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mroddox · 4 years ago

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For our English language readers

THE ITALIANINSIDER

THURSDAY MAR. 25, 2021

Year of Dante to mark 700 years since poet's death GIANFRANCO NITTI | 8 MARCH 2021

ROME - The Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, presented in a video press conference on Saturday the main initiatives for the celebrations of the seven hundred years since the death of Dante Alighieri and the events scheduled for the next ‘Dante Day’, established last year to be every March 25. The conference was attended by the President of the Celebrations’ Committee, Carlo Ossola, the Secretary General of the Committee, Maria Ida Gaeta, the President of the Quirinale Stables, Mario De Simoni, the Mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, the Mayor of Ravenna, Michele de Pascale, the Mayor of Verona, Federico Sboarina and Silvia Calandrelli, Director of Rai Cultura.

"And so we went out to see the stars", the final verse of Dante's Comedy, is the motto that the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini intended to take as a guiding theme and auspice for the Dante year in making known all the celebratory initiatives of the 700th anniversary. In the presence of the three mayors of Dante's cities and the heads of the Committee for the celebrations, the minister gave an overview of the truly enormous amount of events, whose start is scheduled for 25 March with a reading of Dante, at the Quirinale Palace, by actor Roberto Benigni and in the presence of the Head of State, and which will be broadcast live on RAI 1 starting at 7:15 p.m.. He informed how Dante is the protagonist of as many as 43 Italian cultural festivals, with the name of 'Piazza Dante' and, among the many shows, the three-year project 'divine comedy'. Dante is also present in countless initiatives abroad such as, for example, those at the Dubai Expo in synergy with the local Institute of Italian Culture (there will also be an exhibition on editions of Dante translations in Arabic to highlight the opening of Arab culture to the genius of the poet).

The mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, presented the project for the Museum of the Italian Language in Florence, in the Santa Maria Novella complex, whose first lot should be inaugurated by the end of the year. 'In Tuscany with Dante' is instead an app designed to blend culture and tourism. In preparation, the largest virtual reading ever made in the world, starting on March 25, between Florence and New York. Then an initiative of the Accademia della Crusca on whose site, from 1 January to 31 December, a different word or expression by Dante Alighieri appears, enriched by a brief comment: locutions, mottos, Latinisms, neologisms, created by the author of the "Divine Comedy ", which are still largely part of Italian linguistic heritage. And again, the information site https://www.700dantefirenze.it/, then exhibitions at the Museum of Palazzo Vecchio with a work by Bronzino, in March the first of six events dedicated to the 700th anniversary by the University of Florence ... And again: virtual exhibition at the Uffizi of 88 drawings by Zuccari, then paths to Palazzo Bastogi, and other initiatives such as the one organized by the Maggio Musicale with Liszt's 'Dante Symphony' performance, the exhibition La mirabile Visione at Bargello, the photographic exhibition on Dante's places by Sestini, and at least 60 institutions involved in Florence with excellent teamwork. On Monday, the restoration of the Cenotaph in the church of Santa Croce is expected to be completed.

The mayor of Verona, Federico Sboarin, for his part, recalled the link of Verona with Dante, outlining various initiatives such as a virtual map of Dante's places, a widespread exhibition relating to all Dante's initiatives with an intertwining between the history of the Scaligeri and Dante , a program of shows culminating in the Roman Theater, the younger brother of the Arena but no less important. The 'Dante's box' with 21 actors narrating 21 different tracks from Dante's poetry; the ongoing restoration of the statue of Dante by Ugo Zannoni, from 1865, and therefore a bicycle run between Ravenna and Verona of the Giro d’Italia on May 21, in the name of Dante. In addition, a special tour with Claudio Santamaria and Francesca Barra who will travel through the city remembering Dante and his places. And the project of new DNA analyzes of the remains of Cangrande I with the aim of revealing the secret of his death. The mayor of Ravenna, Michele De Pascale presented the Dante initiatives of the city that hosts the remains of the great poet, which had already begun with the restoration of Dante's tomb where the perpetual reading of the Comedy was begun every day. On March 25, the Art Museum should be inaugurated with a virtual and innovative path on Dante's places, therefore also a Dante House. The Dante Museum linked to the tomb will be inaugurated in Ravenna.

