Katia Ricciarelli - operatic soprano

Star whose peak years were in ‘70s and ‘80s

Katia Ricciarelli was at her peak
for about two decades

The opera singer Katia Ricciarelli, who at her peak was seen as soprano who combined a voice of sweet timbre with engaging stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 at Rovigo in the Veneto.

She rose to fame quickly after making her professional debut as Mimi in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème in Mantua in 1969 and in the 1970s was in demand for the major soprano roles.

Between 1972 and 1975, Ricciarelli sang at all the major European and American opera houses, including Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1973), the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1974) and the Metropolitan Opera (1975).

In 1981, she began an association with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro that she maintained throughout the ‘80s.

In addition to her opera performances, Ricciarelli also appeared in a number of films.

Ricciarelli performed at most of Europe and
America's major opera houses

She was Desdemona in Franco Zeffirelli's film version of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello in 1986, alongside Plácido Domingo. In 2005 she won the best actress prize Nastro d'Argento, awarded by the Italian film journalists, for her role in Pupi Avati's La seconda notte di nozze (2005).

During her peak years, Desdemona was one of her signature roles, while she was also lauded for her Giulietta in Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and for her interpretations of Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena.

Ricciarelli’s most well received Rossini roles were Bianca in Bianca e Falliero, Elena in La donna del lago and and Amenaide in Tancredi.

As her career progressed, however, critics felt her voice became weaker and without some of its former lustre, which some have attributed to her being pushed into heavy, highly dramatic roles, such as Puccini’s Tosca or Verdi’s Aida, which were not suited to her voice.

Ricciarelli often performed alongside José
Carreras, with whom she enjoyed a romance

Some opera audiences are notoriously unforgiving. Her Aida at the Royal Opera House in 1983 was greeted with whistles, while in 1986 in Trieste her debut as Bellini’s Norma provoked a similar reaction.

Her career as a singer at the top level ended in the early 1990s. She made her last appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in 1990 alongside Domingo in Otello.

Born Catiuscia Mariastella Ricciarelli to a poor family in Rovigo, she was brought up by her mother after her father died while she was very young.

She loved singing as a child and, once she was old enough to work, began to save money so that she could enrol at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Venice, where she had the opportunity to study with the soprano Iris Adami Corradetti.

Essentially a lyric soprano, following her operatic debut in 1969 she won the Voci Verdiane competition, organised by Italy’s national broadcaster Rai, and established herself as a superb Verdi singer, hailed as the “new Tebaldi” after Renata Tebaldi, a soprano popular in the postwar years who, coincidentally, had made her stage debut in Rovigo in 1944, two years before Ricciarelli was born.

Katia Ricciarelli has appeared regularly on Italian TV
since she ended her career in opera

Although her operatic prowess began to wane, Ricciarelli’s career did not. She took up the position of artistic director of the Teatro Politeama di Lecce in 1998 and in the first decade of the new century turned increasingly to acting and appeared in television dramas such as Don Matteo alongside Terence Hill.

In 2005, after being nominated artistic director of the Sferisterio Opera Festival in Macerata, she began her professional relationship with the director Pupi Avati, who would later cast her in his film The Friends of the Margherita Bar (2009).

The following years brought a brief flirtation with politics as a centre-left candidate for the municipal council elections in Rodi Garganico, a beach resort near Foggia where she spent many summer holidays, more television work, an autobiography published in 2008 and a performance at La Fenice in Venice to mark her 40 years in music, in which she performed duets with pop singers Massimo Ranieri and Michael Bolton, among others.

A regular guest on variety and talk shows on Italian television, in 2006 she participated in the reality show La fattoria (Italian version of The Farm) on Canale 5.

