Silvio d'Amico's journey to Paris

Silvio d'Amico is often remembered solely as a person who made the Italian stage conform to a standard, having deeply influenced Italian theatre in the years when bureaucratic structures, which are still in existence, were being defined. However, through the uneasy relationship between what the critic actually achieved and the need for a different and more radical reform, we may perhaps discover an aspect of d'Amico which is far more disturbing than what may sometimes be deducted from the results he obtained. Documents preserved in the d'Amico Collection, situated at the Civico Museo Biblioteca dell'Attore in Genoa, reveal particular moments of his efforts to reform acting schools. These moments can be traced from the journey that, in 1927, led him to Paris to visit the Conservatoire. Through the examination of the different drafts of the projects for renewal, I shall try to rediscover the sense of the foundation, in 1939, of the Compagnia dell'Accademia.