The Italian Greta Garbo is gone: Rossella Falk dies at 86

 obituary, theatre  1 Response »
May 052013
 

Rossella Falk 8 and a half The Italian Greta Garbo is gone: Rossella Falk dies at 86

, 10 Novem­ber 1926 – , 5 May 2013

One of the greatest Italian stage act­resses has died in Rome at the age of 86.

Ros­sella Falk was a giant among Italian act­resses, with a slightly arrog­ant air and regal poise which set her apart from many of her more earthy col­leagues. The label “the Italian Greta Garbo” was well chosen, and even her hair­style recalled that of the film star, though Falk’s career, unlike Garbo’s, con­tin­ued well into her eighties. Her 2006 bio­graphy was called The Last Diva, and a diva she was. She fre­quen­ted the likes of  , Noël Cow­ard, Dirk Bog­arde, Peter O’Toole, and had a twenty-year friend­ship with , whom she later played in ’s .… [con­tinue reading]

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Anna Proclemer — powerful Italian stage actress — dies at 89

 obituary, theatre  No Responses »
Apr 252013
 

Anna Proclemer Anna Proclemer powerful Italian stage actress dies at 89

Anna Proclemer (Trento, 30 May 1923 – , 25 April 2013)

One of Italy’s greatest act­resses died this morn­ing on the eve of her 90th birth­day. Anna Proclemer was primar­ily a stage animal with a sear­ing pres­ence and power­ful voice, allow­ing her to dom­in­ate every stage she stood on. She was a larger-than-life act­ress, the like of which doesn’t really exist today: a true star.

Proclemer worked with the giants of Italian theatre, Gior­gio Strehler and Luca Ron­coni, and played Vit­torio Gassmann’s Ophelia in 1952. She was a mem­or­able Jocasta in Sophocles’ Oed­ipus Rex three times, includ­ing one pro­duc­tion with Gass­mann in 1955, and with her fre­quent part­ner Gior­gio Alber­tazzi in 1969 at ’s La Scala in a pro­duc­tion designed by Pier Luigi Pizzi and with Clau­dio Abbado con­duct­ing a spe­cially com­mis­sioned score.… [con­tinue reading]

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Riccardo Muti weighs in on Italy’s perilous political situation: Grillo is like Iago

 music, politics and opinions  No Responses »
Apr 012013
 

Grillo Muti Riccardo Muti weighs in on Italys perilous political situation: Grillo is like Iago

I am deeply grate­ful to my coun­try. I owe everything to Italy. There­fore it hurts me to see the coun­try like this. I feel the need to speak up, to under­line some of the per­ils and the oppor­tun­it­ies as I see them.

With these words, Italian maes­tro stepped in to the cur­rent polit­ical fray: a com­plex, con­fus­ing and infuri­at­ing situ­ation that has left Italy without a gov­ern­ment over a month after the elections.

I do not want to make judge­ment on politi­cians, but the level we’ve des­cen­ded to over the last years is alarming,

Muti told Aldo Cazzullo in the Cor­ri­ere della Sera.

In my line of work I may have to fol­low ten dif­fer­ent musical lines which inter­sect in coun­ter­point, but the res­ult is har­mony; if you put just three politi­cians on TV they imme­di­ately start yelling at each other and no-one can under­stand any­thing.… [con­tinue reading]

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Great conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch dies at 89

 music, obituary  No Responses »
Feb 242013
 

wolfgang sawallsich 500x281 Great conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch dies at 89The con­ductor Wolfgang Sawal­lisch died yes­ter­day, 23 Feb­ru­ary 2013, at the age of 89.

He was born in Munich on 26 August 1923. Suc­cess came imme­di­ately, and he become the young­est con­ductor to per­form at the Bayreuth Fest­spiel­haus with Tristan und Isolde in 1957.

For a dec­ade he was the Prin­cipal Con­ductor of the Vienna Sym­phony until 1970. Then from 1971 to 1992 Sawal­lisch was Music Dir­ector of the Bav­arian State Opera, after which he became Music Dir­ector of the Phil­adelphia Orches­tra until 2003.

