On Saturday 12 December 2026 at 8:45 pm, Teatro Cagnoni in Vigevano welcomes Arturo Brachetti with SOLO, the one-man show that has been enchanting audiences of all ages in theatres across Italy and Europe for ten seasons. An evening of wonder, laughter and amazement, produced by Arte Brachetti, in the heart of Lomellina.

After more than 700 performances and one million spectators over its first nine seasons, SOLO returns by popular demand to celebrate a major milestone. It is already regarded as a classic of visual theatre, a show you see once and come back to, to feel the same emotion as the first time. Ninety minutes of pure imagination, in which the Turin-born artist, now approaching fifty years in show business, has lost none of his ability to surprise.

At the centre of the stage is quick-change, the art of which Brachetti is the absolute icon, joined by the other disciplines in which he excels: shadow play, chapeaugraphie, poetic sand painting and the mesmerising laser beam. The show is a journey through the artist's house, a place with no present, past or future where dreams and wishes are kept. Each room tells a different side of who we are, and everyday objects come to life, taking us into worlds where the only limit is imagination.

The thread running through the show is the little notes Arturo wrote as a child in his notebook: important phrases, worth remembering, that marked his growing up. The children's room opens onto the world of fairy tales, the parents' bedroom holds an intense moment devoted to his relationship with his mother, while the kitchen hosts a madcap Italian-style wedding that looks straight out of neorealist cinema. There is also a playlist that runs through fifty years of pop music.

Brachetti is not alone on stage: beside him is his shadow, played by Kevin Michael Moore, who embodies the rational side and would like to keep dreamers firmly on the ground. The two engage in a no-holds-barred showdown that culminates in a final battle of laser beams. Real and surreal, truth and fiction, magic and reality: in Arturo Brachetti's house, anything is possible.

Behind the magic lies an impressive machine. Over ten seasons the show has visited 7 European countries and 163 different cities, covering more than 95,000 kilometres, about two and a half times around the Earth. Touring it takes two articulated lorries and more than a hundred flight cases holding sets, cables and costumes. Sixteen people are always on tour, Arturo included, while another seven work from the Arte Brachetti offices. There are four control teams (audio, video mapping, lighting and laser), setting up in the theatre takes eight hours, and every performance is preceded by three hours of rehearsal. Among the more curious details are 60 kilos of biscuits and 700 tea bags to accompany the moments before going on stage, and around 10,000 photos taken with the audience after the show.

Famous around the world, Brachetti brought quick-change back into fashion, reinventing it in a contemporary way. His international career began in Paris in the 1980s and has taken him to hundreds of theatres, performing in several languages. His quick-change numbers are so fast that they remain unbeaten in the Guinness World Records. With his previous one-man show, L'uomo dai mille volti (The Man of a Thousand Faces), he reached more than two million spectators. Director, showteller and artistic director, he is an all-round artist who brings to the stage the most recognisable elements of the Italian DNA: quality, love of beauty, taste and, above all, imagination.

It is a good chance to pair the show with a day in the city, between Piazza Ducale and the Sforza Castle, before heading to Teatro Cagnoni for the evening.

The show takes place on Saturday 12 December 2026 at 8:45 pm at Teatro Cagnoni in Vigevano. SOLO runs for about 90 minutes and is designed for audiences of all ages, from families to visual theatre lovers. Tickets are available online through TicketOne

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