[Performers dressed as Pulcinella dancing and people in costume clapping to the rhythm of music]
[Three costumed performers singing on stage]
[People in costume during the show]
[Show finale]
[People in costume entering the Doge’s Ball]
[Masked woman]
[A woman in costume with a costumed performer riding a sculpture of a winged lion in the background]
Adriana Mele (interview): “This is the third time I’ve come back because it’s a fantastic event, it’s absolutely one of the most beautiful events I’ve ever been to and in my opinion it makes the Carnival in Venice an unforgettable and fantastic thing. I find it fantastic in every detail.”
[An aerial silk performance]
[Two people in costume watching the performance]
[Performers dressed as Pulcinella (traditional carnival character)]
Julia Pishko (interview): “It’s magical. My godmother came because she saw this on the news in America and decided we were coming. Antonia (Sautter) gave us dresses. It’s beautiful.”
[People in costume]
[Performers]
[The show]
Antonia Sautter (interview): “The Doge’s Ball is a dream, it’s a dream where time is suspended, where you can find a little bit of yourself wearing a costume and living your own fairy tale.”
[An eye-shaped panel and people in costume]
[Masked woman]
[The ball]
Antonia Sautter (interview): “You know, I always think that passion can finish but an obsession will never finish and actually I have an obsession for Carnival. I live everyday of my life thinking of the Ballo del Doge, thinking of shows, thinking of costumes, thinking of anything to surprise, to make my guests dream and to celebrate this wonderful time which is Carnival, where joy is an art.”
[People in costume dancing while a horn section plays]
[Horn section playing]
[Antonia Sautter in costume with other people in costume]
Antonia Sautter (interview): “Since I was a little girl I was celebrating Carnival with my mother, and celebrating Carnival not only (during) the days of Carnival but since September, you know, there was a kind of a play, we’re playing to be you know and to make the costume thinking of what I could have been, Marie Antoinette, Mata Hari, D’artagnan. So Carnival belongs to my life and to my story, to my city and it’s something that…I don’t know, I mean, it’s so normal for me. I’m Carnival, I feel I am part of Carnival.”
[People in costume climbing the stairs to go to dinner]
[Man in costume welcoming people to the dinner hall]
[Dinner]
[A string trio playing]
[Dinner]
[Two people in costume gesturing to camera]
[The Old School of Mercy building (Scuola nuova di Santa Maria della Misericordia), with the entrance to the Doge’s Ball]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.