February 18
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Tuesday, February 18, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Vivaldi and…
At the beginning of the Settecento, Venice was one of two leading musical centers in Italy (Rome the other). Charles Burney called the Venetian school ‘a light and irregular troop’ – including Antonio Vivaldi and Carlo Tessarini. Vivaldi, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Catalani, Respighi: let’s hear the composers we know and love. But what of their contemporaries who are not household names? How do their works compare to those of the greats? Come listen to beloved favorites – balanced by lesser-known works – for an exhilarating exploration of Italian music this Spring.
February 19
- Casa Italiana Zerilli- Marimò – Wednesday, February 19, 2025 – 5:00 pm
Plays / Performances
The Italian theater landscape features several major players, including Piccolo Teatro and Teatro dell’Elfo in Milan, Teatro Argentina and Teatro India in Rome, among others. These iconic institutions have long been at the forefront of Italian theatrical excellence. At the same time, smaller companies and organizations play an equally, if not more, vital role in fostering innovation by presenting new theater, fresh ideas, and experimental languages. Our focus will center on playwrights and performances that emphasize collaboration, highlighting works that involve multiple actors or ensembles, showcasing the richness and diversity of collective storytelling on the Italian stage.
February 21
- Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Friday, February 21, 2025 – 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Samuel Vaccaro. Concerto di chitarra classica
Samuel Vaccaro nasce a Caltagirone ed è un giovanissimo Maestro di chitarra classica, concertista internazionale, vincitore di numerosissimi primi premi nazionali e internazionali.
February 24
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Monday, February 24, 2025 – 5:00 pm
Sei come sei
Casa Italiana hosts this book club online on the Zoom platform to discuss contemporary Italian books in Italian. The Club is open to anyone and its purpose is to offer the possibility to practice the Italian language. Everybody is encouraged to speak. The group suggests the books, usually by contemporary Italian authors, that reflect the changes that have taken place with time in the language and customs. The discussion is informal. - Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Monday, February 24, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Metamorphoses
On the occasion of his visiting professorship at NYU in Spring 2025, Italian philosopher and EHESS Professor Emanuele Coccia joins NYU Professor Eugenio Refini for a conversation around the concept of metamorphosis across philosophy and literature. In his 2021 book, Metamorphoses, Coccia sees metamorphosis not just as a biological process, but as the fundamental force that binds all life together. Challenging the rigid boundaries between species, the living and the non-living, and even human identity, Coccia presents a visionary perspective in which life is an ever-changing continuum, where transformation is not the exception but the rule. His book invites readers to reconsider existence as deeply interconnected, revealing a world in which every form of life is a continuation of those that came before. To what extent does this approach to metamorphosis speak to relevant concerns in the production and study of literary discourse? - Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Monday, February 24, 2025 – 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Concerto vincitori italiani del Concorso Internazionale “Crescendo Competition”
È un concorso dedicato a giovani e giovanissimi musicisti, che si svolge dal 2007 e la cui finale si tiene a New York alla Carnegie Hall.
February 25
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Tuesday, February 25, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Rossini and…
“What Makes It Italian?” is a music listening and discussion group that meets online on the Zoom platform and is open to everyone.Participation is free.The group is led by Gina Crusco, who has also guided listening at Bard LLI and Riverdale Y; acted as maestro del coro for opera in Italy; instructed music at The New School; and directed Underworld Productions.
February 27
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Thursday, February 27, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Dino Risi’s “Il giovedì”
Dino Versini, a separated father, obtains a judge’s permission to spend one day a week with his son. Every Thursday, Dino picks up Robertino in his flashy sports car, eager to impress him and hide from the boy the failures of his life. However, Dino’s brash manners and high-society friends fail to convince the child. After a disastrous trip to the seaside, during which Dino’s lover leaves him, and a visit to the grandmother’s house, an encounter with an industrialist further ruins the father’s already shaky reputation. At the end of the day, after returning his son to his ex-wife, Dino is left to call his lover to beg for forgiveness. - Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Thursday, February 27, 2025 – 6:00 – 7:30 pm
“The Journey of Phil Trajetta”
Questa nuova monografia sintetizza e contestualizza i dettagli che circondano la vita e l’opera di Filippo (Phil) Trajetta (Venezia, 1776 – Filadelfia, 1854), figlio del celebre compositore d’opera Tommaso Trajetta (spesso scritto Traetta). Il volume è stato progettato per richiamare l’attenzione di musicologi e professionisti su un maestro trascurato che ha valorosamente contribuito allo sviluppo della musica in America in un momento cruciale della storia del Paese: il periodo tra gli anni americani post-Rivoluzione e la soglia della Guerra Civile.
March 4
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Tuesday, March 4, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Donizetti and…
“What Makes It Italian?” is a music listening and discussion group that meets online on the Zoom platform and is open to everyone. Between Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (1832) and the next Italian comic masterpiece, Verdi’s Falstaff (1893), the popularity of comic opera dipped. Still, composers like Vincenzo Fioravanti were on the scene trying to extend the genre. - Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Tuesday, March 4, 2025 – 6:30 pm
La rossa Goletta
È un veliero piccolo e leggero a far viaggiare questo carico di poesie. Le porta dentro di sé, già nel ricco etimo di “goletta”. Il francese da cui discende, goëlette, indica un tipo di pesce, la rondinella di mare, mentre goëland, un uccello marino della specie del grande gabbiano. Gwela, la radice bretone che batte in petto alla parola, significa piangere. Un perpetuo navigare, fra creature marine, con un pianto in sottofondo. E il rosso, del sangue, del male, del sentire, del desiderio. Tutti elementi che compongono e costellano il paesaggio genesiaco de La rossa goletta in forma di ricorrenze tematiche: l’amore, il dolore, la passione, la speranza, la morte, la vita, lo struggimento, la bellezza, l’essere donna, le cose quotidiane. Intorno, metaforico e contraddittorio, il mare – l’eterno ondivago, lo splendido abisso che permette alla materia viva di stare a galla – assurge a condizione esistenziale e la lettura si fa traversata, ora agevole, ora turbolenta, sulle distese imprevedibili del dire poetico.
March 5
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Wednesday, March 5, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Adventures in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin
The fifth Adventure in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin of this season features the legendary bass René Pape, who will be singing the role of Rocco in Beethoven’s Fidelio at The Metropolitan Opera. René Pape appears courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera.
March 7
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Friday, March 7, 2025 – 6:00 pm
The Black Italian Renaissance: African Presence in Art
Blackness is not always immediately associated with Italian Renaissance history, but African people and people of African descent were integral parts of the Italian Renaissance. Their presence is attested to in Renaissance sculpture, painting, and archival records—hidden in plain sight. The documentary The Black Italian Renaissance: African Presence in Art (2022), written by journalist and screenwriter Francesca Priori and directed by filmmaker Cristian Di Mattia, seeks to uncover information about Black life in Renaissance Italy, asking: who were the African and Afro-descendant people depicted in Renaissance art? Where did they come from, and what were their experiences in Italy?
