Showing posts with label Saluzzo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saluzzo. Show all posts

8 September 2018

Magda Olivero - soprano

Singer who performed into her 80s and lived to 104


Magda Olivero made her debut in an opera broadcast for radio in 1932
Magda Olivero made her debut in an opera
broadcast for radio in 1932
The opera singer Magda Olivero, who became known as the last verismo soprano, died on this day in 2014. She was almost halfway through her 105th year, having been born in 1910.

Olivero became associated with the works among others of Francesco Cilea, Pietro Mascagni, Umberto Giordano and Franco Alfano, all of whom she actually worked with in person, her longevity providing a 21st century link with the world of 19th century Italian opera. She missed the chance to know and work with Giacomo Puccini only narrowly, the composer passing away at the age of 66 when Olivero was 14.

Born in Saluzzo in Piedmont, Olivero made her operatic debut eight years after Puccini’s death in a radio production in Turin in 1932. She gave her last stage performance 49 years later in 1981, although even that was not the end of her career. Her last recording of her signature role - Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur - did not come until 1994, when she was still able to control her pitch and tone at the age of 83.

Born as Maria Maddalena Olivero to a well-to-do family who gave her a good education, she built on her radio debut - singing Nino Cattozzo's oratorio, I misteri dolorosi - to establish a successful career, performing alongside pre-War stars such as Ebe Stignani, Beniamino Gigli and Francesco Merli.

Olivero with Mario del Monaco appearing in Giordano's Fedora in Naples in 1965
Olivero with Mario del Monaco appearing in
Giordano's Fedora in Naples in 1965
In addition to Adriana, her most famous roles included Minnie in Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, Mascagni's Iris, Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini, and Giordano's Fedora. She sang Jules Massenet's Manon at Verona with Giuseppe di Stefano as Des Grieux, and Margherita in Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele to the Faust of Ferruccio Tagliavini.

The conductor Tullio Serafin helped her with her technique, although he was less helpful, she later claimed, after she refused his amorous advances. She said that her relationship with the tenor, Tito Schipa, also became strained after he became similarly enamoured with her.

In fact, in 1940 she decided to retire from the stage at the age of only 30 after she married Aldo Busch, an industrialist, hoping they would raise a large family. One of her last performances was of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur in Ravenna and it was Cilea, almost a decade later, who would persuade her to make a comeback, telling her that she was the only singer who could do justice to the character.  She performed the role again in Brescia in 1951, shortly before the composer died.

That work was to become her calling card, and she sang it many times, as well as featuring often in leading roles in Puccini’s La Bohème, Madame Butterfly and Manon Lescaut, and in Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata.

Magda Olivero at the age of 95 in 2005
Magda Olivero at the age of 95 in 2005
She made her London debut at the Stoll Theatre, in 1952 and in 1963 she substituted for Renata Tebaldi at the Edinburgh Festival in Adriana Lecouvreur, its first performance in Britain for 60 years.

Her first appearance in the United States came in Dallas in 1967, followed by Kansas and San Francisco. By now her fame as an interpreter of the verismo genre, in which the characters are ordinary people and the singers are adept at bringing dramatic expression to the roles, was established and her New York debut as Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera in 1975 was a much-hyped sensation, even though by then she was 65.

According to the New York Times report, when she made her first entrance, the audience began screaming and cheering, forcing the conductor Jan Behr to stop the music; arias were interrupted by bursts of spontaneous applause and at the end she was given a 20-minute ovation, one of the longest in the theatre's history. She reprised her Tosca for the Met in 1979, opposite Luciano Pavarotti. 

For all her success, though, she never really escaped the shadow of Maria Callas or Renata Tebaldi, who were always seen as more marketable and therefore enjoyed more recording contracts than Olivero, whose only complete opera recordings are Turandot and Fedora (1969), in which she was partnered by Mario del Monaco and Tito Gobbi.

