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?
March 8
- Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – Saturday, March 8, 2025 – 3:30 pm
In attesa della Primavera
A celebration of Italian music for brass with special guest and Italian trumpeter, Antonio Mandosi. This recital will feature the traditional antiphonal works of Giovanni Gabrieli, the well known melodies of Italian operas by Puccini and Monteverdi, a nod to tradition Italian folk music, and a very special premiere of an original arrangement of Respighi’s “La Primavera” from his Trittico Botticelliano.
March 11
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò -Tuesday, March 11, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Verdi and…
Mercadante was as famous as he was prolific during his lifetime, and Verdi incontestably drew upon his understanding of dramatic writing. It is Verdi’s music that has endured, while Mercadante has fallen into oblivion. - Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò -Tuesday, March 11, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Malaparte: A Biography
Curzio Suckert (1898-1957)—best known by his pen-name Malaparte—was not only a literary master but one of the mystery men of twentieth-century letters. The son of a cosmopolitan German businessman, his mother an Italian, Malaparte led a life that was intimately entwined from start to finish with the twentieth century’s troubled history, and only recently has it become possible to begin to separate fact from the screen of fictions with which he continually surrounded himself.
March 12
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, March 12, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Il Signor Jackson
IL SIGNOR JACKSON documents how former AICR president Edward Jackson grew up as a Black youth in an Italian neighborhood and considered himself Italian. It focuses on the challenges he encountered in seeking a career as an Italian language teacher. Born in Harlem, Prof. Edward Jackson, raised in an Italian-American neighborhood of 1950’s Bronx, became an educator in the NY City Public School System and a cultural figure of Italian biculturalism and bilingualism. - Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, March 12, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Space and Sound in Late-Seventeenth Century Rome
The relationship between compositional choices and the spaces in which certain repertoires were performed remains an area in need of further investigation. This study begins with a comparison between two projects: one conducted between 2010 and 2018 on the repertoire performed in Francesco Borromini’s masterpiece, the Church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, and another focusing on the Pauline Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the most significant sacred spaces of Counter-Reformation Rome. Archival documents from the State Archives of Rome reveal the vocal and instrumental ensembles present in 1661 for the feast of the dedication of Sant’Ivo on March 19. On that occasion, the three-choir mass Ecce sacerdos magnus by Orazio Benevoli was most likely performed. As demonstrated in a 2018 concert, where the three choirs were positioned within the church’s three choir lofts, the composition aligns seamlessly with Borromini’s architectural design. In contrast, Alessandro Melani’s repertoire, performed in the Pauline Chapel, reflects a different spatial dynamic. Here, the much closer placement of the two choirs above the altar corresponds precisely with Melani’s compositional approach, particularly in his treatment of the choirs and his highly advanced harmonic language.
March 18
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Tuesday, March 18, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Catalani and…
In the late Ottocento, Northern Europe’s taste for myth and fairytale crossed the Alps, along with Wagnerian harmony. La Wally (1892) by Alfredo Catalani was premiered at La Scala, and Luigi Mancinelli’s Isora di Provenza (1884) at Bologna.
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.
March 19
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, March 19, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Reverie
Giorgio Buttitta guitar. Reverie is a musical journey through the beloved repertoire for classical guitar, filled with dances and dreams, and featuring the color and expressivity of the guitar in the service of Music.
March 20
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Thursday, March 20, 2025 – 6:00 – 8:30 pm
Io Capitano
A Homeric fairy tale that tells the adventurous journey of two young boys, Seydou and Moussa, who leave Dakar to reach Europe.
