Articles by: Eleonora Mazzucchi

  • Life & People

    A Painful Piece of Italian History, Overlooked


    The Second World War is the conflict they say we’ll never forget. Manifold atrocities, subjugations, sufferings and displacements are its legacy, the very exemplary of a brutality we are warned not to repeat, but even as we dutifully recall the war’s effects there remain episodes we speak little of today. Among them are the events that took place between Italy and the former Yugoslavia.

     

    The tension between the two central European giants, that fomented tragedy for one population of Italians in particular, is rather complex and merits some explaining. Sizeable border areas, Istria, Dalmatia, and the Quarnero islands, now part of Croatia, and the cities of Trieste and Gorizia, disputed between Italy and Yugoslavia and at present Italian, contained both Slavs and ethnic Italians in the 1940’s. Italians who had established themselves in these parts for centuries refer to themselves as Giulianians (“Giuliani”), from the influence of the northeastern Venezia-Giulia region. The Association of Giulianians in the World (“Associazione Giuliani nel Mondo”, or AGM) is dedicated to commemorating the Italian presence in those areas and their subsequent, rather grisly diminishment following the Second World War.

     

    Succinctly put, the Yugoslavian partisans of Josip Tito’s Communist government, in 1943 and in the immediate aftermath of the war, engaged in a politically and ethnically motivated campaign to rid Italians from Dalmatia and Istria. Open hostility broke out against Italians, seen as belonging to the nearby Fascist regime, and anywhere between 10, 000 and 15, 000 of them (numbers are contentious) were killed. Civilians, regardless of age or gender, were gunned down and thrown into mass graves, known as “foibe”. Approximately 300, 000 Italians left their homes in the territories soon to become Yugoslavia, forming a mass exodus that took them all over the world, including the Americas, Canada, and Australia, but for the most part, Italy. A Giulianian emigration had in fact begun during the First World War, but in far lesser numbers and under less dramatic circumstances. It is in order to amalgamate these dispersed peoples that the AGM was born, to bring light to a chapter of history largely forgotten, officially ignored by the Italian government for decades. The Italian General Consul, Francesca Maria Talò, who hosted the AGM a couple of weeks ago, would later say that he “felt a deep sense of shame for what Italy had not done” and had not recognized with respect to the gruesome history of the Giulianians. It is speculated that the Italian government chose not to discuss the 60-some year-old tragedy because of its long-standing sympathies with Communism and, perhaps more likely, because it would be forced to admit to brutalities Italy, on its part, had committed against Slavs during the war.

     

    The AGM inaugurated its traveling exhibit, “Into the New Millennium with Our Roots” (“Con le nostre radici nel nuovo Millennio”), along with a documentary by Chiara Barbo and Andrea Magnani, “Triestine Girls” (“Le ragazze di Trieste”), at the Italian Consulate in New York. The exhibit, which the AGM is planning to permanently install in its headquarters in Trieste, consisted of several large panels outlining the history of the Giulianian diaspora. The black and white pictures, along with photocopied letters and historical documents, had both a deeply intimate feeling to them—many were retrieved from families—and a touch of the didactic. Indeed, the consolidation of this material, affecting because in part it resembles the personal effects lost after a shipwreck, brings to the public eye, for the first time, what AGM’s President Dario Locchi called “a lost page in history”. Locchi went on to explain that only 22 percent of Italians know anything about this piece of history, and among them, only 57 percent know of the consequent Giulianian flight.

     

    The exhibit’s mission is to inform as large an audience as possible (it has been carried across continents), breaking the silence surrounding the suffering of a people and their forced exodus—an Italian emigration, Locchi underlined, vastly different from the Ellis Island variety. We come to know through the display, somewhat surprisingly, that some of our most beloved Italians and Italian Americans were of Giulianian descent, including screen siren Alida Valli, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, influential art-dealer Leo Castelli and racecar driver Mario Andretti. One such notable was present at the event itself, renowned celebrity chef Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, who provided the catering for the presentation and for whom the issue of exodus is profoundly, personally significant.

     

    Talò touched on what may be one of the most interesting aspects of the Giulianian population. He had opened his moving, at times apologetic, speech by saying that the exhibit brought an Italian sentiment that was more deeply felt because it was mired in suffering. Throughout, speakers from the Association reminded the audience, a gathering of Italians and Italian-Giulianians, that they had endeavored to never lose their Italian identity, and listening to them, one had the impression that their purpose was not just to reclaim a place in history but to assert their very Italianness.

     

    The screening of “Triestine Girls” mitigated some of the sense of desperate migration. The documentary traces the fate of Triestine women who left Italy for love, marrying American soldiers stationed in their city during WW II and then moving to the U.S. to build entirely different lives. As Chiara Barbo pointed out, the women protagonists, now well into old age, recall their experience of cultural transition with humor and what she called, “a typically Triestian irony”. One sprightly woman spoke of wonderment at skyscrapers, and another of the difficulty of buying a pack of cigarettes when a store clerk couldn’t understand her thick accent—a patchwork of anecdotes that contributed to the work’s buoyant feeling.