After her second retirement, she settled in Milan, telling visitors to her home that the secret of her long life was yoga and a vegetarian diet. She lived for 31 years following the death of her husband in 1983, her wish for a family having never come to pass.

The early 15th century Cathedral of the Assumption in Piazza Risorgimento in Saluzzo
The early 15th century Cathedral of the Assumption in
Piazza Risorgimento in Saluzzo
Travel tip:

Saluzzo, where Olivero was born, is a hill town about 33km (20 miles) north of Cuneo and 61km (38 miles) south of Turin, in Piedmont. Most of its 15th century old town is intact, with numerous cobbled streets, steep staircases, churches and elegant palaces to explore. In the Piazza Risorgimento is Cathedral of the Assumption, built between 1491 and 1511 in the Lombard-Gothic style. Another attraction is the Castiglia, a castle built at the summit of the town in the 13th century by the Marquis Tommaso I and renovated in 1492 by Ludovico II of Saluzzo, at the time when the town was a powerful city-state.

The Teatro degli Arcimboldi, which was built in a converted Pirelli tyre factory in Milan
The Teatro degli Arcimboldi, which was built in a
converted Pirelli tyre factory in Milan
Travel tip:

Milan’s best-known theatre is the opera house and ballet theatre Teatro alla Scala, inaugurated in 1778, but it is not the only theatre. Other respected venues are Teatro Sala Fontana, set within the beautiful cloisters of the church of Santa Maria alla Fontana in the northern part of the city, the Teatro Manzoni in Via Alessandro Manzoni, not far from Porta Nuova, and the ultra-modern Teatro degli Arcimboldi, which was built in 2001 in anticipation of the closure and renovation of La Scala opera house, in a converted Pirelli tyre factory about 7km (4.5 miles) from the city centre, in an area known as Bicocca.

More reading:

The beautiful work of Francesco Cilea

Giacomo Puccini - the musical genius who took the baton from Verdi

Pietro Mascagni and a career built on one great opera

Also on this day:

1474: The birth of poet Ludovico Ariosto

1504: The unveiling of Michelangelo's David in Florence


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27 January 2018

Giovanni Arpino – writer and novelist

Stories inspired classic Italian films


Giovanni Arpino had a distinguished career as both a sports writer and a novelist
Giovanni Arpino had a distinguished career as both
a sports writer and a novelist
The writer Giovanni Arpino, whose novels lay behind the Italian movie classics Divorce, Italian Style and Profumo di donna – later remade in the United States as Scent of a Woman – was born on this day in 1927 in the Croatian city of Pula, then part of Italy.

His parents did not originate from Pula, which is near the tip of the Istrian peninsula about 120km (75 miles) south of Trieste. His father, Tomaso, was a Neapolitan, while his mother, Maddalena, hailed from Piedmont, but his father’s career in the Italian Army meant the family were rarely settled for long in one place.

In fact, they remained in Pula only a couple of months. As Giovanni was growing up, they lived in Novi Ligure, near Alessandria, in Saluzzo, south of Turin, and in Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna. His father imposed a strict regime on Giovanni and his two brothers, who were required to spend a lot of their time studying.

In fact, Giovanni was separated from his family for a while during the Second World War, when his mother returned to the Piedmontese town of Bra, not far from Saluzzo in the province of Cuneo, to deal with the estate of her father, who passed away in 1940. He left the family a villa on the hill overlooking the Sanctuary of the Madonna dei Fiori, on the outskirts of the town.  Giovanni remained at school in Piacenza.

After the armistice of 1943, his father left the military and they settled in Bra, where he attended high school before enrolling in the faculty of law at the University of Turin.  He later switched to literature, completing a thesis on the Russian poet, Sergei Yesenin.

Arpino died prematurely in 1987 after a  year-long battle with cancer
Arpino died prematurely in 1987 after a
year-long battle with cancer
Arpino spent several periods of his life working in journalism, including a stint writing about football, for which he had a massive enthusiasm. Gianni Brera, the celebrated football writer, had brought his literary style to the sports pages a few years earlier and Arpino was encouraged to do the same.

