The man behind a fake “ancient” amphitheatre finishes behind bars
A hillside “archaeological site” with ancient Neolithic and Greco-Roman artefacts, impressive enough to charge a €40 entrance fee. Except it wasn’t ancient at all.
Italy
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Gina Lollobrigida at 90 on Loren, Castro, singing and sculpture: “I was the number one!”
When I can to Rome the first time with my family we were six in one room: father, mother and four children. Gina Lollobrigida, who today celebrates her 90th birthday, has for many years lived in her grand villa on the Appia Antica, the long Roman road which now links villas and parks on the…
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Sophia Loren returns to the big screen after a decade
Sophia Loren will be returning to the big screen in a film based on Jean Cocteau‘s 1930s play La Voce Umana (The Human Voice). Loren last appeared in the cinema in Lina Wertmuller’s Peperoni Ripieni e Pesci in Faccia (Too Much Romance, It’s Time For Stuffed Peppers) in 2004, and on television in La mia casa e’ piena di…
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Pope resigns! Extraordinary news from Rome.
Pope Benedict XVI said at a meeting of cardinals this morning that he will resign as pontiff at the end of this month: 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….
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Saturday nights heat up as Tony Manero struts into Milan
Tony 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 John Travolta‘s career arrives at Milan‘s Teatro Nazionale. Apart from recreating the iconic white suit for…
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Milan’s 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…
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Italy | music & opera | news
Conductor Giuseppe Sinopli’s brother beaten into a coma by drunk thugs
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…
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Filippo Timi can be excellent, so he shouldn’t be anything less: Romeo and Juliet in Milan
What to think of Filippo Timi? After the extraordinary success of his Amleto² (Hamlet squared) comes Giuliett’ e Romeo (a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet). 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…
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La Famiglia: opera Italian-style with the Muti family
Riccardo Muti‘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…
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dance | interviews | Italy
Roberto Bolle – interviewed by Sportweek – on football, ultras, Beckham and tattoos
Another day, another cover. After the Chi magazine article a couple of days ago comes 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….
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Sorpresa! Cecilia Bartoli returns to La Scala after a 20 year gap
It was announced yesterday that Cecilia Bartoli will return to Milan‘s La Scala after an absence of twenty years. The singer, feted abroad but largely ignored in her homeland, was working on a project with La Scala which evaporated when Riccardo Muti suddenly parted ways with the theatre. Now it is Daniel Barenboim who has…
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Italy’s queen of song, Mina, salutes ‘angel’ Whitney Houston
Italian music legend Mina has saluted late soul-pop superstar Whitney Houston as an “angel” who invented a new way of singing. The reclusive star who writes a weekly column for Italy‘s Vanity Fair said, I want to keep her in my memory as I see her: tall, beautiful, talented beyond measure. I don’t know much…
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Gay association asks for Valentine’s Day discount
Gay advocacy association Equality Italia has asked that gay and lesbian couples be included in cultural initiative discounting entrance fees for Italian state museums on Valentine’s Day. According to a bulletin published on the Italian Culture Ministry’s website, February 12 and 13 Italians and foreigners alike can take advantage of half-price tickets for a romantic…
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Carla Fracci, Riccardo Muti, and the destruction of ballet in Italy
For almost two years – that is, since the departure of Carla Fracci as a director – the Ballet of the Rome Opera seems to have fallen prey to evil spirits, or at least incompetent ones, who have drastically reduced the quantity and quality of performances. All under the orders of the famous conductor, notoriously despotic and a known enemy of dance. The new director of the ballet company, Micha van Hoecke, has no specific responsibilities for now. But the future is worrying. So opens an article…
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Why Mario Monti Is the Most Important Man in Europe (and on the cover of Time magazine)
At first glance, it seems impossible that the fate of the world economy rests in Mario Monti’s hands – says Time magazine. The Prime Minister of Italy has the aura of a gentlemanly grandfather — the polite demeanor, the soft voice, the smiling eyes — not the tough taskmaster Italy so desperately needs to escape…
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Tuscans leave their clothes at the restaurant door in response to Monti’s economic measures
A restaurateur near the Tuscan town of Pisa has bared his all to fight the continuing economic crisis in Italy. Better yet, he has asked his customers to do so, said ANSA. The Monti government has left us in our underwear so we are offering dinner to clients who show up without their trousers,” said Alessandro…
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Vatican museums hit new record in 2011: more than 5 million visitors
The Vatican Museums broke their own record for visitor numbers to any site in Italy in 2011, attracting more than five million people for the first time, Director Antonio Paolucci said Tuesday. “By December 31, at midnight, 5,078,004 people had entered the pope’s museums,” Paolucci told Vatican daily l’Osservatore Romano. Paolucci said the figure was…
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Italy | music & opera | news
Del Monaco regains consciousness: “It was lucky that I escaped, otherwise she would have slaughtered me.”