     

    i-Italy had the chance to speak about Barbo’s documentary, and more, with Lidia Bastianich. Bastianich has had a successful cooking show on PBS, “Lidia’s Italy”, for many years and owns a number of restaurants in the U.S. in partnership with her son, Joseph. She contributed her talents to the exhibit with a feast of trypically Triestan specialties.

    Her family hails from Pola, Istria, and moved to New York in 1958, when Bastianich was 11 years old.

     

    What did you think of the documentary?

    It really captured the soul of these women—their nostalgia, but also the happiness for what they have achieved.
     

    What is some of your personal history of emigration?

    My mother was pregnant with me when we wanted to flee [Istria had become part of Communist Yugoslavia]. My father sent us to Italy years later, but for some time he got caught behind the iron curtain.
     

    What do you feel about this “lost page in history”, about what this exhibit will achieve?

    History needs to be taught correctly. Who’s right, who was wrong, that’s way behind us now. The anguish needs to be recognized and the submissive tendency to keep this all secret has to end. The outspokenness we’re seeing now is long overdue.
     

    Do you pass this story on to your children?

    I take them to Italy as often as possible. It is important they become better human beings when they know where they came from.
     

    Dario Locchi would echo this same sentiment when he said “There can be no future without memory of the past”. This “proud people, who paid the price of a lost war” can take solace in their Association’s efforts. Because there can truly be no future if grief isn’t taken out of the shadows and brought into the light.

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

     

  • Life & People

    Priests on the Ball: They Pray, They Shoot, They Score



    Italian soccer fans are no doubt still reeling from this week’s significant Euro Cup loss (not in the least mitigated by a subsequent tie with Romania),
    suffering it like a death and feeling as disconsolate and “shell-shocked” as the Azzurri themselves. The term “Orange Crush”, as the commentators have dubbed the Dutch national team, may very well put Italians off orange soda for the next year. And although it seems there is no silver lining to this cloud, no turning back from such a humiliating defeat, perhaps Italians could look to a different sort of soccer tournament—one in which winning and losing are not essential to the game. Impossible you say, but at the heart of the world’s smallest independent state is a soccer competition that brings together players from more than 70 countries all over the world, with a mind toward playing the sport ethically and gracefully.

     

    Annually the Vatican hosts priests and seminarians drawn from Rome’s seminary colleges. Divided into 18 teams, they compete for athletic glory in what has been called the “Clericus Cup”. The play-off held at St. Peter’s Oratory from November to May represents nations as diverse as Malta, Zimbabwe, Ukraine and England. The clerical contenders bring a couple of twists to the sport, namely a strict adherence to fair-play and mandatory collective prayer before each hour-long match (it is unknown as to what teams pray for—it could be world peace, or the strength to whoop Zimbabwe in the next round).

     

    The tournament was founded little over a year ago by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope’s Secretary of State and avid Juventus fan, who in his spare time also served as a soccer commentator. Bertone acted in the wake of last year’s Serie A scandals (a slew of incidents that included accusations of match-rigging), when he thought it opportune to restore faith in Italian soccer and bring morality back into the sport. Along with following the rules, many of the priestly players have stressed, more in theory than in practice, the importance of “knowing how to lose”.

     

    Die-hard fans may be heartened—and amused—to hear that however much the Clericus Cup preaches good behavior, the priests are no saints. This year players were told to watch their game after an unprecedented three red cards were handed out (as opposed to the tournament-specific “blue cards” that force a player to take a 5-minute timeout “to reflect on his sins”) and one enraged priest threw his shirt at a referee, yelling invectives. Residents in the vicinity of St.Peter’s also filed several complaints for all the noise generated by the tournament. Each nation had its own method for creating raucous sideline cheers, African teams using reggae music, Mexican teams drums, American teams fight songs and loud choral singing, and Italians megaphones and chants in Latin. Felice Alborghetti, one of the cup’s organizers, told The Scotsman, “The complaints were such that we had to tell the fans not to bring any sort of musical instruments to future games. It just got a bit excessive.”

     

    It’s a relief to hear that our religious messengers are not above short fuses and a spirit of healthy competition. With Pope Benedict, a self-proclaimed Bayern-Munich fan, having formally endorsed the tournament and organizers expressing hopes to form their own Vatican team, maybe we can expect to have a live televised Clericus Cup next year—with all the hysteria and hoopla appropriate to the sport. May our prayers be answered, because it would be less heartbreaking than watching this season’s Euro Cup. 

