The Venice Carnival 2022 last from February 12 to March 1. Venice is a beautiful city famous for many things, from attractions such as the main squares and churches, to events capable of attracting thousands of tourists. The Venice carnival is the most anticipated event of the year in Venice: ten days of masquerade, shows, music, games and colors. The 2-week-long festival is about parades, concerts, markets, and of course the ornate Venetian masks.
“Remember the Future”, this is the theme chosen for the 2022 edition under the artistic direction of Massimo Checchetto, was a real journey between past and present, which brought back to live the ancient traditions together with the modernity of a city that has its roots in a 1600-year-long past that is also capable of looking to the future. The Venice Carnival 2022 is a 18-day event with widespread events and shows that led Venetians and Italian and foreign guests to dress up throughout the municipal area.
The Venice Carnival brings a different air, an air of celebration and joy in anticipation of one of the major world events. The city atmosphere changes significantly during Carnival, the squares swarm with fun masks, the streets and squares are filled with colorful confetti while the Venetian canals are illuminated with the lights of this magical event.
The city goes crazy and fills with a cheering crowd. In the living room of Piazza San Marco and in the thousands of other fields you can freely attend theatrical performances and costume parades, concerts and historical re-enactments, entertainment for children and nights of wild dancing, gastronomic tastings and other sensory experiences.
The Carnival of Venice, rich in history, traditions and enchanting suggestions, is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in the baroque atmosphere of a city full of charm. Venice is full of celebrations that drag the visitor into a kaleidoscope of emotions. The ancient Venetian palaces, architectural jewels, host luxurious masked parties that evoke the transgressive atmospheres, a golden age for carnival celebrations as evidenced by the particular shapes of the costumes worn with pride by the Venetians.
Venice Carnival is one traditions with strong foundation in culture with the significance and beauty. The whole world also gathers every year around this time gaze on its grandeur. Every year, the Venice Carnival turns the city into a spectacular riot of pageantry, colour, musical performances, fireworks displays and glamorous Venetian balls. If you want to experience the exotic atmosphere of Venice at its best, carnival is the time to go.
“Experiencing” the Carnival in Venice mean to savour every moment of the festival by definition. Venice offer a rich calendar of performances, shows and evens linked to its products of excellence. Literary, musical and theatrical tradition, both national and international, offers several suggestions that inspire the artistic and scenic choices.
Venice is a magical city, Ordinary Venice is exciting, but Venice during the Carnival is spellbinding, with a historically rich mixture of performance and dining, and, of course, the magnificent costumes, including the extravagant masks for which Venice is so famous. If you have never had a romantic encounter in Venice, perhaps you will have an opportunity to learn why countless generations of impassioned lovers have exclaimed that romance in Venice is the best romance there is.
The Venice Carnival includes a series of open-air public events that punctuate the two-weeks Carnival. The most important and festive events are masked balls and private parties organised in palaces to the rhythm of the nights of the Venice Carnival. For the Carnival, the streets are filled with celebrants dressed in luxurious, festive garb; experiencing Venice during the Carnival is like stepping back in time, with no modern buildings to spoil the illusion. One can wander the streets, taking in the costumes and street performances, or attend an evening party, an opera or concert, in one of the palaces or hotels accustomed to hosting royalty.
All of an evening you might experience walking up the stairs of a candlelit palace, expecting Casanova to make his advances; enjoying cocktails over the glimmering Grand Canal, abandoning your senses to pleasure; all while revealing your true identity only to carefully chosen intimates. After all this extravagance perhaps your night is completed by a mysterious, romantic, moonlight tryst, leaving you entranced and breathless, ready to meet the whole experience again the following day.
Highlights
Carnival 2022 is in the name of magic and widespread shows, the Municipality of Venice was overwhelmed by the joy of street art, with the Wonder Time format and over 100 shows with 1100 replicas and among acrobatics, clowns and soap bubbles that transported children and adults in a world of magic and fairy tales. The entire tourism chain of the city of Venice. The shows at the Arsenale, the 10 theaters in the city fields and squares together with the numerous itinerant stations of the widespread programming, the rich cultural program, the continuous interaction with a world audience through social media were the cornerstones of the edition that ended.
Sixty companies involved for a total of 118 artists. Shows spread throughout the territory, from the ancient city to the islands to Mestre, Marghera and the whole mainland introduced by Venice Lux Futura, a Wavents production for Vela spa Carnival of Venice 2022, directed by Alessandro Martello, Opening Parade on the Grand Canal. The programming has seen a rich schedule of cultural initiatives at theaters, museums and cultural institutions that have opened their doors to the Carnival.