Ricciarelli was married for 18 years to the TV presenter Pippo Baudo, the couple divorcing in 2004. She had previously had a relationship with her fellow opera star José Carreras that spanned 13 years.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is Rovigo's main square

Travel tip:

Rovigo is a town of around 52,000 people in the Veneto, which stands on the plain between the Po and the Adige rivers, about 80km (50 miles) southwest of Venice and 40km (25 miles) northeast of Ferrara, on the Adigetto Canal.  The architecture of the town has both Venetian and Ferrarese influences. The main sights include a Duomo dedicated to the  Martyr Pope Steven I, originally built before the 11th century, but rebuilt in 1461 and again in 1696, and the Madonna del Soccorso, a church best known as La Rotonda, built between 1594 and 1606 by Francesco Zamberlan of Bassano, a pupil of Palladio, to an octagonal plan, and with a  campanile, standing at 57m (187ft), that was built according to plans by Baldassarre Longhena (1655–1673). The walls of the interior of the church are covered by 17th centuries paintings by prominent provincial and Venetian artists, including Francesco Maffei, Domenico Stella, Pietro Liberi, Antonio Zanchi and Andrea Celesti. There are the ruins of a 10th century castle, of which two towers remain.

The beach at Roci Garganico is famed for
its soft sand and shallow waters

Travel tip:

Rodi Garganico is a seaside resort in the Apulia region, a 100km (62 miles) drive northeast from Foggia on a promontory east of the Lago di Varano lagoon. It part of the Gargano National Park.  It has for centuries been a major centre for the production of citrus fruits such us Arance del Gargano (Gargano Oranges) and the Limone Femminiello del Gargano (Gargano Lemons), both with DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) status under European Union regulations.  As well as its many kilometres of sandy beaches, Rodi Garganico attracts visitors for the local cuisine, which features orange salad, salad with wild onions, many fish dishes and a good variety of local wines.

More reading:

Alessandro Safina - the pop-opera star who made his stage debut alongside Katia Ricciarelli

Why Renata Tebaldi was said to have 'the voice of an angel'



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Manuela Arcuri - actress and model

TV drama star who portrayed woman who killed Mafia boss

The glamorous Manuela Arcuri has evolved
from model to popular TV actress

The actress and former model Manuela Arcuri, who received accolades for playing the lead role in a truth-inspired drama about a grieving widow who shot dead a gang boss, was born on this day in 1977 in Anagni, an ancient town in southern Lazio.

Arcuri portrayed a character based on Assunta ‘Pupetta’ Maresca, who made headlines in 1955 when she walked into a bar in Naples and shot dead the Camorra boss who had ordered the killing of her husband, just three months after they were married.

The four-episode drama, aired in 2013 on the Italian commercial TV channel Canale 5, was called Pupetta: Il coraggio e la passione (Pupetta: Courage and Passion). Directed by Luciano Odorisio and also starring Tony Musante, Eva Grimaldi and Barbara De Rossi, the series confirmed Arcuri’s standing as a television actress of note, winning her the award of best actress at the 2013 Rome Fiction Fest.

She had appeared by then in leading roles in a number of TV dramas and mini-series, including Io non dimentico (I Don’t Forget), Il peccato e la vergogna (The Sin and the Shame) and Sangue caldo (Hot Blood).

Manuela Arcuri met the real 'Pupetta'
during the making of the 2013 series

Arcuri’s ambition from an early age was to forge a career in show business. She attended art school in Latina, where she grew up, before moving to Rome to enrol at the Pietro Scharoff Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she graduated in 1997.

A girl of classic Italian beauty, she took her first modelling assignments at the age of 15 and her career as a glamour model evolved more quickly than her acting career, although she was steadily building up film credits for minor roles.  Her magazine shoots led rapidly to her being projected as a sex symbol, which quickly opened doors into television, where glamorous female presenters remain a ratings winner.

In 2002, still a relative newcomer, she was given huge exposure when she was chosen to co-host the Sanremo Music Festival alongside the veteran male presenter, Pippo Baudo.

Now, bigger and better TV parts began to be offered. She participated in the popular TV drama series Carabinieri and in 2005 played the title role in Imperia, la grande cortigiana, a TV film about the 16th century Roman courtesan and celebrity, Imperia Cognati.

In 2008, she met the challenge of appearing at the Teatro Parioli in Rome in a six-week run of the comedy Il primo che mi capita, then landed her biggest TV role to that point as the female lead in Io non dimentico, a drama set in Naples in the 1930s.

The statue in Porto Cesareo
that caused such controversy

Arcuri has a large following of fans, some of whom have expressed their admiration for her in unusual ways, such as the statue that was erected in 2002 by the local tourist board to celebrate the beauty and prosperity of the fishing port and resort of Porto Cesareo in Puglia, about 30km (19 miles) from the city of Lecce.