     

     

  • Life & People

    The Celebration of Italy's "Independence Day" in New York


    The evening began in dramatic style. The Consul General, Francesco Maria Talò rolled up to the steps of Cipriani Wall Street, where
    Italy
    ’s Republic Day was celebrated June 2nd, on a shiny blue Vespa. Photographers and cameramen captured him as he made his way up red-carpeted steps and limestone columns to open the festivities. Though the entrance on a Piaggio-brand Vespa provided some Italianate flair, to Talò, it is a symbol of something more. Indeed, ever since taking his post as Consul, his vision for
    Italy
    has consistently been one that looks to the future, emphasizing not only the country’s vast artistic patrimony but its contributions to science and industry, with trademarks like Piaggio (also a co-sponsor of the event). He would later reprise this theme in his speech.

     

    The gargantuan, opulent space at Cipriani was a fitting location to import all the foodstuffs, cocktails, and musical, irrepressible chattiness of an Italy in miniature. Italians living in New York, from residents to envoys in the diplomatic world to members of Italian associations, decked out in their Sunday best, mingled among their compatriots with a rapture no less spontaneous than if they had truly returned home.

      

    Italy's Consul General Francesco Talò

    and his wife arriving at the Cipriani reception

    by Vespa

    Although the party organized by the General Consulate, the Italian Trade Commission, the Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Tourist Board saw some 1000 attendees, a spirit of familiarity reigned. Republic Day commemorates the birth of the Italian nation post-Fascism, or more specifically the ousting of the idle Savoy monarchs, but it is questionable as to whether the guests that evening were driven by patriotism. While there were no women seen slipping dinner rolls into their purses, the open bar and buffet were a big attraction. Typical dishes from Sicily and Tuscany, the two regions spotlighted at the party, were laid out or served by white-jacket waiters, and were almost always accompanied by a Bellini, a national cocktail of sorts that is also Cipriani's signature drink, invented by Giuseppe Cipriani in the 1930s. The rush to get one of the tart, meticulously prepared drinks was so intense that one woman, caught in a crush of people around the bar, fainted. She may have been revived by the proceedings that took place thereafter, in which film and television actress, Melba Ruffo di Calabria, led the heads of the hosting institutions onto a stage.

     

    It is no coincidence that Tuscany and Sicily were the regions chosen to co-host the national celebration. This year marks the 150th birthday of Giacomo Puccini, a native Tuscan, and 50 years since the publication of the Sicilian literary masterpiece “Il Gattopardo” (“The Leopard”) by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Peter Gelb, the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera, was bestowed the Puccini International Award by Tuscan Culture Minister, Paolo Cocchi, for his continued efforts in staging the works of the beloved composer. Of the award, Talò said “You can’t know how much Puccini loved New York, a capital of opera music. It is why I think it particularly appropriate to honor a great man in the New York cultural scene with an international prize: my congratulations to Peter Gelb.” The Consul also extended praise to Giovanni Castellaneta, the Italian Ambassador to the U.S., who also spoke at the event.

     

    Castellaneta pertinently remarked that “Italy owes a lot to the U.S., and vice a versa. Indeed, it is this keen awareness of reciprocity that has allowed for the strengthening of our transatlantic relations.” He went on to read a statement from President Bush, who declared June 2nd “Italian Independence Day”, a holiday recognized in the U.S.

     

    And in true form for a national holiday, anthems were sung and played from a balcony with gilded balustrades overhead. Famous jazz trumpeter Chuck Mangione gave a rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner”, while the chorus from the Marconi school in New York sang the European anthem and tenor Carlo Barricelli superbly interpreted the Italian national anthem. Throughout the evening Barricelli also sang arias from various Puccini operas, in what were probably the only moments guests settled into awed silence.

     

    Among the prestigious guests were Marcello Spatafora, Italian Ambassador to the United Nations, State Supreme Court Justice Dominic R. Massaro, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, Nicola di Marzio, Bishop of Brooklyn, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, who hosted Pope Benedict XVI at Park East Synagogue last April, representatives from NYPD and NYFD, and Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi di Lampedusa. Italian tenor and superstar Andrea Bocelli sent a video message to the guests through the Arpa Foundation. Co-hosting the event were Renato Miracco, Director of the Italian Cultural Institue in New York, Riccardo Strano, Director of the Italian Tourism Board and Aniello Musella, Director of the Italian Trade Commission.

     

    Although the party was supposed to have ended at a precise time, guests lingered nevertheless, sentimentally consuming “real” Italian ice cream and delighting in conversation. On their way out, they took the opportunity to marvel at a glossy Ferrari and Maserati, displayed for the occasion. Two cars, as Talò might put it, that stand for the excellence and hope of the nation.

     

                                                        

                   

                                

                                          

                              

     

     

     

     

          

                  

     

  • Life & People

    Sex and the City is One Limp Flick



    If it were possible to die intoxicated by excessive levels of estrogen, then I’d be a goner. The air was laced with hormonal, feminine glee on the opening night of the Sex and the City movie. Outside Village East Cinemas in Manhattan the line of women, plus a smattering of gay men, ran endlessly around the block, trailing a collective, palpable sense of anticipation. Attending the Thursday midnight screening is the proof of true fandom, and at the heart of this city, the hit TV show has its fair share of devotees. Just as Star Trek inspires Trekkies to dress like space cadets, the SATC fans came attired in knock-off Manolos and skimpy summer dresses worthy of a strut down 5th Avenue. Although here, I can guarantee, there were no straight men to impress.

