Teatro Verdi (Theatre)

On 23 December 1961, Sophia Loren arrived at the Teatro Verdi for the international premiere of the film Madame Sans Gène (directed by Christian Jaque) shot in the studios of Tirrenia and interpreted by her. Loren was already an international diva, very famous for playing a number of roles, including the dancer in Pellegrini d'amore (Pilgrim of Love) in 1954. In Tirrenia, Sophia also starred in the episode of Boccaccio '70: La Riffa (The Raffle ) (1962), and was a tormented Brechtian actress in I sequestrati di Altona (The condemned of Altona) (1962) shot by Vittorio De Sica. All of Pisa wanted to go to the Verdi theatre to see Sophia Loren, but seats were limited and above all it was compulsory for men to wear a tuxedo. Some did not even know what a tuxedo was, very few already had one in their closet. So there were those who had a tuxedo tailored and those who rented one, but when the rental tuxedos in Pisa were sold out some went to look for one in Viareggio, in Florence... and it seems that someone even went to Rome to find one. That evening the theatre hosted 850 people.

I sequestrati di Altona (The condemed of Altona) (1962) by Vittorio De Sica, based on the play with the same title by Jean-Paul Sartre. The protagonist Maximilian Schell, scion of a rich industrial dynasty, decides to remain closed up in the attic of the villa following the traumas suffered during the Second World War on the Russian front. Only the meeting with his sister-in-law, played by Sophia Loren, slowly awakens him to life. The drawings that cover the walls of the attic, where most of the film takes place, are unpublished works of the artist Renato Guttuso.