Carved by the sculptor Salvatino De Matteis, it depicts a female figure carrying a hollow shell brimming over with fish but with the hair, facial features - and cleavage - of Ms Arcuri, beneath which is an inscription that hailed the actress as a symbol of beauty and prosperity, a perfect match for Porto Cesareo itself.

Not surprisingly, the choice of an actress and glamour model over a more traditional symbol, such as a goddess or saint, or even a mermaid, divided opinion, with outspoken protests in particular by the wives of local fishermen, who had begun a daily ritual of touching the statue’s buttocks to bring them luck before they set out to sea.

For a while the statue was removed, only to later be reinstated after an equally voluble outcry from those who approved of it.  Ms Arcuri, who attended the original unveiling, returned to see it reborn.

Romantically linked with a series of high-profile men, including the footballer Francesco Coco, Arcuri has had a long-term relationship with the entrepreneur Giovanni Di Gianfrancesco, with whom she had a four-year-old son, Mattia.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Annunziata
in Anagni dates back to the 11th century

Travel tip:

Anagni, where Manuela Arcuri was born, is an ancient town in the province of Frosinone in Lazio, 70km (43 miles) southeast of Rome in an area known as Ciociaria, named after the primitive footwear, ciocie, a type of sandal, worn by people living in the area. The town produced four popes, the last one being Boniface VIII, who was hiding out there in 1303 when he received the famous Anagni slap, delivered by an angry member of the fiercely antipapal Colonna family after he refused to abdicate. After his death the power of the town declined and the papal court was transferred to Avignon. The medieval Palace of Boniface VIII, is near the Cathedral in the centre of the town.

Search for a hotel in Anagni with tripadvisor

The Cathedral of San Marco, in the 'ideal' Fascist town of
Latina in Lazio, was built in 1932

Travel tip:

Latina, a town built in the middle of what used to be the Pontine Marshes, south of Rome, has been described as a living monument to Fascism - not in the sense of celebrating the horrors of the darker side of Mussolini’s grip on power, but as an example of the dictator’s utopian dreams of efficient modern cities for the Italian people.  Mussolini drained the malaria-ridden Pontine swamps and gave the reclaimed land to peasants and settlers, building them houses in exchange for their labour and sweat. The centre of Latina - inaugurated in 1932 as Littoria - has been preserved almost as it was. The Fascist buildings remain in place, their rationalist architecture decorated with pagan statues as well as military and rural bas-reliefs. The Cattedrale di San Marco, designed by Oriolo Frezzotti and built in 1932, is a good example of the fusion of classical and modern, linear styles that was typical of Fascist architecture.


More reading:

The true story of Assunta Maresca - the 'little doll' who shot dead a Mafia boss 

Pippo Baudo - the record-breaking host of Sanremo

Mara Carfagna - from glamour model to politician

Also on this day:

1337: The death of the brilliant painter Giotto

1921: The birth of Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia

2016: The death of Maria Teresa de Filippis, the first woman to drive in Formula One


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Pippo Baudo - TV presenter

Record-breaking host of Sanremo festival

TV presenter Pippo Baudo has been a
familiar face for decades

The television presenter Pippo Baudo, who became one of the most recognisable personalities on Italian television in a broadcasting career spanning six decades, was born on this day in 1936 in Militello in Val di Catania, in Sicily.

Baudo has presented numerous shows for the national broadcaster Rai and for private networks but is probably best known as the host of the annual Sanremo Music Festival and the presenter of the immensely popular Sunday afternoon magazine show Domenica In.

He was the face of Sanremo a record 13 times between 1968 and 2008, eclipsing another much-loved TV host, Mike Bongiorno, who presented the prestigious song contest on 11 occasions.

Baudo has anchored or co-hosted Domenica In 11 times.  His appearance on the 2016-17 edition of the show came 37 years after he presented the programme for the first time in 1979.

His other major shows include Settevoci, Canzonissima, Fantastico, Serata d'onore and Novecento.

Pippo - short for Giuseppe - is the son of a lawyer, whose father had ambitions for his son to follow a similar career path.

But Pippo was attracted to the idea of performing. While he was a boy he would play the piano and sing songs during the interval at a theatre owned by a family friend and though he duly studied law at the University of Catania, it was not with complete focus.