     

    Inside, the theater was no less rowdy than a sorority house. Groups of girls filled the aisles and some had confused the public space for a slumber party, nestling themselves in the seats and consuming goods clearly not bought on premises—glossy copies of US Magazine and chips and dip. One contingency in the back saw fit to provide all the whoops and hollers you’d hear at a Yankees game. Cue that recognizable opening tune (remixed into a pop song about designer labels), then the series logo lit up in a pink sparkly font, and the audience descended into shrill cries of elation. But their excitement may have been premature, because what ensued was a shockingly painful, pitiful experience.

     

    The SATC movie is not only a departure from the series, but is tasteless and offensive in a number of ways. While on the small screen the show distinguished itself with wry, intelligent dialogue and broke ground for speaking openly about sex, here the sex talk is downplayed. Replacing it is writing that has devolved into a stale version of its former self, even stooping to toilet humor for cheap laughs. Many critics have maintained that the friendship between the girls, that almighty glue, is intact and makes watching the movie worthwhile. But if your idea of friendship is forty-something women screaming like 12-year old banshees every time they see each other, then maybe you’d be persuaded. The bond between Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, critical to the movie’s appeal, is rendered at its best, as trite and unbearably juvenile, and at worst, as completely unrecognizable (an aside: there is a forced rapprochement between Carrie and Samantha, surely in a bid to counter rumors that the two actresses are real-life enemies). The movie has unwisely adopted all the predictable “girlfriend paradigms” and storylines of the chick flick genre, divesting this group of the unique chemistry that made them addictively watchable. Gone is the charm, and in its stead, cheesy montages of Carrie in ‘80s duds set to modern-day tween songs.

     

    Gone also, are the men—at least on screen. Evan Handler as Harry, Charlotte’s sweet putz of a husband, and David Eigenberg as Steve, the cute bartender from Queens, had been a pleasure to watch. They were both well-scripted and loveable characters on TV, but in the movie they’re just sappy and hardly get a word in. Chris Noth as Big, is largely himself, even though he sports an unsettling spray-on-tan.

     

    It’s true that much of the reason audiences flocked to see the girls again was to discover what had become of them. Even that is a let-down. The characters have made obvious life choices and the plot develops as expected. But more disappointing still is how the movie’s creators have decided to define Carrie and co. only in terms of their romantic liaisons. Throughout, these latter-day working girls, who adventured through the city (in chase of tail, yes, but also other pursuits), have been reduced to constant preoccupation over significant others. The story insults the viewer’s intelligence, pandering to what the moviemakers must have thought a female public enjoys: lots of tacky designer product-placement (“Oh my, my very own Louis Vuitton!”) and the appearance that nothing in life matters more than making it with your man. Don’t expect Miranda the eminently professional lawyer and Carrie the writer to make an appearance—in the movie all four women might as well be unemployed teenagers. Which is fitting, since that seems to be their core audience.

     

    But perhaps I should’ve known better. The trailers that played beforehand—“Mamma Mia!” and “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”—presaged the disaster to come. It could be easy to forget this movie venture ever happened, if only for the nagging remembrance of what SATC used to represent: a cast of women the average professional gal not only liked, but could identify with. I’ll wager that anyone would be embarrassed to liken themselves to the characters now.

     
     
     

     

  • Life & People

    Vatican Says It's Ok to Believe in Aliens


     For those of us who were the inquisitive kids at Sunday school, who delighted in pestering the nuns with questions of the kind “If the wafer is really the body of our Lord, does that mean I’m a cannibal?”, we tended to find—disappointingly—that no matter how sticky the topic, the unruffled sisters always had an answer. And so it is with the Church. If ever you’ve wondered how extra-terrestrial life enters into God’s plan, wonder no more: ye shall have an answer. 

     

    The lead astronomer at the Vatican released a statement Tuesday, that should aliens exist, they are also creatures of God. Preemptively allaying any concerns that the discovery of outer-planetary life would unsettle creationist theory, Father José Gabriel Funes, the Argentinean priest who is head of the Vatican Observatory, asserted that “any aliens would also be part of Creation. This does not clash with our faith because we cannot set limits on God's creative freedom”, thus implying that aliens would share our same God. He went on to say, “if we view earthly creatures as our brothers and sisters, why can’t we speak of a brother from another planet?”

     

    Funes rose to the top of the Vatican’s scientific institution two years ago, after the former head had taken a disagreeable position on evolution. Continuing his musings on our brothers from another planet, he also suggested that if aliens were more evolved than we are, and had maintained a full friendship with their Creator, they might not need saving to enter Heaven. So Rambaldi's E.T. is off the hook, and somewhere, Dennis Kucinich is smiling.

