ROBERTO BRACCO. — Playwright and novelist, born in Naples in 1862, died in Sorrento on 20 April 1943.
Entering journalism at a very young age, he became one of the most acute and admired theatre and music critics of the late 19th century.
He waged his battle, especially in the Corriere di Napoli, for Ibsen and Wagner before they became the idols of the cultured public. At the same time, he attempted the dialogue-driven short story, from which the step to comedy and drama was a short one. A realist in Una donna (1892), an impressionist in Maschere (1893), he established himself in the following two years with the crystalline wit and elegance of L’infedele and the dramatic passion of Il trionfo. From then on, every year marked a milestone and a success: from La fine dell’amore to Maternità and Il frutto acerbo, from Piccola fonte to Nellina and Il piccolo santo (1911), his masterpiece. Powerful in dramatic contrast, unmistakable in delicate or mischievous grace, he brought his characters to life with impetuous spontaneity. Although his theatre is characteristically Italian, often Neapolitan, and sometimes dialectal (Uccchie cunzacrate, 1916), it nevertheless met with rapid success in various countries. The same can be said of his output as a novelist, which is not independent of his dramatic art: each story is a dramatic action, often lived out scenically or reproducible theatrically. Bracco lacked a sound moral orientation, as evidenced by the realism of illicit loves on which so many narratives are built. Intolerant, both in his artistic and political life, of any yoke or constraint, he died during the Second World War, embittered by grim reality and the looming catastrophe, poor as he had lived.