Articles by: Natasha Lardera

  • Dining in & out: Articles & Reviews

    Forget Ice Cream, We’re Talking Gelato Here!

    “I grew up in Baucina, a small village not far from Palermo, where gelato is an everyday treat. I remember long walks with my friends and my cousins, especially after Sunday Mass, while enjoying an artisanal gelato made with fresh ingredients by locals,” says Francesco Realmuto, artigiano gelatiere (an artisan gelato maker), and owner of L’Arte del Gelato, a chain of shops and stands scattered across the coolest spots in NYC.

    “At 19, I realized there were no job opportunities in Sicily, so I decided to follow in my relatives’ footsteps. I landed in NYC, looking for the American Dream,” Francesco explains. “I was working in the Diamond District, but then one day when I was visiting the International Restaurant Show at the Jacob Javits Center, I ran into a line of people in front of a gelato display. It impressed me in a way I can’t explain.

    I decided to change my life and take up a career in something I felt close to—meaning, food—especially healthy, traditional Italian food. Later on, I left to train in Italy, to learn everything about the old art of gelato.” Francesco traveled all around Italy for six months to learn the secrets of the most renowned gelato makers. “I’ve studied everything about gelato. One of the classic flavors that impressed me was the Crema Zabaione.

    Our grandmas used to prepare this beloved dessert by whipping egg yolks with their hands. Us kids were allowed just a taste, since it contains an aromatic wine called Marsala.” After this enlightening experience, Francesco decided it was time to put into practice what he had learned. He opened his elateria in Chelsea Market, and seasonal locations soon followed: at Lincoln Center Plaza and on the popular High Line (10th Avenue & 15th Street).
     

    Francesco and his team are scrupulous not only in choosing the best spots, but also in their search for the finest natural ingredients. While hewing close to tradition, they have created a method for preparing gelato all their own to ensure their product is unmatched. “The technique for making gelato has been improving for over 500 years in Italy. During my training, I discovered it is not only a craft,” explains Francesco, “it’s an art. Our mission has been to build a community of people around gelato, from producers of raw materials to Italian gelato craftsmen, who can work together to give that authentic feeling that gelato can give, just as I remember from my childhood. In this society, which puts a premium on profits, we feel privileged because we are free from that cage. We can express ourselves.That’s what makes us unique.” At L’Arte del Gelato they offer only the simplest and most beloved Italian flavors.

    “You will never see anything like Bubble Gum or Smurf. Those bizarre flavors don’t fit with our mission,” Francesco jokes. “Yet we like to come up with new flavors. One of our last ideas involved olive oil. The flavor was sort of an experiment. I melted milk and oil together. It’s quite a strange union, but the result was amazing, a special mix of softness and milkiness. Think it’s worth a try? I bet I can persuade you!
     

    Check the website for the flavor of the month: www.lartedelgelato.com.
  • Fatti e Storie

    Il gesto di un lamento, secondo Peppe

     New York accoglie ancora Peppe. Lo fa aspettando con curiosità  le note e le parole del suo nuovo concerto, il 9 aprile al 
SubCulture. 

    Peppe, classe 69, originario di Cosenza, ma laurea al Dams di Bologna, ha "certificato' la sua passione per la musica con una tesi sul Rap. Ma tanto è successo da allora, dopo aver lavorato con musicisti come Teresa De Sio, Claudio Lolli, Davide Van De Sfroos, Sergio Cammariere, Roy Paci, Pau dei Negrita intraprende la sua strada personale. Oggi abbiamo un artista poliedrico e versatile. Peppe Voltarelli non si ferma alla musica per la musica, il cinema, il teatro, la poesia, la letteratura entrano nella sua vita artistica. Il dialetto e le sue origini del sud sono solo alcuni dei suoi punti di forza. La sua musica sembra essere in continua ricerca di radici, ma il suo sguardo è attento al presente.  E la canzone d’autore si affaccia nei suoi testi con tutta la spontaneità di una lavoro che viene dal cuore.

    Lo abbiamo incontrato prima del suo concerto. Presenta il suo ultimo lavoro: dodici nuove canzoni di cui nove in italiano, due in dialetto ed un brano strumentale.

    Il brano che dà il titolo all’album è una ballata ed il concetto di lamento viene associato al piacere: ”ol lamento per noi è un godimento”.

    Parlami del disco nuovo, “Lamentarsi come ipotesi”. Ed E' vero che gli italiani si lamentano sempre e quali sono le lamentele piu comuni?

    E' il terzo album che faccio da solista concepito e realizzato a Firenze da un gruppo di lavoro composto da e Alessandro "Finaz" Finazzo producer e chitarrista e Paolo Baglioni al quale hanno collaborato tanti amici come Riccardo Tesi Otello Profazio Kevin Johansen  Mauro Durante del Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino e Alessandro Palmitessa una mosaico di italianità frizzante e propositiva una riflessione sul nostro paese una dichiarazione d'amore ironica e alcune volte struggente.

    Una volta pensavo che il lamento fosse una caratteristica di noi calabresi e meridionali in genere col tempo ho scoperto che ci sono lamenti e spunti di lamentela a tutte le latitudini e in ogni lingua.

    Il lamento italiano su cui mi piace soffermarmi è un atto che oltrepassa il senso drammatico del termine per diventare consuetudine cronaca giornaliera un atto inconsapevole un gesto una smorfia.

    Dove e come trovi ispirazione per scrivere I tuoi pezzi? E quanto sono importanti ironia e humor? 

