On Wednesday 16 April 2025, at 9:00 pm, a theatrical performance by Sicilian storytellers Paolo Zarcone and Lidia Fortunato entitled: “Matri Dulurusi” will take place at the “Monsignor Muratore” theatre in Villa Butera. The two artists will bring to the stage an intense theatrical and musical performance on the theme of the mother-child bond in Sicilian popular culture, giving voice to the torment of mothers who have seen their children victims of social injustice. In addition to his compositions, Zarcone will interpret texts by authors such as Ignazio Buttitta and Ciccio Busacca. A unique opportunity to attend a performance by the storytellers from Bagheria that promises to be full of meaning.
The event, sponsored by the Metropolitan City of Palermo, is one of the Easter events planned by the municipal administration of Bagheria.
MATRI DULURUSI
The popular sentiment that – in Sicily as in all those regions of the world invested by Spanish domination – celebrates the inseparable mother-child bond, the never severed umbilical cord (borrowed through the Mary-Jesus relationship of the Catholic religion), finds in a pregnant way an exceptional manifestation in Sicilian popular culture.
In the show “Matri dulurusi” the storyteller Paolo Zarcone, accompanied for the occasion by the singer Lidia Fortunato, becomes the interpreter of this sentiment giving voice to the voices that celebrated the torment of the countless “maries” who – in Sicily and elsewhere – saw their “jesus” crucified because of the opposition of the strong powers of our society.

This is the musical program of the show:
– Diu vi salvi, Rigina (traditional)
Traditional religious song performed during the Easter period in various centers of the Palermo area (Vicari, Marineo, Misilmeri). In Bagheria the same text is performed to an original melody in the church of the Holy Sepulchre: at the end of the Good Friday procession in the square in front of the church, the version performed by the parish priest accompanied by the musical band is particularly suggestive.
– Chistu unn’è me figghiu (Felicia Bartolotta Impastato)
The heartbreaking cry with which Peppino Impastato’s mother, struggling to believe in her son’s death, wants to reach out to all those who have lost someone at the hands of the mafia.
– Lamentu pi la morti di Turiddu Carnivali (Ignazio Buttitta / Ciccio Busacca)
The cantata, written by Buttitta for Ciccio Busacca, made the storyteller from Paternò famous throughout the world. In it, extraordinary prominence is given to the “lament” of the mother of the trade unionist from Sciara, murdered by the mafia, in which the parallelism Turiddu Carnivali/Jesus and Francesca Serio/Mary is extraordinarily clear.
– The story of Salvatore Giuliano (Ciccio Busacca)
– In his “Storia di Turiddu Giuliano”, the great storyteller Ciccio Busacca closes it with a “canzunetta”, the crying of Giuliano’s mother towards her murdered son.
– Lamentu d’una matri (Ignazio Buttitta / Paolo Zarcone)
The poem – set to music by Zarcone – was written by Buttitta on the occasion of the Portella della Ginestra massacre in 1947. It is the “lament” of the mother of a young victim of the massacre to whom the mother thus addresses: “…ca si chiantatu comu Cristu ncruci!”.
– Littra a na mamma tedeschi (Ignazio Buttitta)
Defined by numerous critics as the most resolute anti-war poem, it is the letter of an Italian soldier to the mother of the German soldier that he himself found himself killing during a battle of the First World War.
– Lamentu di la cruci (Paolo Zarcone)
A song in Sicilian verse composed by Zarcone and usually performed in the squares during Holy Week. It tells the story of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth and ends with two “chianti” (weeping): the first of Jesus crucified addressed to the Madonna, the second of the mother to her son.