Orchestra rehearsal = Prova d'orchestra

A television crew arrives to film the members of an orchestra rehearsing. The various musicians bicker and debate the merits of their individual contributions. Performing for the camera, they begin to challenge the authority of the conducter. As the situation turns chaotic and their rehearsal room begins to be demolished by a building crew, they all turn to the conductor for the restablishment of order. Maintaining a finely absurd comic tone throughout, “Orchestra Rehearsal” is a celebration of the meditative power of music and art. It is also a witty parable on the entropic contradictions that are threatening to tear modern Italy apart. With this short but elegant film, Fellini signalled a retreat from the lavish carnivalesque cinema he explored in the Sixties and Seventies. However, this does not mean this is not a suberbly directed work. In fact this was a return to form for Fellini, and his concern with the meaning and function of art in an increasingly alienated society is more expressively explored in “Orchestra Rehearsal” than it has been in any other film since “8 1/2”.