    Le mie canzoni sono delle miscrostorie nelle quali un cronista e viaggiatore disperato  mescola la sua vita  alle vite degli altri nei luoghi nei legami e nei ritrovamenti possibili attraverso l'ironia riesco a parlare di cose molto serie mantenendo un clima leggero questa è la scommessa

    Per la copertina e per il booklet di "Lamentarsi come ipotesi"  abbiamo fatto un lavoro molto interessante  con Silvia Panceri e  le artiste Anna e Rosaria Corcione che hanno creato le sculture e i dipinti della galleria virtuale fotografata da Fabrizio Fenucci  che presto riproporremo a Milano come live-act 

    Cosa racconti della Calabria?

    Ambienti scorci e pensieri nascosti questa è per me la Calabria un muschio di nostalgia che tappezza ogni giorno della mia vita con una lingua viva aspra e ferita che non non vuole farsi dimenticare.

    Cantare in calabrese e' una forma di protesta politica o ha piu' un significato artistico?

    Entrambi le coseuna lingua può servire a fare politica a denunciare delle cose che non vanno bene ma può anche essere propositiva inventare e indicare strade nuove essere seducente come un opera d'artecredo che il mio dialetto si presti a entrambe le necessità'

    Ti sei definito un “cantatore con faccia e chitarra,” cosa significa? Quanto e' importante la gestualita' nella cultura italiana?

    E' fondamentale racconta molto di più della parola un movimento della mano uno sguardo un modo di camminare  prima di avere carta e penna scriviamo con lo sguardo.

    Mi piace lavorare sul gesto recuperarne dal passato e inventarne nuovi.

    Cosa presentarai al tuo pubblico newyorchese? E se dovessi ispirarti a New York per una canzone su cosa scriveresti?

    Per la prima volta suonerò  in America con la band per un recital ispirato al nuovo album insieme a Paolo Baglioni alla batteria e Italo Andriani al basso.

    Penso a NYC come un luogo popolato da libertari dove la mia musica e la mia faccia non si sono mai sentite straniere.

    Wednesday, April 9, 2014 
SubCulture New York
, 45 Bleecker Street, Downstairs New York, NY 10012
Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 7:30 pm
$15.00 Advance / $20.00 At the door
(212) 533-5470

    >>>
  • Events: Reports

    Peppe Voltarelli and His Southern Italian Way of Music

    Hailing from Calabria, singer-songwriter Peppe Voltarelli returns to New York, on April 9th at SubCulture New York, after a stop in Chicago, for a concert presenting his new studio album “Lamentarsi come ipotesi” (To Complain as Hypothesis). The album provides a metaphoric soundtrack to a Southern Italian way of life where a culture of complaints becomes a source of pleasure, empowering people to reach into their ancient roots to overcome the challenges of modern life. Throughout Voltarelli takes the listener on a cinematic journey to a unique crossroad of traditional Italian song where Spaghetti Western meets Gypsy and Klezmer intersects with Balkan beats.

    Voltarelli is a troubadour, singing and telling stories with a distinctly Calabrian point of view and dialect, pointing out the hypocrisy and deep political corruption in one of Italy’s most troubled regions, but balancing that with a dash of humor and catchy melodies often delivered on acoustic guitar. While he cites such Italian artists as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Saviano and particularly Domenico Modugno as influences, his music moves well beyond its Italian roots. This is a performer that transcends his bloodlines with a swagger that recalls fellow global pop iconoclasts like Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz, Billy Bragg, Manu Chao or Shane MacGowan, delivering his message with a dynamic intensity and singular style.

     Voltarelli got his start in music at the age of 11, eventually founding the popular alternative rock band Il Parto delle Nuvole Pesanti, (The Birth of the Heavy Clouds), a band that mixed punk rock and Calabrian folk traditions. He left that band in 2006 to pursue a solo career. His first album “Distratto Ma Però” was released in 2007 and it was among the finalists for Italy’s prestigious Tenco Prize. Distributed in Europe by Universal, Voltarelli’s second solo album, “Ultima Notte A Malà Strana,” came out in 2010 and won the Tenco Prize for the Best Album in Dialect. It is the first album in Calabrese to do so.

    We had the opportunity to speak to Voltarelli before his arrival in the Big Apple.

    Tell us about your new studio album, “Lamentarsi come ipotesi.” Is it true that Italians complain all the time and which are their most common complaints?
    This is my third solo album and it was conceived and put together in Florence by a group of people that includes, in addition to me, Alessandro "Finaz" Finazzo, producer and guitar player, and Paolo Baglioni. A number of distinguished guest musicians have collaborated with us, including Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino’s Mauro Durante, Grammy-nominated Argentine-American singer-songwriter and guitarist Kevin Johansen,  Riccardo Tesi, Otello Profazio and Alessandro Palmitessa. Together we have realized a sizzling mosaic of Italianity, a proactive reflection on our country and an ironic, and at the same time poignant, declaration of love. The CD cover and the booklet were designed by Silvia Panceri and the artists Anna and Rosaria Corcione. In the past I used to think that complaining was a feature of us Calabrese people, or more generally of southern Italians, but with time I realized that people complain no matter of their latitude, geographical location or language spoken. The Italian complaint I like to focus on is an act that exceeds the dramatic sense of the term to become a common daily thing, an unconscious act, a gesture, a funny face...

    How do you get inspiration for your songs? And how important are irony and humor?
    My songs are micro-tales where a desperate commentator and traveler mixes anecdotes of his life with those if the lives of others, with places, bonds, and possible findings. Through irony I get to speak of very serious issues by keeping things light.  

    What do you tell about Calabria in your songs?
    Hidden environments, views and thoughts... this is what Calabria is to me... moss of nostalgia that every day grows on my life with a live and sour language that does not want to be forgotten.  

