This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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Venetians who had left their phones untouched during the summer exodus returned to the welcome if unsurprising news that the city mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, is finally being investigated for corruption. A dawn raid by 600 officers of the Guardia di Finanza resulted in 18 members of Brugnaro’s council being arrested for money laundering, false invoicing and misuse of public funds to the total sum of €150 million.

The allegations are so vast and varied that the case has been nicknamed “Operation Swamp”. Despite protests, including being pelted with tomatoes whenever he appears in public, Brugnaro himself has yet to resign, but residents are hopeful that his grip on Venice, which has been abandoned to a monoculture of hypertourism since his election in 2015, might at last be easing.

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Not the most reverent thought, but during the Armenian mass for the Feast of the Assumption I thought I’d cracked where Vegas Elvis got his inspo.

The island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni was gifted to a community of Mekhitarist monks by the government of Venice in 1717, after their original home in the Venetian colony of Morea in the Peloponnese had fallen to the Ottomans. Theirs was the only monastic order to be spared dissolution under Napoleon, reputedly due to the influence of his Mamluk bodyguard, Roustam Raza, and the community has become one of two major centres for the Armenian diaspora worldwide.

The exquisite collection of ancient manuscripts, not to mention the rose petal jam made by the monks, makes the island worth visiting at any time of year, but August 15th is spectacular. Three hours in a hurricane of incense and haunting chants lead up to the climax, when the velvet curtains covering the altar open to reveal the deacon in cloth of gold vestments topped with a six-inch stiff collar and two acolytes staggering to support the wings of his cloak.

Whatever one believes, it is impossible not to be moved by this mesmeric rite, which has continued since the foundation of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the 4th century.

Dancing in the aisles

During the 18th century, Venice had more ballet companies than anywhere else in the world, but by the 1980s the last of them was disbanded due to cuts at La Fenice. Since then, the city’s unique dance heritage has almost disappeared.

Il Balletto di Venezia is setting out to change this. The company is the initiative of Gerardine Connolly, senior councel at the Irish Bar and former chair of Ballet Ireland, and Alessio Carbone, a third-generation principal dancer and member of one of Venice’s most fascinating theatrical dynasties.

His father Giuseppe headed the last company at Fenice (where his mother Iride Sauri was étoile ballerina), before becoming director at La Scala; his sister is a prima ballerina and his brother a flamenco star. After Alessio’s retirement from the Opéra national de Paris, he and Gerardine established Il Balletto, which launched last summer at Palazzo Barbaro.

Their aim is to award professional two-year contracts to young dancers from the most prestigious ballet schools, alongside an outreach programme of classes and workshops which will introduce dance to Venetian schools and adults of any age and physical ability.

This year’s gala featured 11 young professionals in a programme which leapt from Swan Lake to Joni Mitchell as well as a specially commissioned piece, Ingaouhou from Shunsuke Nakamura of the Académie Princesse Grace in Monaco.

Undaunted by the weight restrictions in mediaeval palazzi, Gerardine had a portable sprung floor constructed in the church of San Giorgio, allowing the audience an exceptional proximity to the dancers, whose performance had the crowd hollering on their feet. Utterly captivating and exhilarating, Il Balletto di Venezia has set a new standard for how thrilling classical dance can be.

• • •

More joy at the opening of Homo Faber, the biennial extravaganza of artisanship hosted by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship at Fondazione Giorgio Cini. For a month, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore will be an enchanted wunderkammer of all that is most precious and rare.

This year’s theme is “The Journey of Life”, interpreted by art directors Luca Guadagnino and Nicolò Rosmarini as an immersive progress from birth to afterlife. Incorporating vintage pinball machines, fine jewellery, porcelain, glass, textiles and furniture, this show is Homo Faber’s most theatrical to date. “Birth”, staged in the Renaissance cloisters of the monastery, was an intricate and surprisingly unnerving play on the traditional Italian Gioco dell’Oca, realised in embroidery and metalwork by craftspeople from 20 countries.

“Dreams” are evoked through wild, delicate, occasionally surreal masks grouped around a serene, tenebrous pool, whilst “Afterlife” features cross-cultural commemorative objects reimagined as art installations. Event director Alberto Cavalli has included live demonstrations by watchmakers, jewellers and restorers, amongst many others, enabling visitors to marvel at skills and ingenuity which often remain unseen.

In addition to being a showcase for techniques and traditions which need to be kept alive, perhaps Homo Faber’s most important work tends towards dissolving the (19th century) distinction between fine and applied arts and how we categorise and respond to them. Cavalli has also extended the project across the city, with more than 70 traditional artisan businesses offering live demonstrations during the run of the show.

Defiant and celebratory, Homo Faber engages with the fabric of Venice far more effectively than Biennale by offering an opportunity to view its traditions and potential beyond either tourist cliché or the international art circus. Fabulous indeed.