Prova Aperta March 8, 2009 Originally published in Pinball People, March 2009, and re-posted here. Carl Maria von Weber Oberon, Ouverture Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Concerto in E minor, opus 64 for violin and orchestra Robert Schumann Symphony no. 4 in D minor, opus 120 It’s rare that one gets to see the workings of an orchestra …
Tag Archives: italy
La Scala
1 February 2009 Quartetto d’archi della Scala Giacomo Puccini, Crisantemi, elegia per quartetto Giuseppe Verdi, Quartetto in mi min. per archi Giuseppe Verdi, Antologia da “Rigoletto”, arranged for strings by A. Melchiori This originally appeared in Pinball People in February 2009; I’m re-posting here. I was a bit skeptical about going to see a string …
La Cenerentola
Barns at Wolf Trap • Saturday, June 27, 2026 • 7:30 p.m. As we head towards American 250, I will concede that the Barns at Wolf Trap might be an appropriate setting for Rossini’s La Cenerentola, although I’d have preferred the Kennedy Center. Part of the larger Wolf Trap complex, the performance took place in …
Rebutting Radical Chic…nella Cucina Italiana
In a fit of radical chic, the Financial Times published Marianna Giusti’s interview with Marxist academic Alberto Grandi, in which the latter “debunks” (a popular activity these days) Italian food traditions, most of which are admittedly as new as Italy’s prosperity. It’s not a difficult task to take on if one has read more than …
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Why — or How — Italy Works, and Why No One Wants to Leave
The motorist tries to run you over and you get into a yelling match on the street. The phone company is billing you for your old and new internet, although neither work. You’re getting laid off, you lose your private office and have to share a cramped space with people who don’t believe in the …
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Raiding the Ratings Agencies
The financial news has been so intense this week that I’ve all but given up on trying to blog it. Twitter‘s where you’ll find most of my comments on the tumult in Europe and the US. Amid markets falling and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic flailing, one bit of rather shocking news did …
Enoch Powell
Apropos of the histrionic tone towards immigration that Italy’s runoff elections took recently, it’s interesting to take a look at how the issue was approached in Britain 43 years ago by Enoch Powell, the conservative firebrand best remembered for his “rivers of blood” speech. James Walston has a good bit about this up in one …
Thoughts on Militarism on Italy’s Day of the Republic
Italy rarely has national holidays that anyone cares about. Milan My building is pleasantly empty at the moment, with most denizens having gone away for a long weekend. Militarism is rarely on display for secular holidays here, although this year has seen a bit more than usual, with the 150th anniversary of unification. Jasmine Tesanovic, …
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Magdi Allam’s Politics of Fear
Some readers have criticized my use of the word “nutjob” to describe Magdi Allam. That is admittedly an imprecise description of a journalist-turned-demagogue whose views are nativist at best and racist at worst. Like Oriana Fallaci before him, Allam has a deep and abiding fear of Muslims in Europe. Unlike Fallaci, Allam was born in …
So you want to write a book?
Tim Parks stands out from most expatriate writers on Italy by choosing to write about the daily realities of a life lived among regular people. Lesser writers are enchanted into irrelevance by the cultural, gastronomic and sartorial consumption opportunities afforded to them by the bel paese, but not so Parks, who divines trenchant observations on family, …