    Singing in the Calabrese dialect is a form of political protest or does it have a more artistic meaning?
    Definitely both.  A language can be used to do politics and to denounce certain things that do not go properly. But it can also indicate new ways, be proactive and seductive as a piece of art. I think my dialect does both.

    You have defined yourself a “cantatore con faccia e chitarra,” (a singer with a face and a guitar, meaning an expressive singer) what does it mean? How important is gestuality in Italian culture?
    It's essential. A hand movement, a gaze, a way of walking tell more than words can say. Before writing things down we tell them with our eyes. I love to work on gestures, to discover past ones and to create new ones.

    What will you perform for your American audience? And if you had to be inspired by New York for a song what would you write?
    I will play music from the new album with a band that includes Paolo Baglioni, drums, and Italo Andriani, base. I think of New York as a city populated with libertarians, where my music and my face have never been foreign but have always felt at home.  

    Wednesday, April 9, 2014
SubCulture New York
45 Bleecker Street, Downstairs
New York, NY 10012
Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 7:30 pm
$15.00 Advance / $20.00 At the door
(212) 533-5470

    >>>
  • Events: Reports

    Keeping Tradition Alive with the Men of the Cloth

    This is the story of three men: “three humble and accomplished master tailors who create masterpieces of elegance and style to clothe the human body,” fashion editor turned documentary director Vicki Vasilopolous writes of her project Men of the Cloth. Their names are Nino Corvato, Checchino Fonticoli and Joe Centofanti and they are survivors in the 21st century, the last representatives of an art from the past.

    “Men of the Cloth unravels the complexity of the tailor's artistry and how he crafts a garment

    in such a way that it moves and breathes with the person who's wearing it,” the director told i-Italy in an interview. “The film highlights the experiences of these master tailors as immigrant artisans in the U.S. and their challenging roles in the twilight of their career. My goal is to honor the legacy of these master tailors for a younger generation.”

    This film is a labor of love that has taken over ten years to make and it contrasts the lives of Nino Corvato in New York and Joe Centofanti in Ardmore, PA, who work as traditional small-scale custom tailors, and Checchino Fonticoli, who spent his entire career at the luxury clothing firm Brioni, based in Abruzzo, Italy.

    Nino Corvato is originally from Palermo, and moved to the US searching for a better future when he was 20 years old. “Nino worked for many years as a production manager at Brooks Brothers, and even managed a clothing factory in South Korea. But he never lets go of his dream of having his own label, even turning down a lucrative offer to work for designer Donna Karan after helping her launch her menswear line.” He then opened his own shop in Manhattan and today “artisans from six different countries stitch garments for hours on end. Each suit — which requires three fittings and over 60 hours of labor — is as beautiful inside as it is outside, and is invested with pride, dedication and 250 years of collective work experience.”

    Cecchino Fonticoli is originally from Penne, in the province of Pescara. He learned his craft in Rome yet when he was 20 he returned to Penne to join the newly opened Brioni clothing factory founded by his cousin, Nazareno Fonticoli. His creations were worn by famous clients “ Luciano Pavarotti, Nelson Mandela, and Pierce Brosnan, as well as countless kings and heads of state.” Cecchino officially retired several years ago, but he continues to consult for Brioni.

    Joe Centofanti is a master tailor whose shop is in Ardmore, PA. Joe was always reluctant to retire (he actually sold his business once, but then realized his mistake, and took it back)  because there was no one to take over his craft and clientele. Yet, he took on a young college-educated apprentice, who approached him out of the blue and who learned to make custom suits by hand, thus keeping tradition alive.

     I-Italy had a chance to ask to the director Vicki Vasilopolous  a few questions and learn more about the project.

    How did you decide to shoot a documentary on this topic and how did you chose the tailors portrayed in it?

    I never planned on being a documentary filmmaker. But I always loved movies. I met one of my characters, Checchino Fonticoli, when I traveled to Italy on a reporting trip during my tenure as a fashion editor for DNR, the men’s news magazine that’s now part of Women’s Wear Daily.  Checchino was the head designer and master tailor at Brioni in Penne, Italy – and that sowed the seeds for the idea of the film. About a year later I started doing research and I paid a visit to master tailor Nino Corvato in New York and Joe Centofanti in Ardmore, PA. Both had a reputation as masters of their trade. But the critical aspect for me was their personal background and life story, along with the unwavering passion for their craft. They were also articulate about describing their craft, so people can relate easily to them when they’re on screen. In addition, I saw that there was both contrast (in their career paths and generational outlook) as well as important similarities that I could underscore in the film.

    I was intrigued with the challenge of documenting a disappearing craft that is part of the cultural DNA of Italians. 

    What compelled you to tell their stories? Do you have any interesting anecdotes you can share?

    Men of the Cloth is essentially a human story – it’s about finding your true calling in life -- and that's what makes it universal. As a fashion editor, I saw how our consumer culture promoted so-called “status” clothing. By contrast, my characters embody a tradition that exalts the individual, and values artistry above financial gain.

    Making a documentary is full of twists and turns. I thought I was done filming several years ago when I learned that Joe Centofanti had taken on an apprentice. I essentially had to start the film over again: I had to raise more money for production, and making this film turned into a ten-year odyssey. But real life is like that: you have to follow the story where it leads you. And ultimately, I realized that this turn of events would make for a richer, more nuanced film. The lack of apprentices is the central crisis for the perpetuation of this trade, and the reasons for this are complicated, as I explore in the film.

    Who is the typical customer of these tailors?