On the eve of his farewell con­cert as dir­ector of the Phil­adelphia Orches­tra the New York Times wrote:

Mr. Sawal­lisch is a musi­cian from tip to toe. He is blessed with an abund­ance of what musi­cians call ”music­al­ity” or ”musi­cian­ship.” This is far from a tau­to­logy; not all musi­cians have a lot of music­al­ity, and its pos­ses­sion is always a mat­ter of degrees.… [con­tinue reading]

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Pope resigns! Extraordinary news from Rome.

 Italy, news  No Responses »
Feb 112013
 

Pope Bene­dict XVI said at a meet­ing of car­din­als this morn­ing that he will resign as pontiff at the end of this month:

Pope Benedict XVI 15045109 1 402 Pope resigns! Extraordinary news from Rome.

Dear Broth­ers,

I have con­voked you to this Con­sist­ory, not only for the three can­on­iz­a­tions, but also to com­mu­nic­ate to you a decision of great import­ance for the life of the Church. After hav­ing repeatedly examined my con­science before God, I have come to the cer­tainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exer­cise of the Pet­rine min­istry. “I am well aware that this min­istry, due to its essen­tial spir­itual nature, must be car­ried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suf­fer­ing. “How­ever, in today’s world, sub­ject to so many rapid changes and shaken by ques­tions of deep rel­ev­ance for the life of faith, in order to gov­ern the bark of Saint Peter and pro­claim the Gos­pel, both strength of mind and body are neces­sary, strength which in the last few months, has deteri­or­ated in me to the extent that I have had to recog­nize my inca­pa­city to adequately ful­fill the min­istry entrus­ted to me.… [con­tinue reading]

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Mariangela Melato: Milan, 19 September 1941 – Rome, 11 January 2013

 obituary, theatre  2 Responses »
Jan 122013
 

Melato 371x500 Mariangela Melato: Milan, 19 September 1941 – Rome, 11 January 2013Mari­an­gela Melato was one of the finest act­resses I have ever seen.

Unfor­tu­nately, lan­guage restraints meant that her immense tal­ent was largely unknown out­side of Italy, but Melato was a rare creature indeed cap­able of mov­ing with ease between Racine’s Phèdre and musical com­edy, from Shakespeare to cab­aret, the vil­lainess Gen­eral Kala in Mike Hodges’ film Flash Gor­don to the Mil­anese snob in Lina Wertmüller’s Swept Away, from play­ing a cour­ageous law­yer in tele­vi­sion to delight­ing in comic skits.

She could make an audi­ence laugh while seem­ingly doing noth­ing at all, yet had a sear­ing intens­ity in dra­matic roles. Her low, throaty voice was unique and a power­ful ally in the theatre, and her lithe body and imp­ish sense of fun kept her look­ing much younger than her years, though she has died at just 71. … [con­tinue reading]

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Roberto Bolle lays himself bare in Vanity Fair: it’s difficult to say “I love you”

 ballet, interview  2 Responses »
Dec 212012
 

Roberto Bolle Vanity Fair 2 700x487 Roberto Bolle lays himself bare in Vanity Fair: its difficult to say I love you

 

In a reveal­ing inter­view with the Italian , opens up, and reveals parts of his psyche that he usu­ally prefers to keep hid­den in interviews.

Roberto Bolle Vanity Fair 378x500 Roberto Bolle lays himself bare in Vanity Fair: its difficult to say I love youLuca Dini was ask­ing the ques­tions, and Bolle lit­er­ally laid him­self bare to phở­to­grapher Marc Hom:

Dance has improved me as a per­son. I’ve always danced bet­ter on stage than dur­ing the rehears­als because of the con­tact with the pub­lic and the pro­tec­tion of inhab­it­ing the ‘armour’ of a char­ac­ter which allows me to let go, to exper­i­ence and com­mu­nic­ate emo­tions, to not be restrained and timid as I am by nature.

It has been thera­peutic; it has given me the pos­sib­il­ity to express things that I still struggle to expose, and it’s a work in pro­gress.… [con­tinue reading]

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