LA RICERCA DELLA FELICITA E SOPRAVVALUTATA? /
A FATHER'S DAY LITERARY TREASURE HUNT. THE SEA VIEW INN /
AUGUST 25, 1945, IN TORINO / WHERE'S THE SAUCE? / A VICHIAN CIRCLE CLOSING /
THE BRILLIANCE OF THE WOMEN OF THE ITALIAN COMMUNITY /
THE WOMEN WHO MAKE THE ITALIFORNIAN COMMUNITY SUCCESSFUL /
ITALIAN UNICORNS / BEING BLACK & ITALIAN AMERICAN / BORROWED RADIANCE / OUR ART SHINES IN THE SOUTH / MAIOLICA ON THE BRINK
No doubt! There's something of Vichian in San Francisco and Naples' relationship, specifically between the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples and the San Francisco Opera. Their history connects them almost like two communicating vases and appears to be a quasi-confirmation of Gianbattista Vico's theory about the circularity of history.
A case in point was this September 29, 2022, representation of "Lucia of Lammermoor, "at the Teatro di San Carlo, Gaetano Donizetti's 1835 work about the tragic and contested love between Lucia and Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood. On a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, the work was put on a show with magistral skills at the illustrious lyrical institution—where it first debuted in 1835-- under the baton of maestro Carlo Montanaro.
And here's some circularity. San Francisco Opera was founded in 1923 by Neapolitan emigre Gaetano Merola (no relation to the "sceneggiata" King), who in turn was the son of a Bourbon's court violinist and first violin of the San Carlo. Lucia of Lammermoor, which debuted in Naples on September 26, 1835 —actually it was written in Naples in only five weeks—was also one of the operas that were featured on October 15, 1932, on the occasion of the inauguration of the new seat of the San Francisco Opera at the War Memorial Opera House of Vann Ness Avenue.
More recently and more poignantly, in October 2013, by the initiative of a group of Neapolitan expatriates living in San Francisco (including this writer), notable Italian-Americans, and Italy's diplomatic representatives, the Teatro di San Carlo--orchestra, choir, executive directorial team et al.—traveled to San Francisco to perform a Guinness record rendition of Verdi's Requiem under the baton of Maestro Nicola Luisotti, who at the time directed of both the Teatro di San San Carlo as well as San Francisco Opera. The occasion was provided by the launch of Unite the Two Bays, an economic and cultural exchange program that aspired to unite the Bay of San Francisco the Gulf of Naples. At the time, Emmanuela Spedaliere, the current supervisor of Teatro di San Carlo was just its Director of Media Relations, and Pene Pati, the tenor who on the 29th in Naples shone like a burning Sun as Ravenswood was a student in San Francisco Opera's Merola Program. Pati's and Nadine Sierra's (a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow) exhibition of September 29 in Naples closes the circle that Merola opened, picked up by Unite the Two Bays and propels it into a future which outcomes, seen the excellent quality of the show that we saw on the 29th is for sure resplendent, in the firmament of opera and into a future that promises to strengthen even more the ties between Naples and San Francisco.