Claudio Del Monaco remains in a chronic condition but the prognosis is more positive, though doctors at Treviso’s Ca ‘Foncello hospital haven’t yet taken him off the danger list. Del Monaco, director and son of Italian opera’s great Mario, has improved greatly since he was admitted to hospital. Two severe stab wounds, inflicted by his wife, Daniela…
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Opera director Claudio Del Monaco, son of the famous tenor, stabbed by wife
Claudio Del Monaco, the 64 year-old son of tenor Mario del Monaco, was seriously injured last night from stab wounds allegedly inflicted by his wife. Del Monaco, an opera director, and his 35 year-old German wife Daniela Hermann, an opera singer, were on holiday in Jesolo, near Venice. It is assumed that during a violent quarrel Hermann used a 10 inch (25cm)…
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Spumante will beat champagne worldwide on New Year’s Eve
Italian spumante will beat French champagne when corks are popped around the world this New Year’s Eve, The Italian bubbly is set to edge out its French elder cousin thanks to a record 25% rise in sales in the first 10 months of the year, compared to just 3.5% for champagne. More than 300 million…
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A ballerina speaks out: Mariafrancesca Garritano, La Scala soloist, talks frankly about the eating-disorders which plague the company
Sant’Ambrogio (Saint Ambrose) is Milan‘s patron saint, and on his Saint’s Day, 7th December, Milan’s opera house La Scala opens its new season. However, one of the ballet soloists has chosen the eve of this glittering occasion to speak with The Observer about problems in the company. Mariafrancesca Garritano is 33, and has been at…
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Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope) opens in the UK
Left-wing Italian film-maker, Nanni Moretti, has attacked many institutions in his time: his 2006 film The Caiman laid in to Berlusconi. Not a surprise then that the Catholic Church would eventually be a target, though with Habemus Papam he hasn’t gone in for the kill, only stirred things up a little with this comedy which has not upset the church…
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Priscilla Queen of the Desert kicks off its heels in Milan
“Every conceivable surface has been decked with sequins, spattered with coloured lights, plastered in mirrored chips or trimmed in feathers and fringe in “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” said the New York Times, and it will be the same production which comes in to Milan in two weeks’ time. Movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the…
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dance | interviews | Italy
Roberto Bolle on boys and ballet
The Corriere della Sera‘s Valeria Crippa asked Roberto Bolle what is causing an increase in the numbers of boys studying ballet: There’s been a positive trend over recent years. Films like Billy Elliot have helped, the familiarity of dancing on TV and also new media. YouTube allows you to find any video, to be informed, to make comparisons. Of course, for those who like me who…
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”The greatest white singer in the world” hunts for mystery songwriter
Like Prince Charming looking for the owner of the glass slipper, reclusive Italian singing legend Mina launched a social media campaign Tuesday to identify who wrote a song on her upcoming album, said the Italian press agency ANSA. The demo, entitled This Song (Questa Canzone), was sent to the pop superstar without a name or return…
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Barenboim named as La Scala’s musical director
Daniel Barenboim has been named musical director of Milan‘s iconic La Scala opera house, filling a post left vacant when Riccardo Muti stormed out in 2005 amid artistic differences. Barenboim, 68, who is already principal guest conductor for La Scala, will assume his new post on December 1, La Scala said. For the last five years…
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dance | Italy | photography
English Lads Can Dance! says Italy’s L’Uomo Vogue
Bruce Weber photographed the dancers of Matthew Bourne‘s Swan Lake for the January 2011 issue of L’Uomo Vogue. ‘English Lads Can Dance!’ was styled by Deborah Watson, and the dancers are Richard Winsor, Chris Trenfield, Tim Bartlett, Tom Clark, Dominic North, and Franklyn Lee.
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British WWI liner found off Genoa
Italian divers on Friday located in the waters off Genoa the wreck of a luxury British transatlantic liner sunk by a German submarine during the First World War when it was being used by the Royal Navy as a troop ship. The wreck of SS Transylvania, split in two and pointing upwards, was found on…
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Italy’s top chef is working at McDonald’s
Gualtiero Marchesi, the first chef in Italy to earn three Michelin stars, has created two hamburgers and a dessert for the Italian menu of the world’s biggest fast food chain. “I simply asked what and where young people were going to eat,” said the Milanese master chef. “They were very simple questions which led to…
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Special events banned near Rome tourist icons until 2012
Special events will be banned at Rome‘s iconic tourist attractions Piazza Navona and the Trevi Fountain until the end of the year because of a rash of recent attacks by vandals. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno released a statement on Tuesday saying the decision was taken “to protect the public assets of the city of Rome…
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