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]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

Saturday nights heat up as Tony Manero struts into Milan

 Italy, musical theatre  1 Response »
Oct 152012
 

Saturday Night Fever Milan 1 Saturday nights heat up as Tony Manero struts into MilanTony Manero is com­ing to town in a brand new pro­duc­tion of Sat­urday Night Fever, per­formed in an all-Italian trans­la­tion as La Febbre del Sabato Sera.

After a few months of tour­ing in the Neth­er­lands earlier this year, the pop­u­lar stage ver­sion of the film which launched ’s career arrives at ’s Teatro Nazionale. Apart from recre­at­ing the iconic white suit for the disco floor, Cocky van Huijkelom has designed the cos­tumes from scratch with flares, plat­form shoes and pat­terned shirts which screech “70s”. The look wouldn’t be com­plete with the hair­styles, so 60 wigs have been cre­ated by Sjo­erd Did­den for the Italian pro­duc­tion. They have gone for an exag­ger­ated look which mir­rors how we remem­ber the period rather than how it was: it’s a musical, not a doc­u­ment­ary.… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

Milan’s Teatro Franco Parenti celebrates its birthday with an orgy of Hamlets

 Italy, theatre  No Responses »
Sep 182012
 

Boeri Pisapia Shammah Borghini Milans Teatro Franco Parenti celebrates its birthday with an orgy of Hamlets

One of the most respec­ted Mil­anese theatres was born from an artistic col­lab­or­a­tion between three pil­lars of Italian theatre: the dir­ector Franco Par­enti, writer Gio­vanni Test­ori and up-and-coming young dir­ector Andrée Ruth Shammah. Together they formed the Salone Pier Lom­bardo which, since Parenti’s death in 1989, has been run by Shammah, and renamed Teatro Franco Par­enti. This getting-together of like minds happened 40 years ago, and in the mean­time the theatre (or rather group of the­at­rical spaces, large and small) has became a touch­stone for new writ­ing and invent­ive sta­ging. The adven­tur­ous spark still sets alight excit­ing pro­jects, includ­ing that of its anniversary sea­son, the Pro­getto Amleto (Pro­ject ).

It was in Janu­ary 1973 that the cur­tain first went up on Testori’s rework­ing of Shakespeare’s Ham­let. … [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

Conductor Giuseppe Sinopli’s brother beaten into a coma by drunk thugs

 Italy, music, news  No Responses »
Sep 112012
 

Gab­ri­ele Sino­poli, brother of the late, great orchrestra con­ductor Giuseppe, has emerged from a coma after being attacked by a group of drunks.

They kept punch­ing me in the head, one seemed like a pro­fes­sional. A group of thugs.

The 64-year-old had beeped his horn to ask six young men to move out of the street out­side a bar in the centre of Mestre, near Venice, so that he could pass with his car. When he returned home he found them wait­ing for him, and he was viol­ently attacked, res­ult­ing in a brain haem­or­rhage and coma. The leader of the group was later found by police sit­ting out­sider a kebab shop. When asked why he’d done it, he replied, “Because I’m an idiot.”

The Mestre Town Coun­cil has now star­ted a cam­paign to try and limit the con­sump­tion of spritz, cost­ing just €1.50, and used to get drunk quickly.… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

Filippo Timi can be excellent, so he shouldn’t be anything less: Romeo and Juliet in Milan

 Italy, theatre  2 Responses »
Jul 212012
 

Timi Giulietta e Romeo RIvano Trabalza Studio 009 Filippo Timi can be excellent, so he shouldnt be anything less: Romeo and Juliet in MilanWhat to think of Fil­ippo Timi?

After the extraordin­ary suc­cess of his Amleto² ( squared) comes Giuli­ett’ e Romeo (a loose adapt­a­tion of ). There are just five char­ac­ters: the Nurse, Romeo, Juliet,  Mer­cu­tio and Cupid. Yes Cupid — it’s a very loose adaptation.

As Cupid, Timi comes on as though Jason Bieber had been styled by Pierre et Gilles, with blonde wig (cue ref­er­ences to Italian singer/dancer/ icon, Raf­faella Carrà) and rose-tinted glasses who, between shoot­ing clouds of red paper hearts into the air, mimes to Massimo Ranieri’s 60s hit Se bru­ciasse la città.

Timi appeared to have been plucked from a hol­i­day vil­lage enter­tain­ment, but his faith­ful fans nev­er­the­less rewar­ded him with shrieks, over-the-head applaud­ing, and hys­ter­ical laughter.… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

La Famiglia: opera Italian-style with the Muti family

 interview, Italy, opera  2 Responses »
Jun 252012
 

Riccardo Muti Chiara Muti 2012 La Famiglia: opera Italian style with the Muti family’s daugh­ter is about to make her dir­ect­ing début: Chiara Muti will dir­ect Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna, which her father will con­duct, for the Ravenna Fest­ival. Oh yes, her mother, Cristina Mazza­vil­lani is the Festival’s artistic dir­ector. Nice and cozy…  keep it in the family.

Chiara Muti isn’t new to the theatre. She emerged from the pres­ti­gi­ous theatre school of ’s Pic­colo Teatro in 1995. She’s played Lady Macbeth along­side Italian heartthrob Raol Bova, and has worked in film and tele­vi­sion. With M° Muti as her father she grew up watch­ing  opera, see­ing work­ings of an opera house from the inside. She might well be an excel­lent opera director.

There’s no “it’s been dif­fi­cult work­ing in the same busi­ness as my extraordin­ar­ily suc­cess­ful and power­ful father” for her. … [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

Roberto Bolle — interviewed by Sportweek — on football, ultras, Beckham and tattoos

 ballet, interview, Italy  No Responses »
Jun 172012
 

Roberto Bolle Sportweek 1 Roberto Bolle interviewed by Sportweek on football, ultras, Beckham and tattoosAnother day, another cover. After the Chi magazine art­icle a couple of days ago fol­lows a 7-page spread in the equally pop­u­lar men’s magazine Sportweek, the weekly insert of the sports daily La Gazz­etta della Sport. Alessia Cru­ciani goes for a dif­fer­ent tack with her ques­tions, her ter­min­o­logy all com­ing from the world of foot­ball. It works well.

Ath­letes are fam­ous for tak­ing great care over their look. Would you go on stage with a crest like Beckham?

Once I shaved my hair very short, but I couldn’t do more than that for pro­fes­sion­al­ism. Some dan­cers have tattoos.

That they then cover on stage?

That they then don’t cover on stage, though they should. A col­league has thirteen!

Have you ever been booed?… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS
 Older Entries