Pippo Baudo (right) with his predecessors on Domenica
 In (Corrado Montani) and Sanremo (Mike Bongiorno)

A story he has told many times relates to being asked to host the ‘Miss Sicily’ beauty contest in the beautiful town of Chiaramonte Gulfi, in the hills above Ragusa, almost 90km (56 miles) south of Catania. It was a prestigious gig for a young man such as Baudo and he did not want to pass up the opportunity to impress.

The problem was that it was the night before his graduation, he had no car and there was no way using public transport that he could possibly be in Catania in time for the ceremony. In desperation, he rose at dawn and hitched a life on a farmer’s pick-up truck heading for Catania, spending the journey lying on top of boxes of fruit and vegetables but arriving just in time to graduate.

He never practised in law, however. He made his first appearance on television in 1959 as a pianist and singer with a backing orchestra on variety shows. He began fronting the occasional show in the 1960s before his big break came by chance in 1966.

Baudo had made a pilot episode for Rai of a talent contest called Settevoci - Seven Voices. The television company’s bosses had been underwhelmed and had no plans to broadcast it. But one Sunday afternoon, the reel containing the latest episode of the popular American series Rin Tin Tin did not turn up and Rai had a last-minute gap in their schedule.

Pippo Baudo in 1970, at the peak of his popularity

Somehow, the Settevoci pilot was shown instead and was an instant success, gaining significant viewing figures. Rai hurriedly commissioned more and it became part of the Sunday entertainment schedule for the next four years.

It helped launch the careers of many popular Italian singers and other performers, as have many of Baudo's shows.  It is claimed that, to one degree or another, stars such as Al Bano, Beppe Grillo, Tullio Solenghi, Heather Parisi, Eros Ramazzotti, Lorella Cuccarini, Laura Pausini, Giorgia and Andrea Bocelli can all thank Pippo Baudo for giving them the chance to showcase their talents.

Nicknamed “Super Pippo” for his enduring popularity and ability to bounce back from setbacks, Baudo has been married twice, the second time to the opera singer Katia Ricciarelli, from whom he was divorced in 2007. He has two children, Alessandro and Tiziana, and is a grandfather and great-grandfather.

Via Porta della Terra, a typically elegant street in
Militello in Val di Catania

Travel tip:

Militello in Val di Catania is an attractive town on the northern slopes of the Iblean Mountains, about 50km (31 miles) southwest of Catania. It is sometimes known as the Florence of the Iblei because of its wealth of palaces, churches and monasteries. The town had a golden age in the 17th century during the rule of Prince Francesco Branciforte, whose family built the Barresi Branciforte Castle. Although many buildings were destroyed during an earthquake in 1693, considerable work went into rebuilding. In 2002 the town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The main square in Chiaramonte Gulfi

Travel tip:

Nicknamed 'il Balcone della Sicilia' (Sicily's balcony), the town of Chiaramonte Gulfi is perched on a hill 15km (9 miles) north of Ragusa. Its panoramic aspect on a clear day can offer views to the south across the Valley of the Ippari and the towns of Comiso, Vittoria and Acate as far as the Mediterranean sea, and even of Mount Etna in the north. The town is also famed for its olive oil, accredited with the Denominazione d'Origine Protetta (DOP), which means only oil produced within a specific area can be labelled as Chiaramonte oil.

Also on this day:

1422: The birth of condottiero Federico da Montefeltro

1687: The birth of operatic castrato Gatetano Berenstadt

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Mara Venier - television presenter

Former actress became famous as face of Sunday afternoon

Mara Venier found fame as host of the
Sunday afternoon TV show Domenica In

Mara Venier, a familiar face on Italian television for more than 35 years, was born on this day in 1950 in Venice.

The former actress, who made her big-screen debut in 1973, is best known for presenting the long-running Sunday afternoon variety show Domenica In, which has been a fixture on the public TV channel Rai Uno since 1976.

Venier, born Mara Povoleri, hosted the show for nine seasons in four stints between 1993 and 2014. Only Pippo Baudo, something of a legendary figure in Italian television, has presented more editions.