     

  • Facts & Stories

    Roberto Saviano Between the Lines


     Roberto Saviano could very well be a thug. Next to Antonio Monda, the bespectacled NYU Professor who interviewed him Thursday evening, and who sat with legs crossed and gingerly fondled a book in his lap, Saviano had every bit the appearance of a man rougher around the edges, hardened by a certain experience. It was as though the years he spent embedded in the Camorra were reflected in his every gesture: the way in which he fixes a listener, almost threateningly, sits leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, or licks his lips when he speaks. With his bald head, deep brows and street swagger, he was only at a shade’s distance from an identical portrayal of the rapper Common in “Street Kings”. If the audience who had come to hear him speak for the PEN/Faulkner series hadn’t known better, they might not have recognized him as the best-selling author, household name, or courageous journalist that he is.

     

    Saviano has risen to fame for that very courage (a term that’s being liberally applied to other figures in the Italy of late, namely Beppe Grillo and Walter Veltroni), with the publication of “Gomorra”. The book is an account of the Neapolitan mob’s, or Camorra’s, inner-dealings that controversially straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction—running the author into quite a bit of trouble. Following the wide-spread acclaim and popularity for “Gomorra”, Saviano received a litany of death threats from the mafia and has since been granted a permanent security detail from the Italian government. He spoke to Monda about this and more during an on-stage interview in front of a predominately Italian crowd.

     

    Saviano’s explanatory manner was intense. When speaking about his birthplace, Naples and its constellation of outlying towns, he seemed to be saying, with reserved dismay and anger, “you don’t know what it’s really like”. When Monda asked him how he reconciled the beauty of Naples with its hellish dimension, one extensively rendered in his book, Saviano replied that it was naïve to see the city, as an Englishman once said, as merely “a paradise inhabited by devils.” As if suggesting that there were a false distinction between Beauty and Evil, he reminded that within the perceived Neapolitan despair was the pulsating heart of the place’s economy, the drug trade that generates hundreds of thousands of euros a day.

     

    Money, Saviano went on to say, is what drives the Camorra unconditionally. He recalled a telephone conversation between two bosses the day after September 11th, 2001, in which the collapse of the Twin Towers had been talked about as an opportunity to buy real estate cheaply, or secure contracts for construction work, and never had the tragic nature of the events been mentioned. Indeed, all throughout his interview, the author was skilled at conveying, in a grave and highly articulate manner, the calculated barbarity he encountered in the Camorra men.

     

    That same ruthlessness, murderous and business-like, surfaced in a number of episodes—gangsters proving they were tough enough by killing off their own families, the reckless disposal of trash by Camorra factions in the Neapolitan region , the assassination of a local priest who spoke out just one too many times. And what is potentially scarier than the criminal acts themselves, like in all mafias, is the pervasive nature of the organization’s activities, how the Camorra, similarly to the newly-powerful 'NDrangheta, has its hands in a wide variety of enterprises and a stranglehold on southern Italy. As Saviano described, the Camorra and 'NDrangheta have overshadowed even Cosa Nostra in Sicily because of the structure of their networks: an expansive alliance of powerful families or groups, rather than the pyramidal, hierarchical structure of the Sicilian old guard. The funds that power this new wave of criminal organizations are sometimes born of shadowy business practices whose legality is ambiguous, making it all the more difficult to stop the killings, the drugs, and the perpetual psychological terrorism.

     

    After listening to Saviano speak for an hour, one had the impression of having been led by the hand through a shop of horrors. It was the very personal way in which the writer elaborated the events of his book, embracing and dissecting the depravity, sometimes in awe of it, like a guide who is connected to the place but also in sorrow for it. In the context of his work, and his own upbringing, the quote from Camus with which Saviano answered one of Monda’s questions rang true: “There is Hell and there is Beauty, and as far as I’m concerned I want to remain faithful to both.”

     

    An enduring image from the evening, as told by Saviano, is appropriately infernal and dark. Neapolitan children, he said, had taken to selling skulls they would find laying on the banks of rivers (where the Camorra lawlessly disposes of garbage, including dead bodies), at the going rate of 50 euros for skulls with black teeth, 100 euros for those with white teeth. The notion of body parts for sale as a normal commodity conjured thoughts of a nightmarish underworld in which not only was there perhaps no state, no laws, but also no God. Saviano ruefully concluded that even the religious were beginning to lose hope. The outspoken priest who would later be killed, had once said at a funeral with his townsfolk “I don’t care to know who God is anymore, what I do care to know is what side he’s on.”

     
     
     
     

  • Art & Culture

    IBLA Grand Prize. How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Through Sicily


     The IBLA concert at Carnegie Hall last Tuesday was a testament to the unifying power of music. The evening’s performers were the finalists of a classical music competition held in Ragusa Ibla, Sicily this summer, and they traveled internationally to attend. Violinists, pianists, sopranos, and other instrumentalists of different ages showcased their talents in a remarkable event that proved that classical music is anything but dead.