And again: a pop epic of Dante's fortune in contemporary art; an international conference arranged by the University of Bologna, then an international poetry event; a live show with the Ravenna Festival dedicated to Dante and many artists who will try their hand at Dante's comedy. A range of numerous and unique events.

In Rome, the Scuderie del Quirinale will set up in autumn a large exhibition, illustrated by the president Mario De Simoni, a powerful show dedicated to Dante's iconographies, called 'Inferno', Hell, with international contributions and a complex of works that will later be disclosed. Dante's journey will distributed in the 10 rooms of the Museum, with 2 rooms dedicated to the transliterations of hell on earth.

The director of RAI Cultura, Silvia Calandrelli, announced the project that Rai is carrying out on Dante, a project already inaugurated with opening and closing concerts directed by Riccardo Muti, while three RAI channels will be dedicated to Dante on 25 March all RAI will dedicate programs to Dante in its schedules, some also aimed at students. RAI Cinema is planning a film by Pupi Avati dedicated to the poet.

The president of the Committee for the celebrations, Carlo Ossola, mentioned the massive public investment made for the celebrations: about 2.6 million Euros for over a hundred events that can also be followed in large part all over the world thanks to the network programming of many of them.

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opera-ghosts · 4 years ago

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Alice Laura Barbi (1 June 1858 – 4 September 1948) was an Italian mezzo-soprano and violinist. She had a short, yet successful career as a concert performer. She was a close friend of Johannes Brahms. She began studying music at a young age under her father Henry's guidance. She was a near-prodigy violinist,[2] debuting at the age of seven. After staying in Egypt she studied in Bologna at the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini. She was trained in musical theory and studied multiple languages. She attended lectures by Carlo Verardi. She later dedicated herself to singing, studying with Luigi Zamboni and Alessandro Busi in Bologna and later with Luigi Vannuccini in Florence. Barbi started her singing career alongside Antonio Cotogni and Giovanni Sgambati in a concert at the Quirinale. Her public debut was a concert organized by impresario Andreoli in Milan on 2 April 1882. The program included four arias from Handel, Haydn, Jommelli, and Rossini. Schumann and Schubert were her specialities for recitals. A review by William Beatty-Kingston in The Theatre praised the two chamber music recitals she gave at Prince's Hall in July 1886. He referred to her as the best cantatrice di camera in Europe and described her singing as "the outcome of a rare and surprising combination of natural gifts and indefatigable cultivation." Her program for the recitals illustrated the development of vocal music since the 17th century. Beatty-Kingston wrote that "All the laudatory adjectives in my vocabulary are insufficient to express my sense of the beauty, grace and poetical feeling characterising her rendering of these compositions, one and all." In addition to singing, she performed as a violinist on occasion. Barbi spent considerable time abroad, traveling to Austria, Germany, England, and Russia. Barbi found an ardent admirer in German composer Johannes Brahms and the pair were close friends in his final years. Brahms wrote to Austrian composer Richard Heuberger about Barbi toward the close of 1890, relating that "From someone like Barbi we can all learn! Above all the Italian lady sings supremely steadily, with a solid pulse, and... projects the structure of every piece she sings." Brahms arranged for Barbi to visit Clara Schumann that autumn. The first time he heard her sing one of his songs, he said, "Today I've heard my songs for the first time." Brahms would accompany Barbi around Venice. While their relationship was platonic, it was the subject of gossip and Brahms told Ignaz Brüll that she was the only woman he had wanted to marry after middle age.

