47 reflects the peculiar relationship that Neapolitan people have with death: an event that ends up with being accepted as an integral part of life, almost a regenerative episode. A bond emphasized by the characteristic cult of the dead and the so-called Souls in Purgatory, often associated with those anonymously departed and whose remains, since ancient times, were guarded in ossuaries and crypts and became objects of collective devotion.

This is a rite that mixes the sacre and the profane and nourishes the prayer with the singing. It is an ancient oral tradition whose transmission has gradually been lost over time.

47 (which is the “dead man who speaks” in the tradition of Neapolitan grimace) rediscovers the old litanies of bones veneration: an act of return to the roots and re-interpreting them and, at the same time, an appeal to the city.

The performance’s set is the Museum site-specific room frescoed by Francesco Clemente. This is not accidental, as the verticality of the space, with a balcony which leans out the floor underneath, recalls the architectural frame of the city of Neaples. In addition, the vertical structure of the room reminds us of the geological stratifications of the city and, as in a mirror, it metaphorically recalls the duality of the earthly world and the heavenly, thanks to the upward lift of the singing.The performance is developed in three acts – three different devotional interpretations that also reflect the three different stages of life. At 16:47, 17:47 and 18.47 the public is invited to punge in a rarefied atmosphere, where they will be accompanied by a vocal instrument into a journey inside popular traditions, in order to remember that Aneme tutte che A morte aspetta a tutte… ( «The death waits for all the souls »).