Q & A: Riccardo Frizza On ‘Falstaff’ & The Donizetti Opera Festival
Riccardo Frizza is one of today’s foremost Italian conductors specializing in the Italian repertoire. He has appeared at all the great opera houses in the world and has interpreted many of the great works by Verdi, Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini. Recently, he was appointed the music director of the Donizetti Opera Festival and for his first assign...
Abruzzo Traditions, By Four Of Its Leading Women In Wine
“Bacchus amat colles, as the Romans observed, so the wine god must adore the Abruzzi,” wrote Burton Anderson in The Simon and Schuster Pocket Guide to Italian Wines in 1982. “Between the Adriatic Sea and the Apennines, which reach their highest point in the snow-capped Gran Sasso range above the regional capital of L'Aquila, there is little else bu...
Dr. Fiore’s book Pre-occupied Spaces: New Invited Lectures and Reviews
Dr. Fiore’s award-winning book Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies continues to be part of and to foster rich discussions about migration on different campuses, while it is still reviewed in journals around the world (Italy, Brazil, England) two years after its publication. The book was at the cente...
Don't Be Surprised If Alfa Romeo's Next Model Is FWD
Since its return to the North American market back in 2014, Alfa Romeo has remained a bit of an unknown to the majority of consumers. Prior to 2014, Alfa Romeo hadn't sold a car in the US since 1995, unless you count the highly limited 8C sports car, so you can forgive people for not being well-acquainted with the Italian brand. The situation certa...
Eataly Is Coming to Dallas
Good news for people who love Italian food: Eataly Dallas has formed an LLC, so it’s safe to say that we can expect that they will be landing in our fair, pasta-obsessed city soon. If you’re not familiar, it’s the behemoth that first touched down in New York (near Madison Square Park) in 2010. That was the doing of Lydia and Joe Bastianich (and, fo...
Rare Italian violin to get royal treatment on Columbus visit
An Italian celebrity is coming to Columbus this week. Nicknamed “Il Cannone,” the superstar will be flanked by security guards on a plane, met by police at the airport, transported in an armored car and carefully watched during a nine-day visit here. “Il Cannone,” though, is not a diva with a long list of demands. It’s not even a person. It’s a woo...
Brunello’s officially becomes Franceso Ristorante Italiano, complete with new menu, new lunch prices
It’s been almost a year since Brunello’s on Snoqualmie Ridge was sold to Francesco Montalto. With new ownership also came a plan to rebrand the longtime Snoqualmie restaurant in order to give it a new identity. Well, it took a little bit longer than anticipated, but Brunello’s is now officially Francesco Ristorante Italiano – complete with a new si...
Lucca Ravioli Is Gone. What’s Left of Italian Culture in the Mission Now?
It’s official. Last week, beloved Lucca Ravioli Company closed shop in the Mission District, breaking the hearts of customers and lovers of all things Italian in San Francisco. Since 1925, the little shop had been selling imported wines, cheeses, cold cuts, olive oils, pastas and more. But more than that, it had served as a landmark, preserving wha...
Italy’s ‘cave town’ has been crowned City of Culture
The choice of Matera as 2019’s European City of Culture will have astonished Italians of a certain age, although not those who have ever visited it. Fifty years ago, the city was designated the ‘national shame’ of Italy, embodying everything that was wrong with the impoverished south. But it was not true then and is little more than a hazy memory t...
Who Invented Pizza?
How was pizza invented? Who invented pizza? Like so many questions regarding the invention of objects, this question is more difficult to answer then it would first appear. From what historians know, while people have been eating pizza-like foods for a fair number of centuries, what we currently think of as pizza was created less than 200 years ago...
Long-serving priest Hilarion Cann remembered for his service to WV communities
Father Hilarion Cann served the Catholic priesthood for more than 60 years as he touched countless lives and worked to make the world a better place. Cann passed away Monday at the age of 90 due to heart complications, according to family members. Born Dec. 27, 1928, Cann was the eldest of James and Antoinette (Oliverio) Cann’s five children. He re...
Akron Art Museum Exhibit Captures Rust Belt Relatives
At its best, a portrait is a window through which you peer into the landscape of a person’s life. That intimacy makes subjects almost family, and in Joe Vitone’s case, they are. Family Records, his exhibit on display at the Akron Art Museum until Oct. 27, captures his Rust Belt relations over the last 20 years. Here, his Italian-American aunt, Grac...