His time working for La Stampa, the Turin daily newspaper, enabled him to travel to the 1978 World Cup finals in Argentina, from which his reports attracted a substantial following. 

It was as a novelist, however, that he truly made his mark. He wrote in a dry and sardonic style to which readers responded well.

His first novel, Sei stato felice, Giovanni (You’ve been happy, Giovanni), was published by Einaudi in 1952. At around the same time, having completed his own military service – compulsory rather than voluntary – he began courting his future wife, Caterina, whose parents owned the Caffe Garibaldi in Bra.

They married in 1953 and moved to Turin, where he began to work in the sales department of the Einaudi publishing house and at the same time wrote a column for the Rome newspaper Il Mondo about provincial life.

His first big break came when his fourth novel, Un delitto d’onore (An Honour Killing), published in 1962, formed the basis for the hit movie Divorzia all’Italiana – Divorce, Italian Style – a satirical comedy directed by Pietro Germi and starring Marcello Mastroianno.

Vittorio Gassman (left) and Alessandro Momo in a scene from Dino Risi's film Profumo di donna
Vittorio Gassman (left) and Alessandro Momo in a scene
from Dino Risi's film Profumo di donna
Two years later, his sixth novel, L’Ombra delle colline (The Shadow of the Hills), about the apprehensions and delusions of a young man who, as a child, had witnessed partisans fighting for their country towards the end of the Second World War, won the Strega Prize – the Premio Strega – which is Italy’s most prestigious literary award.

The film industry gave him another massive sales boost in 1969 when his novel Il buio e il miele – The Darkness and the Honey – was turned into the film Profumo di donna, directed by Dino Risi and starring Vittorio Gassman, both of whom received David di Donatello awards.

Another version of the film was made in 2012, when Martin Brest directed Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, in which Pacino’s performance as Frank Slade, a retired Lieutenant Colonel who had lost his sight in an accident with a hand grenade, won him an academy award for best actor.

Arpino, whose enjoyment telling stories to his son, Tommaso, led him to write for children as well as for his established adult readership, developed cancer in his late 50s, which ultimately led to his early death in 1987 at the age of just 60.

Piazza dei Caduti in Bra with the Bernini church of Sant'Andrea Apostolo on the left
Piazza dei Caduti in Bra with the Bernini church of
Sant'Andrea Apostolo on the left
Travel tip:

The town of Bra in Piedmont, situated some 50km (31 miles) southeast of Turin, is renowned as the birthplace of the Slow Food movement, founded by Carlo Petrini in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions. Every two years, Slow Food organizes the cheese festival in Bra, with artisanal cheese makers invited from across the world.  There are a number of attractive churches in the town, including the beautiful Chiesa di Sant’Andrea Apostolo, just off the main Piazza dei Caduti, which was built to a design by the sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, famous for the impact his designs made in the city of Rome in the 18th century.

The Castiglia, historic residence of the Marchesi di Saluzzo
The Castiglia, historic residence of the Marchesi di Saluzzo
Travel tip:

The Piedmontese town of Saluzzo, about 30km (19 miles) west of Bra on the edge of the southern part of the Alpine arc, is notable for a beautifully preserved 15th century historic centre characterised by a network of cobbled streets and steep passages by which to explore a number of fine palaces and churches, including the 15th century cathedral built in the Lombard-Gothic style.  At the summit of the town is the Castiglia, built in the 13th century by the Marquis Tommaso I and renovated in 1492 by Ludovico II of Saluzzo, at the time when the town was a powerful city-state.






12 April 2017

Flavio Briatore - entrepreneur

From clothing to luxury resorts via Formula One




Flavio Briatore has interests in a string of resorts and restaurants serving wealthy clientele
Flavio Briatore has interests in a string of resorts
and restaurants serving wealthy clientele
The colourful and controversial entrepreneur Flavio Briatore was born on this day in 1950 in Verzuolo, a large village in the Italian Alps near Saluzzo in Piedmont.