    There’s no one type of customer – it could be someone who’s hard to fit anatomically, someone with very discerning taste, someone who loves personalized handmade things – or all of the above. Of course, it’s usually someone with financial means, but it may also be an individual who wants to invest in a suit or jacket that will last him a lifetime and get better with wear.

    Do you have an Italian background? What brought you to tell a story with Italian roots?

    In my former career as a men’s fashion editor I traveled to Italy on a biannual basis to cover the runway shows in Milan and the Pitti Uomo trade fair in Florence. I fell in love with the culture, which places a premium on an esthetic value system, on artisanship and making things with incredible passion and pride. This soulful approach is compelling, to say the least, and has seduced centuries of travelers to Italy! And, as someone who was born in Greece, and whose father was a craftsman, I discovered a particular affinity that made me feel at home there.

    Tell me about the challenges of making this documentary and the decision/need to start a kickstarter campaign.

    NIAF provided a few small grants for production in the beginning, but most of the funds have come in the form of small contributions from individuals around the world who love this craft and would like to see these tailors' stories preserved. As a first-time producer/director, it’s been a constant struggle to raise enough funding to properly tell the story and ensure good production values.

    On the plus side, I’m thankful for the enormous grass-roots interest in the film that has sustained me and encouraged me to bring this project to fruition.
  • Events: Reports

    The Theater of Franca Valeri: Tosca and the Two Downstairs

    Tosca is an opera in three acts by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini... opera lovers are pretty familiar with its plot but everybody else should know that it is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800. It's the story of Floria Tosca, an admired opera singer, her lover, Mario Cavaradossi, a young and handsome artist, and Baron Scarpia, Rome's merciless Chief of Police. By the end of the opera, all three are dead.

     

    Tosca is the backdrop for a sharp satire written by a great, contemporary Italian woman  playwright, Franca Valeri, by the title Tosca e le Altre Due (Tosca and the Two Downstairs) that Laura Caparrotti's Kairos Italy Theater is bringing to Dicapo Opera. The production, directed by Laura Caparrotti, is running until March 30. The plot of Tosca runs simultaneously with Valeri's play, indeed the playwright was inspired by the storyline, the main characters and settings of all three acts of the opera to tell the story of two women, Emilia (Laura Caparrotti) and Iride (Marta Mondelli).
    .
    “Emilia and Iride are two commoners divided by their origins - the former is from Rome, the latter is from a small town in Lombardy, in the northern Italy - and by their different life choices,” Marta Mondelli explained when asked to talk about the characters, “Iride is an actress who has even worked the streets in order to make it, while Emilia has a more stable life and works as a porter at Palazzo Farnese. They're both married with children but their life is not really influenced by romanticism and love but rather by their work, their occupation is what defines their identity. Emilia is a rock, she's strong, frank, equipped with dry humor and curiosity... she is intrigued by Iride's unexpected arrival and at the end she reveals that underneath a seemingly hard surface there is a generous heart.
    Iride, who appears to be a woman of the world, slowly reveals her true nature, that of a commoner who's unlucky in love. In a sense she lives the flip side of the coin which represents Tosca's life,a life of glamor, passion and success.”

    As the two women are talking in the porter's lodge of Palazzo Farnese, Emilia's place of work, things are happening offstage: Scarpia's capture and torture of revolutionary Cavarodossi, and Scarpia's attempted sexual assault of Floria Tosca. Emilia and Iride refer to some of the opera's characters (Iride, for example, is married to Sciarrone one of Scarpia's henchmen) and we briefly hear Tosca singing and Cavaradossi scream as he is tortured, but apart from that this is their story.  Author Valeri, uses wit and dark humor to provide a dissection of society, a picture of lower and upper class culture and of  social injustice, a portrait of the suppression of women who are either sexual objects or housewives.

    “Franca Valeri is one of the foundations of Italian theater,” Laura Caparrotti said, “She has been the first woman to make a name for herself in a world that was male dominated. In the 1950s when she started to become famous for her satirical portraits of women, that she both wrote and acted in, women in the show business were only pretty actresses, never playwrights, comedians, opera experts or directors. Also, they never were completely independent. She is the mother, or in some cases, the grandmother of all the female comedians, playwrights and artists that feel they don’t have to be a pretty face to make it. Not only that. Franca is a brilliant mind also when it comes to everyday life and its issues. In 1962 she wrote the subject of a film, Parigi o Cara, where she talked about being gay in a society where being gay was not admitted. This is how she became a gay icon in Italy. Last but not least, Franca is an example for all of us. She is going to be 94 in July and she just announced that she is going to open with a new show – written by her - at the Spoleto Festival. How amazing is that?”
    The play is acted in Italian but provides a translation into English, executed by me, Natasha Lardera. The two characters speak two different dialects and at times make some mistakes, so the translation tries to be as faithful to the original as possible.

    “I have decided to do in Italian because the language of Franca Valeri is too wonderful and we wanted to have fun with the original text while having supertitles like they do at the Opera. The play is a play-within-the Opera so it works perfectly,” Laura Caparrotti explained, “For this production, the supertitles have been finalized by Prescott Studio, one of the most important studios for supertitles in the world. The idea is to do it in English sooner or later. We have just to find the best way to have Emilia and Iride speak in another language.”

    Tosca e le Altre Due (Tosca and the Two Downstairs)
March 20 to March 30
Dicapo Opera, 184 E 76th Street, Manhattan (between Third Ave. and Lexington)
Presented by Kairos Italy Theater www.kittheater.com and Dicapo Opera www.dicapo.com
 Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm, Sundays at 2:00 pm
$35.00 general admission; Box Office (212) 868-4444, www.smarttix.com

  • Life & People

    A Chat in Manhattan with Biagio Antonacci

    “Two singers on stage 'steal' energy from each other, they inspire each other and communicate in their own special way. The result is something more than beautiful. That is why there should be no envy. The desire to make something unique, something spectacular, should urge them to work together. It's the same with soccer... if you play with Diego Armando Maradona, you are not going to compete with him, you are going to let his talent stimulate you and drive you to do your best. That's what we do on stage.”