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barbarasomogyiova · 4 years ago

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Giovedì 3 settembre - "...SENZA FRONTIERE" Insieme a JASMINE CHOI suoneranno il violinista SILVIO BRESSO (solista con l’orchestra da camera di Mantova in Europa, Asia e America, professore al Conservatorio G. Verdi di Torino), il violoncellista MANUEL ZIGANTE (primo violoncello presso alcune tra le più importanti orchestre, collabora in formazione jazz con il saxofonista Claudio Chiara e in duo con il trombettista Giorgio Licalzi, docente di Quartetto presso il Conservatorio G.Verdi di Torino), la cantante slovacca BARBARA SOMOGYIOVA (solista a “I concerti del Quirinale”, protagonista nella Stagione Concertistica di Trento, al Rome Festival e in altre importanti rassegne musicali), la violista GIORGIA LENZO (violista del Quartetto Echos, vincitore del Premio “Piero Farulli” della Critica Musicale “Franco Abbiati” 2017), suonerà la pianista nippo-americana e direttrice artistica di “S|E|E|D 2020” MIWA GOFUKU (laureata dall’Indiana University, ha collaborato con grandi musicisti come Caroline Campbell, Gilles Apap, Jun Iwasaki, Rinat Shaham, Will Ferguson, Monique McDonald), e per finire, una (piccola) grande sorpresa! #SEED2020 #International #Music #Festival Info e prenotazioni: [email protected] oppure online al link https://www.eventbrite.it/e/biglietti-seed-music-festival-2020-116705301699?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=escb&utm-source=cp&utm-term=listing) S|E|E|D Music Festival 2020 #openyourmind #changeyourlife #life #singer #singerlife #music #musicstyle #voce #art #stage #event #villasimeon #concert #lirica #operalirica #barbarasomogyiovalife 🎼💃😘😊🎙💯 (presso Villa Simeom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CEloNRgqHHq/?igshid=1lmjeuckb5uxx

#seed2020 #international #music #festival #openyourmind #changeyourlife #life #singer #singerlife #musicstyle #voce #art #stage #event #villasimeon #concert #lirica #operalirica #barbarasomogyiovalife

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en24news · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus, latest live news (Italy)

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Cancel the Women’s Day celebrations

The Quirinale press office explained that the Women’s Day ceremonies organized by the council presidency have been canceled. The concert at the Pauline Chapel on March 15th was also canceled.

The date referendum is also on the table of the Council of Ministers

The press…

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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Twelve Anniversaries and Events Worth Traveling for in 2020

https://sciencespies.com/history/twelve-anniversaries-and-events-worth-traveling-for-in-2020/

Twelve Anniversaries and Events Worth Traveling for in 2020

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | Jan. 24, 2020, 1:50 p.m.

What better way to kick off a new decade than by planning a trip? If you’re hoping to fill the next ten years by seeing new sights, learning about other cultures, taking in history or relaxing on an endless white-sand beach, Smithsonian magazine has curated a list of destinations worth considering for 2020. Some will host once-in-a-lifetime athletic competitions (Tokyo and the Summer Olympics), others boast world-class art exhibitions (Rome and New York City) and still others allow visitors to experience wonders of the natural world (El Morro, New Mexico, or Ilha Grande and Paraty, Brazil). Read on, and happy traveling.

Japan’s new 68,000-seat National Stadium, designed by the architect Kengo Kuma.

(Arne Müseler via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 DE)

In 1964, Tokyo became the first city in Asia to host the Olympics, and this summer, the Japanese capital will serve as the summer Games’ venue once again. With the 2020 Olympics (July 24-August 9, followed by the Paralympics August 25-September 6) comes a brand-new, $1.43-billion main stadium built with timber from each of Japan’s 47 prefectures as well as five new sporting events: skateboarding, baseball and softball, surfing, sports climbing (think lightning-quick, spider-like wall-scaling—here’s a video) and karate.

