Coffee House Club : There’s something about Verdi
Date
Location
Sponsors
Admission
RSVP required
$10 | Coffee House and Salmagundi club members
Dinner paid separately (reserve in advance online)
About the Event
Salmagundi members are invited to join Coffee House Club for this upcoming Coffee House Wednesday event: a sensational multi-media presentation on a long lost film. As always, the conversation and conviviality will continue over dinner downstairs after the program.
The multi-media presentation “There’s Something About Verdi” is an 85-minute presentation built around an extraordinary discovery: the long-lost 1963 documentary “In the Mouth of the Wolf” which was created for American television and aired one night before completely dropping out of sight. Newly re-discovered, restored and digitized by the presenter, the film is a deliriously entertaining glimpse into the vibrant opera culture of one Italian city, Parma, famous for its embrace of the art form at all levels of society and infamous for its harsh treatment of singers who might not be up to the task.
This beautifully lensed travelogue chronicles eight-days in the preparation and performance of a new production of Verdi’s opera Luisa Miller at Parma’s famed Teatro Regio and follows the jittery cast (Golden Age opera greats Renato Cioni, Piero Cappuccilli and Margherita Roberti, who also narrates) who fear the worst.This 55-minute film, unavailable in any format, is preceded and followed by contextualizing content that gives insight into Parma’s melomania, the presenter’s assiduous pursuit and discovery of the sole extant print, his 2014 interview with the film’s star, soprano Margherita Roberti, and the presenter’s own filmed explorations into Parma’s still-vibrant opera culture. Above all, the greatness of Verdi’s “enduring legacy of music, honor, patriotism, grace and reason” and the timely themes of his operas will be shown to be astonishingly relevant to our modern-day reality.
Among others, this presentation has had two separate sold-out evenings at New York’s Film Forum and one similarly sold-out evening at BAM Cinematek. Additionally (in partnership with Opera Philadelphia), it has been held at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, The Metropolitan Opera Club and MO Learning Guild, The Players’ Club, The Art Institute of Chicago (Siskel Center), The Marilyn Horne Museum, Sarasota Opera, Teatro Regio (Parma) and at numerous colleges and universities.
Hungry?
Ticketed attendees are welcome to stay for dinner by indicating so in their Eventbrite RSVP.
There will be an a la carte menu to choose from. On the day of the event, you can pay for your meal with a card or your membership account (no cash).