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This coming Friday, the Portland Opera will mark its 50th season with a production of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. While this performance may particularly appeal to lovers of classic opera, General Director Christopher Mattaliano also hopes the larger community will embrace the art form.   "Opera started as a very popular art form," he ex...

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The tents are down, the stage is packed away and the piazza transitions back to Pioneer Courthouse Square. For 23 years Festa Italiana has welcomed thousands of people to celebrate Italian American culture in Portland, Oregon. This year, the festa filled the Square on August 21, 22 and 23. The first night of Festa Italiana featured "Italian Opera...

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All of a sudden, at the beginning of October 2014 Seattle has turned into the center of the communications in and about the Italian American community. What happened in the north western city that was so important to cause this? The Seattle city council voted to transform Columbus Day in Indigenous Day. We are glad to be able to talk about this, a...

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Until recently, it was easier to find a jar of fermented shrimp paste in Northeast Portland's Roseway neighborhood than a properly spicy Italian gabagool sandwich. That was, until East Coast native Mark Caso opened his friendly Italian deli and coffee shop on busy Sandy Boulevard. Now neighbors are flocking for hearty subs with a side of no nonsens...

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By Andrea Damewood Burrasca's menu offers no pork belly, no truffle butter, no fleeting menu item placed there to please the Yelpers. It's fucking refreshing. Like a puff of oregano-scented air over the streets of SE Clinton, Burrasca is putting out rustic, traditional—and yes, sometimes imperfect—Italian that speaks honestly and without pret...

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by Kerry-Lynne Demarinis   Heritage is a precious thing. From our parents and grandparents, we learn who we are and why our cultural identity is important. Sharing family traditions and memories is crucial to forming a bond between old and new generations. Unfortunately, the years pass and along with them go the people who hold the brightes...

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Italian Style is that rare show in Portland, like China Design Now in 2009, that immerses you in a place you might never visit. The subject is high fashion, but the subtext is how Italy reinvented itself after World War II. Don't know your Puccis from your Pradas? Are Dolce & Gabbana a couple? Why are the discount stores stuffed with Tommy...

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If you haven't seen "Italian Style: Fashion Since 1945" at the Portland Art Museum, what are you waiting for? It's a gorgeous collection of haute couture, made the way only the Italians can make it with silk and sashes and fox trim collars. I saw it last Friday evening, the museum's free admission night, and it was packed with couples and girl's-ni...

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A massive rural of a black eagle is the only art on the walls inside the West End's new quick-turn pasta café, Grassa, and he seems to be there to say, "It is I who killed the curse of Corazón."   Some quick history: Mexican restaurant Corazón was the leviathan investment, and failure, of Kurt Huffman's ChefStable. From the ashes, bit-by-bit...

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St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church was the beating heart of Portland's Little Italy neighborhood. Built in 1902 by Italian immigrants with funds raised in less than five months, it was the center of the Italian immigrant's lives and was designated an Italian National Parish. The little Italian church is the only remnant of Little Italy...

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