Fronting Domenica In, which was on air for an incredible six hours, was not only a test of stamina for the presenter but came with a huge sense of responsibility. In fact, holding the attention of the viewers was a patriotic duty, the show’s format having been conceived by the Italian government, faced with the global oil crisis in the 1970s, as something to tempt citizens to stay at home rather than use precious fuel for their cars.

Venier had been a movie actress, known largely to audiences in Italy, for two decades before she was invited to host Domenica In.  She enjoyed some success, having made her debut with a nude scene in Sergio Capogna’s Diario di un Italiano in 1973, and gained good reviews for Abbasso tutti, viva noi (1974), directed by Gino Mangini, and for Nanni Loy’s comedy Testa o croce (1982).

It was Loy, in fact, who introduced her to television audiences as the host of an Italian version of Candid Camera on the Mediaset commercial channel Italia 1 in 1987.

Venier hosted Domenica In for nine seasons
and has fronted many other hit shows 

She became the lead presenter for Domenica In after spending one season working alongside Luca Giurato and proving a hit with the viewers.  Venier quickly became a host in-demand, held in such high regard that she was chosen as one of the five hosts – one for each day of the week – for the hit nightly game show Luna Park, alongside Baudo, Fabrizio Frizzi, Milly Carlucci and Rosanna Lambertucci, all of whom were high-profile names.

The two shows, and a good deal of other TV work, kept Venier very busy, although her career stalled in 1998 when she, Baudo and Lambertucci became embroiled in a scandal over payments made to promote particular products while on air.

After two years away from Rai, during which she made a number of programmes for Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset channels, she returned to the public broadcaster in 2000.

She had two more spells fronting Domenica In between 2001 and 2006, although the programme was less successful than it had been in its early years and Venier left the role in 2006 after failing to control an argument between two guests that descended into such foul-mouthed language that the programme was temporarily dropped from the schedule.

Venier’s presence on the small screen was almost constant, however, as the host of many concerts, special broadcasts, talk shows and prime-time regulars such as La vita in diretta – “Life live” and Telethon. 

Mara Venier in her movie acting days

She hosted Domenica In for the last time in the 2013-14 series, at the end of which she announced she was leaving Rai and rejoining Mediaset on a contract that included the hit Canale 5 shows L’Isola dei famosi – similar to the UK hit I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! – and Striscia la notizie, as well as a co-host role in the New Year’s Eve show Capodanno con Gigi D’Alessio.

Nowadays, she is often affectionately referred to as Zia Mara or “la zia d’Italia” – Italy’s aunt.

Born in Venice, the daughter of a railway worker, Venier moved to Mestre with her family and became a mother at the age of just 17 when her daughter, Elisabetta was born.  She married Francesco Ferracini, Elisabetta’s father, and moved to Rome, where he wanted to pursue an acting career.

The marriage did not last, however.  Venier had a son, Paolo, from a relationship with another actor, Pier Paolo Capponi, before making Jerry Calà, also an actor, her second husband in 1984.

They divorced in 1987 but since 2006 Venier has been happily married to the veteran film maker and publisher Nicola Carrara.

The Piazza Erminio Ferretto in Mestre, looking
towards the Torre Civica

Travel tip:

Mestre’s reputation as a grimly modern industrial centre is not undeserved and many travellers know little of it beyond the railway station, which offers trains not only across the lagoon into nearby Venice but to all places on the mainland.  As such, tourists arriving at Marco Polo airport – or Treviso, for that matter – pass through in large numbers. Some holidaymakers do use it, however, as a cheap alternative to staying in Venice and many workers in Venice commute daily from Mestre.  Its most appealing area for visitors is around the main square, the Piazza Erminio Ferretto, a large, rectangular open space lined with porticoes and pleasant cafes. Nearby is the 18^th-century church of San Lorenzo and the restored Torre Civica.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is housed in the
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal

Travel tip:

Mara Povoleri is believed to have taken Venier as a stage name after the noble Venetian family of the 14^th to 16^th centuries, three of whom were Doges – Antonio (1382-1400), Francesco (1554-56) and Sebastiano (1577-78) – and several of whom were appointed podestà – city ruler – of Padua. The Fondamenta Sebastiano Venier forms part of the waterfront along the Canareggio Canal in Venice, while the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the city’s famous modern art gallery, is housed in the family’s former palace, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.

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