A portrayal of Maria Judina, one of the greatest Russian pianists of the 20th Century, fearless as a woman and an intellectual. A portrayal backed up by rigorous historical documentation and engaging narrative freedom. The story of an artist during the darkest period of Stalinism, the clash with a dictator who, although opposing her for her religious beliefs, nevertheless appreciated her art.

Little is known in the West about the life of the great Russian pianist Maria Judina (1899-1970), or her rebellion against the Soviet regime because of her devout Catholicism and great intellectual freedom as an artist. An extraordinary figure whose encounters with poets, musicians and writers (from Gorky to Mandelstam, from Akhmatova to Pasternak, to Bakhtin, Florensky and Shostakovich), made an impact on the cultural life of the time. There’s the legendary episode in which Stalin listens to Mozart’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 23 at night and is so moved by Judina’s performance that the following day he demands to have the record, creating terror and confusion at the radio station because the concert was not recorded. Consequently, the musicians, the pianist and the conductor have to be summoned back in order to “create” in just a few hours, a fake first performance to send to Stalin. He would listen to this record until the day of his death.

Dario Fo commits to settling things with God and men.

The Nobel prizewinner for literature has always been a militant atheist, but this has never stopped him from exploring the theme of the sacred in many of his works, often engaging the Catholic Church and the saints in privileged conversations or making them his targets.
Taking inspiration from the immense heritage of popular culture, he has written deeply personal readings of the Gospels and the Bible, the tone of which are often ironic and provocative, but never blasphemous nor disrespectful. He has now decided to draw his conclusions from this long historical, religious and personal journey.

An extraordinary human and artistic parable told through memories, anecdotes, and unpublished events witnessed first-hand, from the writer who knew him best, and the most intimately.

From the first extraordinary stories by the narrators of the lake who were his first teachers, to his passion for painting and theatre, both of which he cultivated throughout his life. To Franca Rame, with whom he shared his parable of life and art; she was by his side in his very first farces, in the numerous comedies of political satire, in his television adventures and his clashes with censorship…
Fo is brought back to life in these pages with a provocative energy, as a man who was always ready to turn the meaning of things upside down, who liked to show that the king and his courtiers wore no clothes, and to laugh at the absurdity of life. Until his last day.