown by the numerous editorials such as Rai, The Republic and Ansa. Also, Muscoso got a commendation from the General of the Marines handed to him by the General Command in a solemn ceremony organized at Sigonella.

Theatrical performances

The Duel is the initiation of an artistic experiment denominated by the artist Motion Theatre and joins the cinema with the theater through the use of giant screens, soundtrack and actor movements along the great scenery. It follows the Romanzo Verghiano, an itinerant journey through the neighborhoods of the village where the audience meets the characters of the famous operas of Verga and finally the Presepe Verghiano, the original staging of the Nativity in the world of Verga.