Briatore is best known for his association with the Benetton clothing brand and, through their sponsorship, Formula One motor racing, but his business interests have extended well beyond the High Street and the race track.

His empire includes his exclusive Sardinian beach club Billionaire, Twiga beach clubs in Tuscany and Apulia, the Lion under the Sun spa resort in Kenya, the upmarket Sumosan, Twiga and Cipriani restaurants, and the Billionaire Couture menswear line.

Briatore was also for three years co-owner with former F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal of the English football club Queen’s Park Rangers.  He is also the man to whom the contestants must answer in the Italian version of the hit British TV series The Apprentice.

With a fortune estimated at £120m (€140m; $150m), Briatore lives the lifestyle of the super-rich clients he entertains at his clubs and restaurants, owns a £68.2m (€80m; $85m) yacht and has enjoyed the company of a string of beautiful and famous women.

These include supermodels Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, with whom he had a child, and the Italian TV presenter Adriana Volpe. In 2008 he married Elisabetta Gregoraci, once the Italian face of Wonderbra, who is 30 years his junior.  They have a son, Falco.

Briatore's wife, the former model Elisabetta Gregoraci
Briatore's wife, the former model Elisabetta Gregoraci
Both of Briatore’s parents were teachers but he was no academic, scraping through high school with the lowest grades. He found employment first as a ski instructor and then a restaurant manager before selling insurance.

It was while he was working at the Borsa – the Milan stock exchange – that in 1974 he met Luciano Benetton, founder of the Italian global clothing company.

Appointed director of group operations in the United States, where Benetton was undergoing significant expansion, Briatore’s job was to set up franchises across the country. He took a cut from each franchise agreement and, with 800 stores opened in the US in the 1980s, became an extremely wealthy man.

In 1989, Luciano Benetton began to sponsor F1 and, wanting someone to take charge of merchandising, turned again to Briatore.

From commercial director, Briatore was promoted to managing director and turned Benetton into a competitive F1 team, which he ran from 1990 to 1997. When the Benetton team was sold to Renault in 2000, Renault hired Briatore as team manager. In all, Briatore oversaw seven world titles in the constructors' and drivers' categories and was hailed as the man who ‘discovered’ the seven-times drivers’ champion, Michael Schumacher.

While there have been some spectacular successes in Briatore’s career, there have also been some catastrophes.

Flavio Briatore in his days as boss of the Renault F1 team
Flavio Briatore in his days as boss
of the Renault F1 team
One of his earliest jobs was as an assistant to businessman Attilio Dutto, owner of the Paramatti Vernici paint company in Cuneo that had previously been owned by Michele Sindona, the shady Sicily-born banker who laundered heroin proceeds for the Gambino family and was poisoned in prison.  Dutto was killed in 1979 in a suspected Mafia car bomb attack.

In 1980 Briatore was convicted on various counts of fraud and given two prison sentences amounting to four and a half years. These were reduced on appeal to two years and two months, although Briatore actually escaped jail by fleeing to the US Virgin Islands and benefitting from an amnesty on his return, which in Italian law amounts to the cancelling of the criminal convictions that led to the sentence.

His yacht at one time was seized during an investigation into alleged tax fraud and, in 2007, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, for which he was treated successfully.

In 2009, Briatore was banned from motor racing after driver Nelson Piquet Jr alleged he had been instructed to crash deliberately in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in a move designed to help his Renault teammate, Fernando Alonso, another Briatore protégé, to win the race.

Motor racing’s governing body, the FIA, handed Briatore and his chief engineer, Pat Symonds, an indefinite ban. However, in 2010, Briatore’s ban was overturned by a French court and he was awarded €15,000 compensation, although his lawyers had asked for €1m.