     

    What was perhaps most encouraging, and always astounding for those who keenly observe the state of classical music today, was the precociousness of some of the players. Twelve-year-old pianist Vladana Perovic from Montenegro interpreted a Berkovich piece with a maturity and intelligence well beyond her age. The pale and lanky girl, of seemingly shy disposition, engaged the piano in a manner that suggested her understanding of the score along with a technical mastery of it. The same could be said of Elena Kawazu from Japan, an even younger girl, whose impressive, technically advanced Wieniawski was made even more so by the physical and expressive power of her playing. Another violinist, young American Esther Muradov, clad in a deceivingly child-like, pink ballerina dress, produced texturally rich music, full of the languor and poignancy of the violin at its best.

     

    This is not to say that the adult musicians were any less brilliant. Norwegian pianist Kristian Lindberg, sopranos Masako Iwamoto-Ruiter of Japan, and Adrienn Milksch of Hungary, delivered their own memorable performances. Perhaps the only thing left to be desired was the experience of hearing these high-achieving musicians in the original competition setting at Ragusa Ibla. Salvatore Moltisanti, President of the IBLA Grand Prize, gave an evocative picture of the tiny town at the southernmost tip of Sicily, dubbed "a wonder of baroque architecture" situated just a few miles from the crossing point of the Ionian and Mediterranean seas, where the two hundred some competitors gather. When not under the discerning eyes and ears of a panel of judges (which includes nearly forty music professors from all over the world), the musicians congregate and play in Ragusa Ibla’s public square or sinuous streets, filling the sun-baked town with echoes of music for the duration of the 10-day-long contest.

     

    In honor of Sicily, turn-of-the-century composer Pietro Floridia was a local, if unexpected, name on the program. Moltisanti has sought to bring attention to Floridia’s legacy, tirelessly promoting the music he feels has been largely neglected or forgotten by the annals of history. The gems that evening included two romantically unbridled pieces, interpreted to great effect by Milksch and Iwamoto-Ruiter. Among the audience were Floridia’s American granddaughter and great-granddaughter, present to hear the seldom performed, re-discovered works.

     

    In a concert where a listener may not know what to expect from budding professional musicians, the public inside Carnegie Hall seemed impressed, stirred even, by the quality of the music. Whispered comments between audience members became increasingly congratulatory as each piece closed and it was an event that the performers themselves must have taken great pride in. The way in which they were dressed, the women and girls especially—Iwamoto-Ruiter went so far as to switch outfits from one song to the next, while Italian soprano Simona Rodano took up the stage with a glitzy, operatic ball gown—implied that perhaps this would be their only chance at exhibition. Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò, Chairwoman of IBLA in New York, would certainly disagree. She called the talent "phenomenal", a "United Nations of music". With regard to the younger players, she added that despite the intensity of their work, they were happy, ordinary children. If their playing continues at such extraordinary levels, there's no doubt they'll play Carnegie again.

  • Life & People

    Deriving Strength from Annoyance: A Conversation with NOIAW's Founder and Chairwoman


     The National Organization of Italian American Women (NOIAW) will celebrate its gala luncheon on Sunday afternoon. In anticipation of the event, which will honor Rachael Ray, and feature guests Nancy Pelosi, Geraldine Ferraro and Joy Behar, we asked NOIAW’s Founder and Chairwoman, Aileen Riotto Sirey—for those who are unfamiliar—what her organization is all about. Riotto Sirey is a trained psychotherapist who became involved with NOIAW through her studies on shared ethnic identity.

     
     

    What kind of outreach does NOIAW have for young Italian Americans?

     

    We’re finding that young people aren’t connected to the ethnic issue until later on. At this stage they’re struggling to find their identity in other areas, like sexual identity. Most of the women who come to us are in their thirties, because that’s when they begin to explore that side of   

    themselves and ask themselves questions about ethnicity. Most of our board is made up of women in their thirties.

     

    So people come to NOIAW in search of their roots?

     

    They come for ethnic identification. We have to understand our past in order to build a future.

     

    What do you think about the bipolar stereotype that exists in Italian American culture, where the male is a macho figure and the woman a submissive one?

     

    Those of us of Italian background know that’s not the case. It’s purely a stereotype. I grew up with a very strong maternal figure, a mother who called the shots and scolded my father. I wasn’t treated any differently from my brothers and I think that in my background, the women were powerful.

     

    Do you think there’s a lack of organizations like yours that serve the Italian American community?

     

    There aren’t that many organizations with a focus. You know, there are the ones that get together and eat and celebrate holidays. We have a more serious mission. We don’t do any anti-defamation work—that’s something we specifically wanted to avoid—and instead emphasize putting out the best role models. We honor these women with special programs. We also have a mentorship system that links up successful professionals with young people who are entering the working world. We’ve always found that Italian Americans have money, that they’re financially prosperous, but that younger generations may lack guidance, especially if their parents aren’t college-educated.