    Italian singer-songwriter Biagio Antonacci said on a chilly winter morning in the cafeteria of ahotel just a few blocks away from the Empire State Building.  He was referring to the concert he came to the States to participate in as he was a  guest of Laura Pausini's during her live concerts in Miami and New York City. The event renewed the collaboration between the two artists who have already worked together in other occasions.

    Antonacci has written for Laura Pausini the songs 'Tra te e il mare' and 'Vivimi', a song the interpreter won a Grammy Award for  in 2006 and earned Antonacci the Ascap award (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers) and another award for best song in a Telenovela. “When I write for Laura,” Biagio continued, “I have her voice in my head.
    Writing for someone else is a strange process but incredibly enjoyable and rewarding. Once again, there is no room for envy. Vivimi won her a Grammy Award but never have I asked myself 'why did I give it to her?' The author of a song is equally important as the singer, their collaboration is what makes the final product a success.”

    And Vivimi is the song Antonacci sang with Pausini that night at Madison Square Garden, (she also performed 'Tra te e il mare' but later on during the show and on her own).
    Like he said during the interview, the magic was palpable and the two artists came together in perfect harmony. “I am a bit puzzled about tonight's concert,” Biago confessed “because I am a guest, this is not my concert.

    It is stimulating to perform somewhere and you have no idea who the audience is and how they are going to react. It's like participating to X Factor, where you are performing for the judges... it couldn't be more exciting. And when I sing with Laura I feel at home. She is the voice and I am the words.”

    Courtesies will be exchanged on May 31st at San Siro Stadium in Milan when Laura Pausini will be guest of 'Palco Antonacci,' a live event programmed to celebrate Biagio's 50th birthday and 25th year of singing career. “It will be a great party, where Eros Ramazzotti is also invited and it will be the first time ever that the three of us will sing together. The song has not been decided yet, and even if it were, it has to be a surprise,” the singer joked. Besides the concert in Milan, there will be another one programmed in Bari, at the Arena della Vittoria on May 24th.

    May is going to be a busy month for Antonacci, a month that also marks the US release of his latest album L'Amore Comporta on the 13th. Its fist single, Ti Penso Raramente, has already been released in Italy where it's becoming a great hit (the album features 13 songs altogether). “It's a song about love, an unhealthy love, if we can call it so. I am very happy with but thank goodness it has already been recorded. As an author, I am in continuous evolution. Every time I read something that I have written I want to change a word here and there... I come up with new ideas, with something different I want to say. I am curious and always willing to be stimulated by what's around me.”

    This is where Biagio confessed Lucio Dalla, a great artist of the Italian music scene who passed in 2012, was one of his biggest influences. “He was a genius. Someone who changed genre in every record...who played with rock, reggae, pop. Who was a master with words. He inspired my art. While Vasco Rossi inspired my way of performing on stage. He has taught a whole generation of singers how to involve the audience and how to satisfy them. This is it, artists inspire each other, it's a never ending process.”
  • Events: Reports

    Oh The Things you Find Out in Conversation with Zucchero Fornaciari!

    My friends' names are Federica, Lucia and Antonello; his friends' names are Bono, Andrea Bocelli and Joe Cocker. Quite a difference!
    Adelmo Fornaciari, more commonly known by his stage name Zucchero “Sugar” Fornaciari, or simply Zucchero, who owes his nickname to his school teacher when he was a child, is an Italian rock singer whose music has spanned over five decades.

    His music is largely inspired by American blues, gospel, soul and rock music, and alternates between ballads and more rhythmic boogie-like pieces. Over the course of his career, Zucchero has sold over 40 million albums around the world and won numerous awards, including two World Music Awards and six IFPI Europe Platinum Awards. He was also nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award in the Traditional R&B Vocal category for "You Are So Beautiful" the song he performed on alongside Sam Moore, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton and Robert Randolph. He has performed at The Royal Albert Hall in London, the Kremlin in Moscow, and Carnegie Hall in New York, and has recorded and toured with Eric Clapton, Andrea Bocelli, Luciano Pavarotti, Miles Davis, John Lee Hooker, Sting, and Solomon Burke to name just a few.

    Zucchero, one of Europe's best-selling artists, has released his latest album, La Sesión Cubana, on February 18th via Manhattan Records and this spring he is touring the U.S. and Canada.

    In occasion of a presentation on PBS of his concert Live in Havana-La Sesion Cubana, recorded in 2012, and where he performs in English, Spanish and Italian, including some of his best known songs – “Baila (Sexy Thing),” Così Celeste,” “Cuba Libre,” “L’Urlo,” “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime” and a new Italian cover of the Spanish classic “Guantanamera,” Zucchero attended a conversation about his music and extraordinary career, led by Stefano Albertini, Director of Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo, and Letizia Airos, editor in Chief of i-Italy. The event was the perfect opportunity to learn more about the star who joked about his uncertain beginnings in the Italian music business, laughed at funny anecdotes involving a hat that flew into the Grand Canyon (that cost him $7500 to retrieve) and got a bit emotional when he recalled Pavarotti performing Miserere at the The Royal Albert Hall when he was already feeling sick (“he was very generous,” Zucchero recollected).

    Participants at the conversation have experienced Zucchero first hand, a man from Roncocesi in Emilia Romagna, a region known for its excellent food, beautiful women, great singers (Lucio Dalla and Laura Pausini, for example) and a genuine lifestyle.

