April 14
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Monday, April 14, 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.
April 15
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Tuesday, April 15, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Italian POWs in the United States on Screen
The event series will consist of two days of academic presentations, roundtables discussions, and film screenings that investigate how World War II Italian Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees in Western Allied hands have been represented and memorialized through their creativity in North America, Australia, and Europe during and after WWII (1940-2025), in films and documentaries.This event aims to continue the successful series started in Spring 2024 at NYU Casa Italiana as part of the New York events sponsored by the Australian Research Council grant “Mapping Creativity in Captivity during WWII.” Furthermore, 16 April 2025 event will mark the launch of the Digital Atlas of Creativity in Captivity (DARCI).
April 16
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, April 16, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Italian POWs in Australia on Screen
The event series will consist of two days of academic presentations, roundtables discussions, and film screenings that investigate how World War II Italian Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees in Western Allied hands have been represented and memorialized through their creativity in North America, Australia, and Europe during and after WWII (1940-2025), in films and documentaries. This event aims to continue the successful series started in Spring 2024 at NYU Casa Italiana as part of the New York events sponsored by the Australian Research Council grant “Mapping Creativity in Captivity during WWII.” Furthermore, 16 April 2025 event will mark the launch of the Digital Atlas of Creativity in Captivity (DARCI).
April 21
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Monday, April 21, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Infinito: A Translation Marathon
Followed by a reading of multilingual translations of L’Infinito by NYU students, who will also share their perspective on the poem and its translations.
Join us for a vibrant celebration of L’Infinito (The Infinite, 1822), Giacomo Leopardi’s iconic poem, through a dynamic panel discussion and a multilingual poetry reading. In conjunction with the publication of L’infinito di Giacomo Leopardi nel mondo (Centro Nazionale di Studi Leopardiani, 2022), this event offers fascinating perspectives on how translation opens up new dimensions of meaning, revealing the infinite echoes of Leopardi’s words across cultures and languages.
April 22
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Tuesday, April 22, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Adventures in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin
The seventh Adventure in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin of this season features New Yorker mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, who will be singing the role of Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia at The Metropolitan Opera. Isabel Leonard appears courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera.
April 23
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, April 23, 2025 – 5:00 pm
Festivals and Awards
Italy’s theater landscape is enriched by prestigious awards and festivals that celebrate the diversity and innovation of its theatrical community. Much like the Tony and Obie Awards, Italy has its own accolades distributed throughout the year (the UBU, the Hystrio, the Maschere per il teatro and so on) recognizing both large-scale productions and smaller, independent works. Among these are highly respected awards for playwrights, honoring their contributions to the craft and spotlighting groundbreaking works.The country also hosts an impressive array of festivals, many of which are dedicated to specific niches within the theater world. Notably, there are festivals designed for young artists under the age of 25, offering a platform for emerging talents to showcase their work and experiment with new ideas. Other festivals focus on avant-garde productions, providing a space for daring and experimental performances, as well as events celebrating international works, fostering cross-cultural collaboration and dialogue.
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, April 23, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Futurism
A new history of Futurism and its fraught ideological ambitions, centered on sculptural experimentation. As the first comprehensive avant-garde of the twentieth century, Italian Futurism sought to integrate modern life with every imaginable aesthetic medium. The detached materiality of sculpture offered a singular proving ground for the drive to merge art and existence. Sculpture’s theory and practice offers a distillation of Futurism’s larger aims and frustrations: a will to mechanize haunted by the tradition of craft; the liberation of flight burdened by mass and gravity; the lyrical mutiny of form chastened by the exigencies of design; and a dream of totality splintered by the contingency of the fragment. Centered on avant-garde sculpture in Italy and other European countries between the world wars, Fragments of Totality ventures a new history of Futurism and its fraught ideological ambitions. Illuminating understudied works by prominent artists like Giacomo Balla, Enrico Prampolini, Fortunato Depero, and Bruno Munari alongside the efforts of many lesser-known figures, this first major study of Futurist sculpture opens onto wider questions: from labor and leftist Futurism, to the politics of aesthetic autonomy, to the intersections between race, imperialism, and materials. The medium—and the idea—of sculpture sets into relief the demands of any project of modern cultural totality. Futurism’s shifting definitions of “plasticity” underscore the volatile political economy not only of interwar Italy, but also perhaps of a wider Western epoch.
April 24
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Thursday, April 24, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Beyond the Shadows:The Music of Mercadante
To honor the 230th anniversary of Saverio Mercadante’s birth (1795, Altamura), We Are Puglia and the United Pugliesi Federation, with the support of Regione Puglia, present an evening dedicated to the composer, in partnership with Club Federiciano and the Coro Polifonico ‘Saverio Mercadante’
April 28
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Monday, April 28, 2025 – 6:00 pm
La Madre Italia
Anthologies are communities. And There Were Red Geraniums Everywhere won, “La letteratura delle radici,” prize for anthologies in Italy. Now it will be presented for the first time in English. Join us for a gathering of Italian American women writers– Annie Lanzillotto, Jennifer Romanello, Luisa Del Giudice, Kathryn Curto, Jean Feraca, Joanna Clapps Herman, Chiara Montalto, Gail Reitano, Dr. Loretta D’Orsogna who will be reading from their essays and talking with the audience about what it means to be an Italian American woman living outside of la madre Italia.
Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Monday, April 28, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Opera: vecchie radici, nuovi orizzonti. Sviluppo del pubblico e il progetto Opera out of Opera
Michelangelo Galeati è direttore d’orchestra, educatore e organizzatore internazionale nel mondo della musica classica. Rinomato per la sua arte dinamica e il suo approccio innovativo, è professore al Conservatorio “Santa Cecilia” di Roma. Oltre al suo ruolo di insegnante, ricopre posizioni rilevanti come Delegato per i progetti internazionali, membro della Commissione internazionale e parte del Consiglio accademico, promuovendo l’impegno globale dell’istituzione. Dal 2000, Michelangelo Galeati è stato una pietra miliare nella creazione e gestione di importanti iniziative culturali europee come Erasmus+ e Creative Europe. La sua competenza si estende alla promozione della collaborazione internazionale e dello sviluppo del pubblico, rendendolo una figura fondamentale nei progetti culturali transnazionali, sostenendo metodologie educative innovative per coltivare il talento in tutte le discipline.
April 29
Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Tuesday, April 29, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Adventures in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin
The eighth and final Adventure in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin of this season features the conductor and Music Director of Opera Philadelphia Corrado Rovaris.