     

    Aside from the mentorship program, how else does NOIAW interact with young people?

     

    I had an idea that came to me in the middle of the night. I was thinking about the image that Europe has of the U.S., post-9/11 and the war in Iraq, and I thought, why don’t we bring Italian kids over here to show them what American life is like? So we had 18 or so young Italians come here and live with Italian American families and they had a great time, did a lot of fun things around the city. We’re trying to do the same thing with Italian American kids and have them stay with families in Rome. Unfortunately we’re encountering some bureaucratic difficulties and as it stands, we’ve set them up in a hotel and they’ll stay with families on the weekends.

     

    What’s the feeling of connectivity between the women here like?

     

    My friend said it’s like coming in on the second act of a play and everyone knowing what the first act was like. There are a lot of common experiences and similarities.

     

    What are those similarities?

     

    Family dynamics for sure. When Italians left their country years ago and then had to assimilate, they held on to certain things to anchor them, and they passed those on to their children and grandchildren.

     

    Do you feel there’s a reluctance to identify as Italian American?

     

    It’s funny. Tomorrow we have a singer coming in, Michael Amante, who’s going to perform a song for Rachael Ray’s mother. And the moment we announced that I got all these angry emails saying he’s not a real Italian, that he’s masquerading and that he’s really Polish! But I thought, I don’t care—after all he wants to be identified as Italian American. So in the past maybe there was a reluctance, but not now. We’ve had great role models, and I think that in some small measure we’ve contributed to that.

     

    What do you think about a woman possibly becoming president?

     

    Nothing would excite me more. Of course, our organization isn’t political and we’re not behind any specific candidate, but I’m a supporter of Hillary’s.

     

    Do you have any experience with Italian politics?

     

    Actually, in Italy politics got in the way of things. We tried to hook up with some women’s groups there but they’re all political, in line with a particular party. We would meet with one group and then another one from some other political affiliation would get offended. We try to avoid any political affiliations.

     

    Do you bring attention to the immigrant story?

     

    We absolutely do. We’ve brought attention to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, where most of the women who died were Italian or Jewish immigrants. I feel close to that story because my grandmother was a seamstress. She stayed very Italian her whole life. She basically transplanted her village and its culture from back in Italy to Brooklyn. She barely spoke English, and that was actually pretty tough for my mother growing up. My mother told me she remembers crying when her mother would send her to the drugstore to get something, but couldn’t tell her the word for it in English. She would have to show up there not knowing how to explain what it was she had to buy. When I asked my mother why she named me Aileen, she said it was because it was an English name.

     

    Your organization has a funny acronym. I’m sure you know that in Italian “noia” means boredom, or an annoyance.

     

    Yes, I know! And I view it as a positive thing. I see us as a necessary annoyance to men in the Italian American community, especially their male-centered organizations. I boycotted the Italian American Museum’s gala last year because they had a whole list of speakers, and not one woman. I was upset, and I called them up and told them I will find you a woman to speak. I thought it was unacceptable.

    There are lots of Italian American organizations where the women just fetch the coffee and the men run the show. I’m glad that we’re a contrast to that. Those organizations also tend to focus their efforts on protesting the Sopranos, a show which, personally, I love. I think people’s fascination with that show wasn’t about crime, but about the Italian American family. It could be natural that men are more sensitive to that issue because for the most part, they’re also the ones that fall victim to prejudice.

     

    And what are your thoughts on being Founder and Chairwoman of an organization like NOIAW?

     

    I was the Vice President, and Vice Chair, of NIAF (National Italian American Foundation) for 12 years. But never the President, never got that cigar. That should tell you something. I love being the President here; the only unfortunate thing is that it’s twice as hard for us to raise money. All the big bucks always come from the men.

     
     
     
     

  • Life & People

    Padre Pio Through the Looking Glass


    In Italy you’ll see Padre Pio everywhere—in a back-alley shrine, the window of a restaurant, the cover of a cheap women’s magazine, in wallet-size amulet form. His image seems inescapable, but for devotees of the man who is believed to have performed thousands of miracles in his lifetime, now there is the chance to see him in the flesh. At San Giovanni Rotondo, a small town in Puglia whose friary is where Padre Pio spent most of his life, the body of the saint is on display. A mass held last Thursday marked the occasion and was intended to seat some 10, 000 people, surrounding the glass-encased body.