    “The countryside where I grew up has been an inspiration for my songs,” Zucchero explained in response to Albertini's comment that he is deeply rooted in his origins, “that was a place of strong contrast between the catholic faith and communist beliefs.” In his home conversations on communism abounded but this did not prevent him from being an altar boy and playing the church's organ. The first meeting with music has been in a church for many musicians, Zucchero is not the first. Also in the years when he grew up, the music Italy listened to was very melodic, romantic, always talking about love (think Morandi and Pavone)... that did not affect Zucchero who looked elsewhere for inspiration, and mostly to foreign music (think Ray Charles and Otis Redding). It is a relief to hear that Diamante, Zucchero's grandmother, was such an influence on the boy who grew to become a superstar also thanks to his song titled after her. “I've always considered myself more a musician than a writer, so I asked De Gregori to write the lyrics. She never heard the song but she is part of it, as there is, at the very end, a recording of her voice yelling “Delmo vin a cà.” She is calling me to her, and this has a double meaning,” Zucchero said with emotion in his voice.

    The insecurities that affected the singer to write Diamante disappeared when he wrote Miserere, one of his most successful pieces. “it was written in a moment of crisis, when I was depressed because I split with my wife. I was listening to Puccini to feel better, and reading Bukowsky just to prove myself that there was someone doing worse then me. I woke up one morning and wrote it in 10 minutes. Then I realized it needed something and that final ingredient happened to be Pavarotti's voice.” The maestro was immediately intrigued by the proposition of bringing together pop and opera, but thought he was not going to be able to do it. It took Zucchero some convincing to do, until one day he found himself in Pavarotti's home, the maestro sitting on the couch, and directing him with a squeeze of his arm and a slight kick on the ankle.”

    You hear stories all the time of great collaborations starting in the most uncommon ways; some in a garage, others on a bar stool, theirs at the dining table. Call it a stereotype but what Italian does not get inspired by good food complemented by wine? “It's at the dinner table that we invented Pavarotti and Friends, charity concerts in his home town of Modena featuring international super stars such as Bon Jovi, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli, Eric Clapton and Sting. They were held annually for 12 years to raise money for several humanitarian causes.” Concerts were held for War Child and victims of war and civil unrest in Bosnia, Guatemala, Kosovo and Iraq. According to Zucchero, Pavarotti was a genuine, humble, generous person who liked to play cards with his friends, speak dialect with Zucchero even at the most exclusive international soirees and eat good food. He had no problem bringing prosciutto and salame along with him on tour.

    Laughing at this was basically impossible for the audience, who sat enthralled for the entire conversation, curious to hear more about Bono and Miles Davis, about Zucchero ending last at Sanremo music festival with his song Donne, played with the Randy Jackson Band (that Randy Jackson, the one from America Idol!!) and about his 2012 concert in Cuba.

    And what about the concert that will be held here in NYC at Madison Square Garden on April 23? In addition to finding out that renting MDG is “effing” expensive (that's why Zucchero and his band are stuck touring on an old fashioned tour bus) we know that Zucchero will be on stage with several of his friends: Elisa, Jovanotti, Chris Botti, Sam Moore, Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries and "Fher" Olvera of Mexican band Mana' among others.

    Tour dates: http://www.zucchero.it/americana-tour/

  • Events: Reports

    Diario Proibito: The Forbidden Diary of Mario Fratti

    The word “forbidden” immediately implies something dangerous, prohibited, against the rules... and indeed Mario Fratti's recently published book Diario Proibito (Forbidden Diary), Graus Editore, encapsulates all these definitions. Written in 1958, while Fratti was a student at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, Diario Proibito is a homage to political commitment, and a first-hand memoir of World War II. The book will be presented by the author on March 4th at 6 pm at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, in a panel featuring former Director of ICI, journalist and writer Claudio Angelini and Francesco Bonavita, Professor at Kean University.

     

    Playwright, actor, and drama critic Mario Fratti is a well known figure on the literary and  theatrical scene in the US. He was born in L'Aquila 1927. and his his theatrical career began in 1957. He moved to New York City in 1963. Several of his (91) plays have been translated and performed in 19 languages (e.g. Cage, Victim, Refrigerators, Academy, Bridge, Passionate Women, Trio, Quartet, Che Guevara etc. ) and have granted him many Awards. Among them, seven Tony Awards for the smash hit Broadway musical Nine.

    We had a chance to speak with him a few days before the presentation and here are some fragments of our conversation, pieces of a large puzzle that will be completed on the 4th at the Institute.

    “I was 16 and I was friends with Giorgio Scimmia, who is one of the 9 Martyrs of L'Aquila (a group of 9 young partisans who were fighting for freedom and were killed by the fascists). It was an interesting friendship, Giorgio used to speak to me about anti-fascism, the partisan movement and of retreating to the mountains to plan actions... but I was a coward and I did not go, I did not join his group. He was just a year older than me. He told me I was smart and I could teach the partisans a lot... but I was a coward and I did not go. Then for about two years I was jealous of them: I was thinking of them fighting, there in the mountains believing in their cause, while I was at home, reading, not taking any action. Then on Liberation Day, I found out they all had been killed at the gates of the city. It was a great shock for me. So I thought it was my duty to write something anti-fascism and I wrote Il Nastro, a radio-drama and I submitted it to a competition. In it the partisans are tortured savagely but they never surrender. I won first prize, they sent me the money but the play was never aired. It was too much. So I started collecting newspaper clips of all the crimes committed by the Banda Cocci, a group  acting mostly in Bologna and Milan... terrible acts of violence and torture. While I was in Venice, I was 20 then, I was sick for a few days and I wrote a book set in L'Aquila where all these crimes were happening. How did I get the idea? My imagination always runs wild, and any little thing inspires me. I saw a really handsome man one day, he was a fascist wearing his uniform, complete with a knife and a gun. He was proudly walking the streets of the city... I followed him with my gaze and I asked myself “what would he do if he were to capture some partisans? Would he act human or not? So I created a character, whom I named Mario, I still wonder if that was a mistake, who is a young lieutenant at the service of a cruel major and is an observer of a bunch of tortures. He even takes part, unwillingly, but he never refuses to act. Then there is a shocking surprise at the end, which is a characteristic of my writing, as all my pieces have a surprising ending.”

