{"id":246,"date":"2012-11-15T06:27:06","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T05:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=246"},"modified":"2021-09-11T21:37:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T19:37:36","slug":"italian-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/italian-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Opera in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a common notion among Americans that Italians enjoy life more than the rest of us.\u00a0 But that\u00a0isn’t\u00a0exactly accurate, nor is the point.\u00a0 I think it would be closer to the truth to say that Italians appreciate<\/em> life more than the rest us.\u00a0 The good, the bad, and everything in between; they really immerse themselves in it fully, they don’t mind when things get messy. \u00a0In fact, sometimes it seems the messier, the better. \u00a0Which reminds me of a night last summer when I finally saw my first opera here in Rome.\u00a0 It was worth the wait, because the Teatro dell\u2019Opera di Roma <\/em>put on a fantastic performance of Bellini\u2019s \u201cNorma<\/em>,\u201d among the extraterrestrial dreamscape of the Terme di Caracalla<\/em> in the historical heart of ancient Rome.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Norma at Caracalla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anyway, that particular night happened to be the premier and the seats were mostly full.\u00a0 By my rough estimate I\u2019d say that nearly half of the spectators were tourists.\u00a0 One might think that your average tourist\u00a0wouldn’t\u00a0\u201cget\u201d the opera, as obviously it is sung entirely in Italian without subtitles or translations.\u00a0 But under the stars on a perfect night in Rome, surrounded by the crumbling remains of that ancient civilization, there\u00a0isn’t\u00a0much that one needs to \u201cget.\u201d\u00a0 The music was gorgeous, the setting surreal, and the weather couldn’t have been more ideal for an outdoor event.\u00a0 Just buy a glass a Prosecco at the bar, then shut off your brain and turn on your senses.\u00a0 A vacation within a vacation for any weary traveler.<\/p>\n

I suppose that I was sort of the exception in the crowd that night; not a tourist, but not an Italian either.\u00a0 However, I\u00a0couldn’t\u00a0help wondering how the average Italian spectator might have viewed this opera (or indeed opera in general).\u00a0 Do these plots seem plausible to them?\u00a0 Norma <\/em>contains the requisite love triangle, murderous schemes, revenge, regret, star-crossed lovers walking in hand in hand into the pyre.\u00a0 Whose life is really this dramatic?\u00a0 But perhaps to an Italian these scenes ring true\u2014if not in fact, at least in the range of emotion.<\/p>\n

Because you see, life here in Rome is an opera\u2014or at least many people seem to believe that their<\/em> lives are.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the things that I\u2019m still getting used to.\u00a0 As an American, to me it seems like there\u2019s a constant exaggeration of displayed emotion that never quite squares with the situation.\u00a0 Listen to someone talking about their head cold and you\u2019d swear that\u00a0they’ve\u00a0been diagnosed with terminal cancer.\u00a0 The ostensibly smallest insult can result in a promise of vendetta<\/em> that\u2019s carried on for decades.\u00a0 And don\u2019t even joke to a man about being cornuto<\/em> (cuckold) because then he\u2019s obliged to kill you–and the law may even be on his<\/em> side in that case.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
il libretto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m having a bit of fun at the expense of my Italian friends, of course.\u00a0 But I\u2019m serious when I say that your scale needs to be adjusted when you\u2019re an American living in Rome.\u00a0 We Americans tend to save our big emotions for truly big events, whereas the average Italian likes to try them all out on a daily basis; he likes to see what the \u201caudience\u201d responds to, always expecting (or at least hoping for) a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

So if you don\u2019t make to the Teatro dell\u2019Opera di Roma <\/em>for a performance this season, don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 Just hang around any given piazza around town and watch all the little operas play out in daily life.\u00a0 They\u2019re just as well-acted, only without the benefit of a proper orchestra.<\/p>\n

Click on the link below to check out their official website:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.operaroma.it\/en\/il_teatro\/strutture\/terme_di_caracalla<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a common notion among Americans that Italians enjoy life more than the rest of us.\u00a0 But that\u00a0isn’t\u00a0exactly accurate, nor is the point.\u00a0 I think it would be closer to the truth to say that Italians appreciate life more than the rest us.\u00a0 The good, the bad, and everything in between; they really immerse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,4],"tags":[49,54,52,28,48,32,53,55,14,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}