Il Balletto di Bronzo (Italian: "Bronze Ballet") was an Italian progressive rock band from Naples. They formed in the mid 1960s, and released two albums, Sirio 2222 and Ys, before disbanding in 1973.
Sirio 2222 (1970) is a psychedelic album originally released on RCA. At this time, the band was Marco Cecioni (vocals, guitar), Lino Ajello (guitar), Michele Cupaiuolo (bass) and Giancarlo Stinga (drums).
In 1971 both Cecioni and Cupaiuolo left the band, replaced by Gianni Leone (vocals, keyboards), from the band Città Frontale, and Vito Manzari (bass), formerly of Rome's Quelle Strane Cose Che. This line-up released Ys in 1971 on Polydor, regarded as one of the examples of Italian symphonic rock.
Written by Leone, Ys is a concept album divided into four parts: "Introduzione", "Primo Incontro", "Secondo Incontro" and "Terzo Incontro ed Epilogo".
The band released several singles, among them "Neve Calda/Cominciò per gioco", "Si, Mama Mama/Meditazione" and "La tua casa comoda/Donna Vittoria". Over the years, some rarities, including previously unreleased Spanish language singles have surfaced.
Despite breaking up in the early 1970s, Il Balletto di Bronzo continued to exert an influence, mostly on the strength of their second album. Several bands, amongst them Nurse With Wound, have cited them as an influence: The band is on the Nurse With Wound list. The album Ys has been reissued at different times in Italy, Korea and Japan.
In the late 1990s, Gianni Leone reformed the band as a trio, recording the live album Trys. As of this writing this incarnation of the band is still active as a live ensemble with a rotating roster, Leone being the sole constant.