    Diario Proibito is a fierce book, meaning that there are episodes that will scare you especially those focused on women and how they were treated. People will say “Was Mario Fratti really like this when he was 20 years old? I am just describing how things were. It is easy to misunderstand what I wrote... many got the impression that I am the torturer but I am Mario, the observer. I am on the partisan side but I don't want to help them. I do what the major tells me. Why? Because it's my duty. Mario is reluctant, he tries to help somehow, but it's not always so obvious. This is explained in the two introductions of the book. Read them carefully, as they explain what I am saying right now.”

    “Critics say that with this book I have anticipated my theatrical world. The language is dry and direct as it is in my plays. This comment has surprised me as I had not realized that, but it's true... including my signature ending, which is a common denominator of all my works. When people interviewed me and asked when did I start writing, I always replied when I was 30, because when I was 30 I started writing for the theater. I had almost forgotten that at 20 I had written this book. Initially I tried having it published. My agent sent it to Vittorini, Mondadori, Feltrinelli, Einaudi... everybody said NO! They thought it was too much, that it would bother both the fascists and the partisans. So I gave up. I gave my brother a copy of the manuscript and asked him to publish it after my death.”

    So for decades the manuscript lay forgotten in a suitcase. Then one day Claudio Angelini asked Fratti about it. “He had heard I had written a book. So I went looking for it and he took care of finding a publisher and it all happened pretty quickly.” Fratti did not edit the text, he just added at the end a one act play on the 9 Martyrs. A conversation between two of them, who wonder about Mario, the coward who could have been the 10th martyr. “I was ashamed of having survived,” Fratti confesses.

    All the episode in the book are real, “Back then with no internet, I had to read all the newspapers and collect the articles. Rediscovering this novel has not inspired me to write another one. This novel's style is so old and complicated... it's almost like a James Joyce novel. I would not be able to do it again. Here in the US I have changed completely, I use a more simple language, I am very concise and precise. I don't know if Diario Proibito will be translated into English as the Italian is so complicated, I would not even attempt it.”

    Meanwhile Fratti is working on a collection of poems, which he'd rather call Ritratti (Portraits), written both in Italian and in English when he was in his thirties, that will be published later in the year.
  • Facts & Stories

    Is the Mafia Responsible for JFK's Death?


    There are two big historical questions; history raises lots of questions actually, but there are two that, in the last decades, people ask all the time. Where were you at 12:30 p.m (Central Standard Time) on Friday, November 22, 1963, the day John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated? And where were you on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks planned by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda stroke New York City and  Washington D.C.?


    Everybody has an answer, their own personal one, because willing or not, we have lived through a significant historical moment. “When JFK was assassinated, I was in Italy,” Yale Professor Joseph LaPalombara said as he introduced Stefano Vaccara's book Carlos Marcello, The Man Behind the JFK Assassination, “A fellow professor called me on the phone to inform me. The media canceled all programming and only played classical music. They left us to deal with our shock, a shock that was affecting the whole world.”


    After the initial disbelief, Professor LaPalombara became one of many, one of the thousands of people who believed, after a ten-month investigation that went from November 1963 to September 1964 led by the Warren Commission, that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959 and returned to the US in 1962, and that he was acting alone. “But I changed point of view after reading Stefano Vaccara's book, because it points you in the right direction, that of the truth.”


    “This country was not told the truth,” Sicilian born journalist and director of the online magazine La Voce di New York, Stefano Vaccara said at that same book presentation organized at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo, “Although in 1978, in contrast to the conclusions of the Warren Commission, the HSCA (the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations) declared that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy, nothing was done. The HSCA found the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed but the media did not do anything to spread the truth, they left America in the dark. Why?”


    Vaccara's book raises a lot of thought provoking questions, some answers are provided, some are not. First and foremost, who was Carlos Marcello? “The real mafioso is the guys whose name you don't know,” Vaccara explained, “and he is the one who's responsible for the assassination of Kennedy. Mine is not a scoop, but just the confirmation of a suspicion I've always had and the result of a simple internet research.” Indeed, every semester, Vaccara assigns an investigative paper on the JFK assassination and 90% of the times his students come up with the same answer: boss Carlos Marcello was the real culprit.