     

    It is almost difficult to qualify the devotion and popularity of the figure of Padre Pio. He is especially revered in southern Italy but for nearly his entire religious career as a Capuchin monk, until his death in 1968 at the age of 81, he was shunned by Catholic officials and the Vatican. Word of his miracles unsettled the Church and they often charged him with being a “psychopath” and a fraud. He is said to have had the wounds of the stigmata in his palms, healing, bi-location (the ability to be at two places at once) and levitation powers. John Paul II was the first Pope to believe in his gifts (apparently he was the recipient of a bona fide Pio miracle himself) and was the driving force behind Padre Pio’s canonization in 2002. During his lifetime, the now Saint Pio of Pietrelcina used his mass appeal and popular support to open what was once one of southern Italy’s biggest hospitals. His doctrine of spiritual growth (which includes meditation and examination of conscience) and of the inseparability of God and suffering, has also helped to create an enduring legacy.

     

    An estimated 750, 000 people have made reservations to visit the body of Padre Pio. In the past, the town of San Giovanni Rotondo had already benefited from Padre Pio, receiving nearly one million visitors a year to his shrine, and as a result, millions of euros for its local economy. Despite criticism for this blatant commercialization, especially from the prominent Bishop of Como and other individuals within the Church, administrators for the region of Puglia see the viewing of the saint’s body as an opportunity to bring more tourists, not only to the monastery town, but to the entire region. Relative to the rest of Italy, Puglia thinks of itself as somewht overlooked by tourists and it relies on the glorification of its native monk—along with sales of Pio-related merchandise, from key chains and plates to religious paraphernalia—to work up an economic stimulus.

     

    Saint Pio’s body will remain in a glass coffin until September 2009. His face has been replaced with a lifelike wax imitation, commissioned from a company in London that has worked with Madame Tussaud’s, and he is laid in his signature monk’s habit. To the flocks peering through the glass, the saint’s legendary hands may be his most authentic parts. It remains to be seen if some famous Padre Pio devotees, like Sophia Loren or Irish soccer player Damien Duff (it’s said he played with a relic of the saint in one of his shoes), will someday be among the pilgrims.

     

     

  • Life & People

    A Boost for Florence, and a Little Relief for the American Pocketbook


    How can Florence be improved upon? A city that has been voted as the top destination by readers of Travel + Leisure for three consecutive years and as Condé Nast’s “Most Desirable City” can’t truly get any better, but you can make it less hostile for the Dollar there. The Italian Government Tourist Board (ENIT) is trying to do just that—mitigate the exchange rate a little so American tourists can focus more on Renaissance art than penny-pinching.

     

    Last week it unveiled, with Matteo Renzi, the President of the Province of Florence and Antonio Preiti, the Director of the Florence Tourist Board, a new travel-friendly initiative: “The Fiorino Effect”. The Fiorino, or Florin, is the Florentine currency of a bygone era, the gold coin that came to rise in 1252 and that saw the sweeping growth and success of the city’s economy. Widely imitated by other European economies since, it is being celebrated this year in conjunction with the Genio Fiorentino Festival, an event that will last through May and highlight the works and lives of Florentine geniuses. And remembering the Florin means that American tourists haven’t been forgotten: all Americans traveling to Florence between May 15th and December 31st, 2008, will get a 10% discount in 90 restaurants and 130 participating hotels. 10%, as Renzi and Riccardo Strano, the ENIT Director for North America, pointed out in their presentation, doesn’t seem substantial but it can make a difference, especially if a tourist is always eating out or is in a family-size group. Anyone who was present to witness the Fiorino Effect’s promotional video, a brief but photographically spectacular homage to Florence and Tuscany, might agree that that alone created an incentive to visit the region. Pictures of Florence’s magnificent churches, veritable treasure troves of art, and Tuscany’s smaller, charming towns, like Siena, Pisa and Pistoia, were persuasive messages in and of themselves.

     

    For the more seasoned traveler to Florence, the city will also host an unusual exhibit on the Renaissance Age in China and, as Consul General Francesca Maria Talo’ announced—not without a little challenge in his voice—bring back its “steak culture” (Florence is Italy’s steak capital and Talo’ was confident that the city’s “fiorentine” could easily rival any famous American cuts). The future will also hold promising—and scholarly—things for Florence: the Medici archives, with funds from American philanthropists, are being reconciled and will represent one of the world’s most important historical archives.

     

    With 600, 000 Americans in Florence last year, Renzi said that Florence isn’t suffering from a diminished American presence (American tourists are the city’s most numerous, surpassing even Italian tourists), or a tourist drought of any kind. And with Italy, according to UNESCO, retaining two thirds of the world’s artistic heritage, the whole of Italy will continue to receive a high volume of culture-seeking visitors. But Renzi believes his discount proposal, because of a disproportionately strong Euro, will be appreciated as a gesture. Strano seconded the thought, and added that the “Fiorino Effect” is part of ENIT’s overall approach of staying close to the American consumer. He hopes to coordinate all of Italy’s regions and work with them to draft similar projects and marketing campaigns on a streamlined, national scale.

     

    The beauty of the “Fiorentino Effect” may just be how simple it is. Any individual planning a trip to Florence, or already on their way, need not do more than visit http://www.firenzeturismo.it/en_EN/

     
     

     

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