Ca ‘Vendramin Calergi, seat of the Venice Casino, hosted the “Dinner Shows”, exclusive dinners under the direction of Antonia Sautter which involved guests in fantastic and imaginary scenarios to unravel the history of the 1600 years of the foundation of Venice.
Piazza San Marco and Piazza Ferretto were the heart of the disguises with the traditional competition of the most beautiful mask, capable of attracting a thousand people in costume who got involved to take home a snapshot in memory of the day. The ateliers of typical Carnival costumes and the Venetian craftsmen, as well as the mascareri shops were involved. In addition, the food and wine and hospitality of the carnival period was promoted through the involvement of bàcari, restaurants, pastry shops, bakeries.
With the magic of street artists to celebrate Mardi Gras. In Venice the shows also arrive on the islands of Pellestrina and Lido. At the Lido, in collaboration with the Proloco, throughout the day there will be markets and activities for children including games, the most beautiful masks, trains, circus shows and parades. “Venice Wonder Time!” in Mestre and on the mainland in Marghera in Piazza Mercato, in Zelarino in Piazzale Maria Immacolata and in Favaro in Piazza Municipio.
The most anticipated and engaging event “Nebula Solaris”, took place in the splendid setting of the Arsenale with projections of light and fire games that gave the public thirty minutes of pure art. The great water show Nebula Solaris greets the Carnival with the last two shows staged by the Compagnia Opera Fiammae directed by Anton Bonura who – through the best artists of the fire, of the contemporary circus, of the theater and the arts of movement.
The Carnival of Culture comes to an end with unmissable events, the young students and recent graduates of the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice will be connected, directly from the locations of the popular shows, with a television studio to tell all the best of the Carnival. To guide them, the sympathy and enthusiasm of the grand master of ceremonies Prince Maurice (in the world Maurizio Agosti) and the actress and radio speaker Linda Pani, Maria del Carnevale.
The AcquaAlta amateur company will perform in “Passions vices virtues… yesterday as today”, a theatrical show in seven scenes directed by Roberto Dupré and the cast composed of Flaminia Palminteri, Anna Cocco, Antonella Perona, Carla Manfroni, Sandro Perissinotto, Stefania Munari, Roberto Dupré, Alberto Viale Barbieri, Luisella Trevisan.
At the last day, at the Candiani Cultural Center, the Pantakin company will stage “Venezia Millenaria”, a show dedicated to the 1600 years of Venice. Not only the stories with a capital S, but also legends, songs and anecdotes that make the city a living space: courtesans, captains from the sea, emperors, common people and stories that travel on the edge of the waves through the voice of the Masks of the Commedia dell ‘Art that like no other represent the history of the city.
At 7 pm, Maestro Francesco Lanzillotta will conduct a concert with compositions by Rossini, Strauss, Dvořák, Offenbach, Lehár, Bernstein and Kálmán at the Gran Teatro La Fenice. Lanzillotta is considered one of the most interesting conductors in the Italian music scene, in recent years he has conducted in the most important Italian theaters, including the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Verdi Theater in Trieste, the Teatro Filarmonico of Verona and the Lyric Theater of Cagliari.
Last day to visit the exhibitions “Women, Goddesses, Muses and other glances” at the Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista, “Fashion stories – Carnival in the Serenissima” at the Scuola Grande dei Carmini, “Rossana Molinatti: the art of wearing the ‘arte “at the Cloister of the M9 District.
History
The Carnival of Venice is an annual festival held in Venice, Italy. It is one of the best known and most popular carnivals in the world. The festival is world-famous for its elaborate masks. Its origins are very ancient: the first evidence dates back to a document of the Doge Vitale Falier of 1094, where there is talk of public entertainment and in which the word Carnival is mentioned for the first time.
The institution of the Carnival by the Venetian oligarchies is generally attributed to the need of the Serenissima, like what already happened in ancient Rome (see panem et circenses), to grant the population, especially the humblest social classes, a period dedicated entirely for fun and celebrations, during which Venetians and foreigners flocked throughout the city to party with wild music and dancing.
Through the anonymity that masks and costumes guaranteed, a sort of leveling of all social divisions was achieved and even the public derision of the authorities and the aristocracy was authorized. These concessions were widely tolerated and considered a providential outlet to the tensions and discontent that inevitably arose within the Republic of Venice, which placed strict limits on its citizens on issues such as common morality and public order.
