WTI Magazine #49    2014 December, 10
Author : Karen Lauria Saillant      Translation by:

"Tutti gli uomini sono per natura egualmente liberi e indipendenti." With light streaming through the majestic Palladio window of Independence Hall, Thomas Jefferson turned these words of his Italian friend, Philip Mazzei, into the heart of The Declaration of Independence. Our founding fathers, seeking to build The New Roman Republic, devoured works of Cincinnatus, Cicero and Plutarch.

As early as 1738, Benjamin Franklin was printing and selling Ovid on Market Street, while to celebrate victory in The Revolutionary War, a Triumphal Arch, similar to The Roman Arch of Constantine, was constructed in Philadelphia's historic district. By 1792, fully staged Italian opera was reverberating in Penn's brotherly love city. *

Philadelphia, birthplace of America, has profound connections to Italy!

Today, The Italian Lyric Style, which Nobel Laureate, Dario Fo, considers Italy's most important contribution to humanity, is forging a New Renaissance, seeded in Philadelphia and cultured in Citta' della Pieve, Italy.

Since 2004, International Opera Theater of Philadelphia (IOT) has created 11 Italian lyric operas in Teatro degli Avvaloranti, Citta' della Pieve, followed by presentations in six other Italian venues, including Teatro Valle, Rome's oldest theater and The Bergamo International Festival of The Arts.

Citta' della Pieve was recently named the most perfect city in Italy by Fondazione Pino Alferano. It is the birthplace of Pietro Perugino, teacher of Raffael and most important Italian painter prior to daVinci and Michelangelo. In authentic Italian style, the mayor, Comune and citizens generously shower IOT with hospitality, meals, Italian lessons, guided ecological tours, cooking classes, inlaid woodwork and violin making demonstrations, lace making and other crafts presented during the 12 day Palio dei Terzieri Renaissance Faire. Last summer, friends collected 2,000 blue water bottles, then cut and shaped them into the sustainable set. Artists from more than 40 countries have been welcomed here, working onstage for one month, through a self organizational complexity theory strategy, transforming works of Shakespeare, themes of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, the segregated Buffalo Soldiers in WWII Italy, Decamerone, and cupcakes into uplifting, never before seen evocations, including JAGO, sequel to Otello. In 2013, IOT produced this opera in the US. It was the first Italian opera written by a living Italian composer to premiere in the US in almost 100 years.

"Italians are a beautiful race which lives by the aid of its imagination" (Henry James).

Italy is the birthplace of opera. In 1597, in what is now Philadelphia's sister city, Florence, a group of humanists/artists envisioned a new art form which combined all arts. They saw opera as able to heal their tainted society. Italy would become "the cultural rite of passage" for Mozart, who wrote 14 operas in Italian, as well as Handel, Haydn, Liszt, Berlioz, Stravinsky, Wagner, Goethe, Byron, Copland, Barber and countless others.

Italian writer, Alain Elkann, speaking of his Italian Excellence Foundation at UPenn Center for Italian Studies confirmed: "Italy has given birth to endless creative works in art, medicine, design, economics, fashion, philosophy, physics, biology, engineering, technology, cinema, cuisine, fine arts, dance, music, literature, psychology, architecture and more" because of "the elasticity and lightness of the Italian mind." Capriccio or playfulness.

Italian Lorenzo DaPonte, Mozart's most successful librettist, moved to Philadelphia in 1805.

Today an Italian creative spark burns anew in Philadelphia. Thanks to many Philadelphia Italian organizations, friends and universities, especially UArts where costumes are created from sustainable materials under the direction of South Korean fiber artist, Mi-Kyoung Lee, this unique cross continental partnership is alive. In 2015 Comedia degli Errori, IOT 12th world premiere, with professional opera singers/comedians, a Philadelphia HipHop dancer and 8 female Philadelphia teenagers, will set another easy entry for young people into opera. In 2016, the South Korean tale "Shimchung", in Italian, with professional singers and children from Philadelphia, South Korea and Citta' della Pieve, will bring the Philadelphia/Citta' della Pieve New Opera Renaissance to Korea and back to Philadelphia to forge the healing mission. To join us in our movement please visit www.internationaloperatheater.org

*IOT wishes to thank historian, Michael DiPilla, president of National Italian Museum in America initiative, for generously sharing these little known facts.