Even without a coveted Olympics ticket—the Wall Street Journal recently forecasted that a Tokyo seat “looks like the toughest Olympic ticket ever”—Japan’s biggest metropolis has plenty to offer tourists: the bustle of Harajuku shopping district, the crowded-but-orderly Shibuya Crossing, conveyer-belt sushi restaurants, the traditional izakayas that line “Piss Alley,” a fashion exhibit at the National Art Center, views from 2,000 feet up in the Tokyo Skytree and the animated film company Studio Ghibli’s headquarters. 2020 also marks the centennial of Meiji Jingu, a mid-city oasis (volunteers planted 100,000 donated trees that have grown towering in the intervening century) and active Shinto shrine dedicated to a former imperial couple. Meiji-Tenno-Sai, the memorial day of Emperor Meiji, falls on July 30, during the Olympics; the 19th- and 20th-century monarch will be commemorated in a Shinto ceremony, and the affiliated Treasure Museum will waive its usual entry fee. In November, the three-day autumn festival at Meiji Jingu takes place. Expect to see traditional Noh theater, sumo, horseback archery and more.

Tokyo’s first time hosting the Olympics was intended to be 1940, but World War II disrupted those plans, and it’s that global conflict that led to another anniversary this year: 75 years have passed since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first (and only) use of nuclear weapons in war, the attacks killed an estimated 275,000 people. This devastating event for Japan is commemorated at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where a permanent exhibit lays out the belongings of many who died in the strike. The memorial itself—known as the Genbaku Dome—has been preserved exactly as the one-time exhibition hall looked in the immediate aftermath of the bombing. In the port city of Nagasaki, feel the weight of this history at the Atomic Bomb Museum and nearby memorial, the Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park, where a lone column pinpoints the spot above which the bomb burst. Both cities are accessible by a combination of shinkansen—bullet trains that debuted for the 1964 Olympics—and express trains.

(Corey Templeton via Flickr under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

On March 15, 1820, Maine separated from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and became the nation’s 23rd state. As a part of the Missouri Compromise, Maine joined the union as a free state, while Missouri entered it as a slave state, maintaining the balance between free and slave states in the nation. Now, Maine’s hosting a year-long birthday bash, commemorating 200 years of statehood.

Leading the state’s official commemoration is the Maine Bicentennial Commission, a group of politicians, curators, historians, educators and others organizing a series of events and offering grants to communities throughout the state looking to stage parades, lectures and exhibitions. Among the grant winners is Rockland’s Center for Maine Contemporary Art, which is presenting an exhibition this summer of photographer S.B. Walker’s visual record of contemporary life in Maine. On Statehood Day, March 15, the public is invited to musical performances and speeches—and to enjoy a slice of cake—in the Augusta Armory. The commission will also hold a Bicentennial Parade in Auburn-Lewiston on May 16, that promises to be chock full of state pride. Kicking off in Boothbay Harbor on June 26, the traveling Tall Ships Festival brings a month of dockside activities, such as concerts, fireworks and community races, as it makes stops in Rockland, Bangor, Brewer, Bucksport, Castine, Searsport and Belfast.

To soak up more of the state’s history, head to some of its many landmarks. Sitting atop the Munjoy Hill in Portland is the oldest maritime signal tower in the United States. Built in 1807, the Portland Observatory was tasked with sending signals to ships entering the harbor, but today, it offers visitors spectacular views of the city during spring months, when it is open for visitors. The Italianate Villa-style Victoria Mansion, in Portland’s Arts District, was built in 1860 as a summer house for wealthy hotel magnate and Maine native Ruggles Sylvester Morse. Opening its doors for the season in May, visitors can experience this national historical landmark with all its luxurious staircases and chandeliers.

One of the Raphael Rooms in the Vatican Museums in Vatican City.

