On July 28, 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, perhaps the period of greatest peace and prosperity in history for the European continent had come to an end, which is why it was retrospectively renamed the Belle Epoque. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.

technology unleashed its full potential, exerting an extraordinary cultural and psychological pull.

Paris was the capital of this epoch, with the whole varied range of its expressions: from the phenomena of social mores (the café-concerts, sports competitions, automobile races, airplane flights, department stores) to those of artistic expression (theater, opera, the cinema of the Lumière brothers, the painting of the Impressionists). The exceptional civil, economic and cultural development experienced so intensely by Europeans during that time was, however, destined to come to a precipitous end. Europe, in the midst of the euphoria of progress thus unexpectedly plunged into the terrible abyss of the First World War. 1914 marked the end of an era, and with it the end of a way of life, a world and its dream. Here is the inspiration for the seventh edition of the Piccolo Festival del Friuli Venezia.

July 4, 2014 – Castle of Spessa (Capriva del Friuli)

July 17, 2014 – Villa Manin (Passariano UD)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

July 27, 2014 – Revoltella Museum (Trieste)

Opium Rhapsodie