He has remained involved with F1 as personal manager for Alonso, a close friend who drove the wedding car when he and Gregoraci were married at the Santo Spirito in Sassia church in Rome.

Travel tip:

Saluzzo, the nearest town to Briatore’s birthplace in Verzuolo, is known for its picturesque setting, built on a hill overlooking a fertile plain with a mountain backdrop, and close to the source of the River Po. Its well preserved historic centre features many antique shops and the main sights include Saluzzo cathedral, built at the end of the 15th century in Lombard-Gothic style.

Check Saluzzo hotels with Hotels.com

The expansive Piazza Galimberti in Cuneo
The expansive Piazza Galimberti in Cuneo
Travel tip:

The beautiful city of Cuneo, which developed at the confluence of the Stura and Gesso rivers, is set out in a grid system with a large, elegant central square, Piazza Galimberti, one of the largest squares in Italy, after Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples. Surrounded by neo-classical buildings, it has a large statue of Giuseppe Barbaroux, the author of the Albertine Statute that formed the constitution of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1848. The square is named after Duccio Galimberti, one of the heroes of the Italian resistance in the Second World War.


More reading:


Elio de Angelis - last of the 'gentleman racers'

How Michele Alboreto almost ended Italy's long wait for a new champion

Ferruccio Lamborghini - the tractor maker who took on Ferrari


Also on this day:


1948: The birth of World Cup winning football coach Marcello Lippi

(Picture credits: Main Briatore pic by Minerva97; Elisabetta Gregoraci by franco.ruspa; Briatore in Renault days by Bert van Dijk; Piazza Galimberti by Gian Francesco Fanti; all via Wikemedia Commons)


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16 February 2016

Giambattista Bodoni - type designer


 Celebrity printer whose name lives on in type


A portrait of Giambattista Bodoni
by Giuseppe Lucatelli circa 1805
Typographer, printer and publisher Giambattista Bodoni was born on this day in 1740 in Saluzzo in the region of Piedmont.

At the height of his career he became internationally famous and was complimented by the Pope and paid a pension by Napoleon.

Bodoni designed a modern typeface that was named after him and is still in use today.

His father and grandfather were both printers and as a child he played with their leftover equipment. He learnt the printing trade at his father’s side and at the age of 17 travelled to Rome to further his career.

Bodoni served an apprenticeship at the press of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the missionary arm of the Catholic Church.

In 1768 he was asked to assume management of the Duke of Parma’s Royal Press, where he produced Italian, Greek and Latin books.

He started using modern typefaces of his own design and came up with the typeface that retained the Bodoni name in 1790.

He became well known and important travellers visited his press to see him at work. Bodoni produced fine editions of the writings of Horace and Virgil in 1791 and 1793 respectively and Homer’s Iliad in 1808.

He died in 1813 in Parma , but his widow, Margherita, completed his work on a series of classics for his new patron, Joachim Murat.

Five years after his death she published a manual of all his typefaces.

Travel tip:

Saluzzo, the birthplace of Bodoni, is a town in the province of Cuneo in the region of Piedmont. Once named Saluces and part of France, it was ceded to the House of Savoy in 1601 and eventually became part of Piedmont . As well as a 15th century Cathedral, which has a Baroque high altar, the town has a 14th century church, dedicated to San Giovanni, which has a striking Gothic façade and Cloister.



Parma's baptistery, one of many historic
sights in city in Emilia-Romagna
Photo: Philip Schafer (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Travel tip:

Parma, where Bodoni worked and eventually died, is an historic city in the Emilia-Romagna region, famous for its ham (Prosciutto di Parma) and cheese (Parmigiano-Reggiano), the true ‘parmesan’. In 1545 the city was given as a duchy to the illegitimate son of Pope Paul III, whose descendants ruled Parma till 1731. The composer, Verdi, was born near Parma at Bussetto and the city has a prestigious opera house, the Teatro Regia. 

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