    Marcello, born Calogero Minacori, was a Sicilian-American mafioso who became the big boss of New Orleans organized crime during the 1940s and held this position for the next 30 years. In 1959, Marcello appeared before a US Senate committee investigating the illegal activities of the mafia and other crime organizations throughout the country. Serving as Chief Counsel to the committee was Robert F. Kennedy, while his brother, future US President, Senator John F. Kennedy, was a member of the committee. When questioned, Marcello invoked the Fifth Amendment  and refused to answer any questions relating to his background, activities and associates. When John F. Kennedy became President in 1961, Robert Kennedy, who was still fighting hard against organized crime, was nominated Attorney General and Marcello was deported to Guatemala, with a bogus excuse linked to his immigration status, where he planned his revenge. His search for a fall guy lead him to Lee Harvey Oswald. “In its investigation, the HSCA noted the presence of credible associations relating both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed Oswald two day after the Kennedy's assassination, to figures having a relationship, albeit tenuous, with Marcello's crime family or organization. “Their report stated: "The committee found that Marcello had the motive, means and opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated, though it was unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello's complicity.” (Wikipedia)


    According to Vaccara there are two more ingredients that complete the “guilty” picture “Blackmailing and alienation from establishment, and at the time of his death, almost every institution of power was against JFK.” So this leads to more questions... “Did Marcello act alone?” and “Why the cover up?”


    Vaccara is looking for more answers, meanwhile he will be busy writing a new chapter for a new edition of the book: a chapter on Ruby.


  • Events: Reports

    Are You Ready for "The Decameron" @ Casa Italiana-Zerilli Marimò?

    After presenting Machiavelli's La Mandragola (The Mandrake Root), YoungKit, a branch of  KIT, Kairos Italy Theater, Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo's Theater Company in residence, will present, on March 6th at 6.30 pm, Boccaccio's The Decameron.

     

    The Decameron (Il Decamerone), subtitled Prince Galehaut (Prencipe Galeotto), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. “The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltered in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived the Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353.” (Wikipedia)

    The different tales vary from erotic to moral, some are real life lessons while others are incredibly funny. Nevertheless, they all document life at the time. Written in the vernacular, the language of Florence, The Decameron is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.

    YoungKit, featuring Ilaria Ambrogi, Francesco Andolfi, Giulia Bisinella, Carlotta Brentan, Francesco Meola, Jacopo Rampini and Irene Turri, is representing the three novellas Machiavelli was inspired by to write The Madragola.

    “I have been in love with The Decameron since my school days,” Laura Caparrotti, artistic director of Kairos Italy Theater who is now directing The Decameron, said, “I think it’s fresh, funny, modern and very theatrical. Of course you need a group of talented, very open and fresh actors. As I got such a group, called YoungKIT, I dared to do it. We are having a lot of fun while we are digging into Bocaccio’s world, which is not so far from ours.”

    We ask Laura more questions to find out as much as possible about the performance. The event has been named

    The Decameron Part 1, is there going to be another part?

    Laura Caparrotti - “It will be a dream to stage all the 100 novels. We’ll continue to stage some of them, in part 2, part 3, part 4… directed by other directors maybe, we’ll see. The tales we are working on right now are the ones that inspired Machiavelli. In one of the stories Ricciardo Minutolo falls in love with a married woman and tries to get her for himself. In another one, which reminds us of the Monicelli's film Amici Miei, two friends punish a man who is not so bright, even though is a doctor. We want to show the audience where Machiavelli got the idea from and how much Boccaccio influenced so many writers to come.”

    The tales of The Decameron have inspired numerous writers, including Poe, Moliere and Lope de Vega; what makes them so special and still so actual?
    LC - “I could say everything. They are immense like Shakespearean plays, but they make people laugh. The characters are not buffoons, they are people we can meet on the street. I always give the actors examples of today’s people or situations when we rehearse The Decameron. Boccaccio was looking at what was going on in real life and was writing about it. It was a time when the human being was starting to be more important than the divine and human emotions, and even physical emotions, were celebrated.”

    Francesco Meola, one of the actors, added, “For the young protagonists of the story, sharing different tales about universal topics such as love, life, scams and betrayals is a remedy to face a difficult period,leaving the plague and death behind. There is a sense of community linked with the pleasure of going through these different aspects of life, in order to produce an atmosphere that is sensual, vital and rich of entertainment. The Decameron taught us the best way to overcome a bad period is always with laughter.”

    The Decameron is written in the vernacular, the language of Florence, The Decameron is considered the masterpiece of classical early Italian prose. How is it to present it in English? Does it lose something? 

LC - “We always start with a two week period rehearsals on the Italian, then we go into the English. We do that in order to fully appreciate not only the meaning but the language, the original language which is always way more difficult, of course, than the translation. This time we were lucky to have a brand new translation of the Decameron, by Professor Rebhorn. Having worked on the original, we do take the liberty of changing words, using also some of the original language. Yes, you lose something in the  translation, but not the meaning and the core of the text, of the story. You don’t lose the author and that’s the most important aspect!”

    Carlotta Brentan, one of the actresses performing on the 6th, had to say “We worked on transforming prose that was written over seven hundred years ago into a viable theatrical language. That was a real challenge: how to adapt this piece, intended to be read silently by individuals, into a cohesive entity that could be performed aloud by actors, and that would succeed both in making sense for the audience, and in being more engaging than a simple reading? Our director’s vision for this has been to remain faithful word-for-word to the original text, while dividing up each sentence of every novella according to whose point of view it is being narrated from. Each actor was then assigned all lines, or parts of a line, that were told from their character’s point of view. Sometimes these include direct dialogue – which is easy, from an acting perspective. But most of the time, we find ourselves “acting” sentences that describe what our characters are doing or thinking in the third person. That definitely takes some getting used to, because it’s almost as if we are speaking all of our character’s subtext aloud. However, once you get used to it, it’s fantastically entertaining for the actor – and hopefully really fascinating for the audience.”

    Please note: This event is FREE for Members of Casa Italiana. If you are not a member and wish to purchase a $10 ticket, click here.

    Member-only RSVP: 212-502-7944
RSVP deadline: 24 hours prior to event start. All seats will be released 10 minutes prior to scheduled start. (For all other inquiries please call 212-998-8739)

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