The Modern Carnival
Only in 1979, the centuries-old tradition of the Venice Carnival officially rose from its ashes, thanks to the initiative and commitment of some citizens’ associations and the logistical and economic contribution of the Municipality of Venice, of the Teatro la Fenice., of the Venice Biennale and tourist boards.
Within a few editions, thanks also to the media visibility reserved for the event and the city, the Venice Carnival has returned to tracing the footsteps of the ancient event with great success, albeit in different ways and atmospheres.
The individual annual editions of this new Carnival have often been distinguished and dedicated to a basic theme, which inspires them for parties and surrounding cultural events. Some editions were also characterized by combinations and twinning with other Italian and European cities, thus providing further involvement of the event at an international level.
The current Carnival of Venice has become a great and spectacular tourist event, which attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world who flock to the city to participate in this festival considered unique for its history, atmosphere and masks.
The traditionally most important days of the Venetian Carnival are Shrove Thursday and Shrove Tuesday, even if the greatest influxes are certainly recorded during the weekends of the event.
The holidays
With the first edition of the recent Carnival, a program of events and a detailed calendar for the new major event are simultaneously established. The date for the start of the official celebrations is established to coincide with the Saturday before Shrove Thursday and the end with Shrove Tuesday, for a total duration of only eleven days. Unlike the Carnival of the past, which for a long time had an official duration of six weeks, the modern one takes place with a concentrated program, but full of individual events.
As in the past, the Carnival of Venice still represents a great popular festival for a large audience of all ages. Street parties and events of all kinds animate the days of the groups of masks and tourists, who happily scatter around the city. In addition to the official parties in the square between campi and campielli, still today as in the past various private parties and masked balls are organized in the great Venetian palaces. In these places, rich in furnishings and atmospheres almost unchanged over time, it is possible to relive the ancient splendors and the tradition of the Carnival of the past.
The Feast of the Marys
Only in 1999 the ancient Festa delle Marie was finally restored, with an atmosphere that combines the historical re-enactment of the ancient procession with the girls with a more modern beauty pageant in costume. It was officially revived about six hundred years later, by Bruno Tosi
In the weeks preceding the Carnival, a sort of selection is held among the young local beauties to choose the twelve Marys destined to parade as protagonists of the procession, during the celebration. The party generally takes place on the afternoon of the first Saturday of the Carnival, when the twelve Marys, accompanied by a long procession made up of a procession of bridesmaids, flag-wavers, musicians and hundreds of other figures in period costume, begins its slow walk starting from the church of San Pietro di Castello and heading towards Piazza San Marco, between the wings of a crowd of masks and tourists.
In Piazza San Marco, the next day, the bridesmaids parade again awaiting the official proclamation of the winner of the edition, the most beautiful of the twelve (the so-called Mary of the year), to whom a substantial prize is awarded.
The Flight of the Angel
In the modern Carnival it was decided to re-present to the public, in a guise similar to the original one of the ancient Carnival, the anniversary of the Flight of the Angel, in its variant of Volo della Colombina. While in the past this show was celebrated on Shrove Thursday, in modern editions it is generally held at noon on the first Sunday of celebration, as one of the opening events that officially decree the beginning of the Carnival itself. Until the 2000 edition, above a cheering crowd, with its gaze turned to the Campanile of San Marco, a mechanical bird with the shape of a dove carried out, as in the past, its descent on the rope towards the Doge’s Palace. Approximately halfway through, a trap door was opened in its lower part,
Since the 2001 edition, the first of the millennium, the old formula of the Flight of the Angel has been passed again, replacing the Colombina with a real artist and ending the descent in Piazza San Marco. The 2001 flight was entrusted to the Compagnia dei Folli, which lent its own artist for the event. For each edition, the Angel of the Carnival, secured to a metal cable, makes his only descent from the belfry of the bell tower, slowly sliding towards the ground, suspended in the void, above the multitude that fills the space below.
Social Media
Carnival of Venice can also be found in online streaming, including direct TV and social and web channels, registering an unprecedented success. The live broadcasts were made on the weekends of 12 and 13 and 19 and 20 February and every day of the “fat” week, from 24 February to 1 March.
On the Facebook page of the Carnival and on the Youtube channel of Venezia Unica, 10 connections for a total of 15 hours of direct social media thanks to the 12 Carnival Speakers, students and recent graduates of the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice, scattered in the Wonder Points in Venice and Mestre who unveiled the rich program of the Carnival and some backstage moments.