Inspector Montalbano closes, forever. The news floated in the air, amidst anguished doubts and ill-concealed certainties, many feared to listen to it or to read it.
The sad confirmation came from the actor Peppino Mazzotta, who in the successful TV series plays the role of Inspector Giuseppe Fazio, who, in an interview with the weekly People, reveals "The television Montalbano is over. I don't think there will be other episodes. The news we have received so far says so" he has declared.
«Although the latest novel by Andrea Camilleri "Riccardino", was not filmed and I think and have always said that it would be a moral duty to do at least that to close the story of the commissionerExplained the actor.
Montalbano's Sicily does not fit
The news caused discomfort in Ragusa and Syracuse, the cradle of the Baroque considered a Unesco heritage, which over the years has hosted the adventures of the hero of Andrea Camilleri.
The Mayor of Noto (Ragusa), Corrado Bonfanti, said:
«It is unthinkable and extremely irreverent towards the memory of the great master Andrea Camilleri to think of not making a final and definitive episode of the extraordinary television series taken from his books ".
Giuseppe Rosano, president of the association "We hoteliers Syracuse" recalled that:
«tourism in this corner of Sicily owes a lot to this series and we hope that our province can once again host the filming of Inspector Montalbano».
The images of those wonderful places, which served as a backdrop for the investigations of Inspector Montalbano, have made the monuments and beauties of an artistic and cultural heritage of immeasurable value to be appreciated and known all over the world.
The natural consequence was that those places, made famous by fiction, have become the destination of a huge number of tourists, giving the local economy linked to tourism income which, now, we do not intend to give up.
And in all honesty, who among us has never dreamed of waking up in that home, to open that window, take a few steps up quello gorgeous balcony and watch that specific wonderful sea, as the inspector has done dozens of times Except Montalbano?
Two Star Players
A sublime mind, Andrea Camilleri, capable of spreading captivating plots, with the background of a clove of its wonderful Sicily, an arm armato, with the service pistol, Luca Zingaretti, able to carve out on himself the figure of a police commissioner whom Camilleri initially described, physically and not only, very different from him.
Over thirty million copies sold and the television audience record that had to be updated with each episode are the natural result of the collaboration of two great talents.
It is difficult to explain the reason for such a success, not even they, or the protagonists, could explain it. Maybe it's just a matter of luck.
Fortunate to have met, fortunate to have met and to have established a deep human relationship, even before artistic.
From the union of these two souls, so different, in all respects, “Il commissario Montalbano” was born, a television phenomenon.
Analogy with "The investigations of Commissioner Maigret"
Something similar happened a few decades ago, in the mid-sixties. There was another great mystery writer named George simenon and his commissioner was called Maigret. The television face of that commissioner was of another great actor, Gino Cervi.
It is absolutely no coincidence that even then, in that project which was a huge success with the public, Andrea Camilleri was present as production delegate.
George Simenon, several times, recalled how the Italian Maigret, played by Gino Cervi, was "the best Maigret”Possible. It is not difficult to imagine how much that experience affected the then young Andrea Camilleri and how much of that experience he later found in his writings.
The terrible year 2019
The beginning of the end has a very specific date. On July 17, 2019 Andrea Camilleri dies, the director Alberto Sironi disappears twenty days later, and in February 2020 it is the turn of the great set designer Luciano Ricceri, the one who had discovered those places that have become mythical.
In 2017 there was the first, serious loss, with the death of Marcello Perracchio, the irascible Doctor Pasquano. Probably, the painful situation that had arisen instilled the bitter thought that it was time to say enough.
A difficult choice for everyone, but, perhaps, also a form of dutiful respect for those protagonists who had been the architects of an extraordinary television success and who, in a short time from each other, had disappeared.
Luca Zingaretti himself, on several occasions, publicly underlined the weight of the absence of key figures for the series: "The problem is that there was an author who wrote the lyrics to us year by year that is no longer there, a director who shot them who is no longer there.
Three more episodes will be broadcast: two in 2020 and one in 2021».
The decision is made. Up "Il commissario Montalbano"And on the splendid cast which has kept millions of Italians glued to the small screen for twenty years, the curtain falls. Forever…
Without Montalbano it will be a great break in cabasisi