(Juergen Ritterbach / Alamy)

Home to a rich history of classical art, Rome should be a destination on every art lover’s map. Among the artists that fell in love with the city, decorating its walls and chapels with masterpieces, is Raphael—a member of the great trio of High Renaissance art including Leonardo and Michelangelo. To honor the legacy Raphael built in Rome, the city is commemorating the 500th anniversary of his death throughout the year. The Ministry of Culture has organized a mega-exhibition, simply titled “Raphael,” at the Scuderie del Quirinale (March 5-June 2, 2020) that will feature more than 200 of Raphael’s pieces, including the famous Madonna del Granduca (1506-1507) and La Donna Valata (1512-1515). Jointly organized with the Uffizi, which provided over 40 works, the exhibition will include masterpieces never before seen together, on loan from Paris’ Louvre, London’s National Gallery and Madrid’s Prado among others. The celebrations of the artist are not limited to Italy, however; the National Gallery in London is running an exhibition from October 3, 2020 until January 24, 2021 that explores Raphael’s career through his masterpieces.

To fully experience Raphael’s artistic mastery, visit the four rooms in the Vatican Museums, filled with graceful portraits and ornate frescoes, that he and others in his workshop painted between 1508 and 1524. With religious themes and brilliant details, these rooms are the epitome of Italian high renaissance. Another destination that should not be missed is the ancient Pantheon in Rome—inspired by its beautiful architecture, Raphael requested it to be the place of his eternal rest. This spectacular temple has stood for over 2,000 years, and it is one of the best-preserved monuments of Ancient Rome.

Paraty and Ilha Grande, Brazil

Colorful doors in the colonial town of Paraty on Brazil’s coast.

(Christoph Diewald via Flickr under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

One of UNESCO’s newest World Heritage sites lies on the Brazilian coast between Rio and São Paulo. Paraty, population 43,000, was a port town once critical to the gold and slave trades, and it retains much of its 18th-century colonial architecture and cobblestone streets, making it “one of the best preserved colonial coastal towns in Brazil,” according to UNESCO. Trek up the Morro da Vila Velha hill to see archaeological sites, the first European settlement from the mid-16th century, as well as a fort built two centuries later.

The UNESCO-designated site also includes four nearby protected areas, famed for their biodiversity, that are home to jaguars, a myriad of rainforest frogs and mustachioed, pig-like mammals known as white-lipped peccaries. Travelers can relax on the undeveloped Lopes Mendes beach (for the outdoorsy, you can even hike from a nearby village to this sandy destination) on the island of Ilha Grande or kayak through mangroves near Paraty. Serra da Bocaina National Park, meanwhile, attests to the region’s history with a portion of the paved gold route, or Caminho do Ouro, and the ruins of a building devoted to weighing and taxing that gold.

About 12 miles from Paraty is the Quilombo Campinho da Independência. Quilombos are settlements, often in remote areas, founded by people who escaped slavery. This particular quilombo has a restaurant serving African-influenced Brazilian food as well as a handicraft shop. In the restaurant’s lounge, groups can listen as old and young quilombonas share their experiences (the conversations are translated into English or Spanish) in a “storytelling wheel.”

The capitol building in Nashville, where the 19th Amendment secured Tennessee’s crucial vote to adopt it into the Constitution.

(Jelle Drok via Flickr under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Nashville earned the moniker “Music City” for a reason, but the Tennessee capital made our list not for its fantastic music scene but because Nashville is where the decisive and dramatic vote to add the 19th Amendment—women’s suffrage—to the Constitution took place. Three quarters of the states needed to sign onto the 19th Amendment for it to be ratified, and in August 1920, Tennessee became the crucial 36th state. A young state legislator, Harry T. Burn, switched political sides following a persuasive letter from his mother and cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of suffrage.

A spate of performances and special exhibitions will mark the centennial. On March 27, the Tennessee State Museum will open an 8,000-square-foot exhibition tracing the state’s suffrage movement from its early, post-Civil-War days to the final vote, while the main Nashville Library is hosting its own “Votes for Women” exhibit, showcasing political cartoons and plenty of kid-friendly interactives. One block away, the opulent Hermitage Hotel, once the epicenter of pro- and anti-suffrage lobbying, displays objects from the political fracas, including a telegram congratulating famous suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, who stayed at the hotel, on the victory.

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Music lovers can also add suffrage-themed performances to the itinerary (along with Nashville classics like the Grand Ole Opry or Bluebird Café). In September, the Nashville Symphony will stage the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe’s new suffrage-inspired work, played and sung by an all women’s chorus and full orchestra. On August 2, the Nashville Opera will put on a one-night-only event where talented local vocalists sing songs, like “Since My Margarette Became a Suffragette” and “She’s Good Enough To Be Your Baby’s Mother and She’s Good Enough To Vote With You,” used to fight for (and against) women’s right to vote. Nashville Ballet, later this year, will premiere 72 Steps, a newly choreographed work named for the number of steps to the Nashville capitol building that recounts the struggle for suffrage in Tennessee. For visual arts aficionados, the Frist Art Museum will display locally-made artwork inspired by Nashville residents’ personal stories about their first times voting.

Star trails above Inscription Rock in El Morro National Monument.

(NPS: Derek Wallentinsen)

Interested in seeing the Milky Way? Away from city lights, El Morro National Monument, about a two hour drive west of Albuquerque, offers a spectacular view of stars, galaxies and planets. In fact, the International Dark Sky Association recently named El Morro an International Dark Sky Park—a recognition that allows the park to host more astronomy-based educational programming and improve its energy efficiency through outdoor lighting upgrades.

Made even more awe-inspiring by a starry backdrop, the monument is an impressive record of more than 2,000 inscriptions dating back 1,000 years—petroglyphs carved by Ancestral Puebloans and signatures of Spanish settlers and later pioneers—on a 200-foot tall sandstone cliff. If the next couple events on the park’s calendar are any indication of what’s in store, there will be presentations on the hidden colors of the night sky, tours of the constellations and opportunities for visitors to observe these phenomenon for themselves through a telescope. The summer months, with warmer weather and greater visibility, will allow for even more activities, including a celebration of the Dark Sky Park certification.

Nelson Mandela’s capture site.

(Darren Glanville via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Africa’s southernmost country will commemorate two anniversaries tied to the apartheid era and the political struggle that ultimately ended apartheid and made South Africa a democracy. Thirty years ago, in 1990, anti-apartheid activist and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela—at the time, arguably the world’s most famous political prisoner—became a free man after serving 27 years of a lifetime prison sentence for “sabotage” against the government. Mandela’s release in combination with a number of other events ultimately steered South Africa to its first democratic elections—open to South Africans of all ethnicities—in 1994, through which Mandela became president.

Spots that honor Mandela’s life and legacy crisscross South Africa. Robben Island, where Mandela spent the bulk of his time in prison holed up in a 7-by-9-foot cell, offers four tours daily, and visitors have the opportunity to learn from guides with unique credentials—they were former Robben Island political prisoners themselves. In April, long-distance swimmers compete in the 4.6-mile “Freedom Swim” from Robben Island to the shores of Cape Town. A two-hour plane flight away in Johannesburg, the Apartheid Museum traces how the state came to sponsor the system of segregation starting in 1948 and then, nearly 50 years later, dismantle it. (It also boasts an exhibition about the life of the man many South Africans call Tata—“father” in Xhosa—Mandela.) The roadside site near coastal Durban where police captured Mandela in 1962 is now marked with a remarkable steel-bar sculpture depicting the leader’s face in profile; upgrades to make the destination more tourist-friendly will be completed by August 2020.

2020 also marks 60 years since the Sharpeville massacre, when police opened fire on thousands of people peacefully protesting pass laws, which required black South Africans to carry identifying documents and limited where they could work or live. Police killed 69 and injured more than 180 people at the protest, sparking national and international outcry; Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress. leaders burned their own passes. March 21, the day of the tragedy, is now Human Rights Day in South Africa. Constitution Hill, a prison-complex-turned-museum in Johannesburg, will mark the occasion with a four-day Human Rights Festival with panel discussions, social-justice-related visual art and photography exhibits, performances, a human rights book fair and a groundbreaking for the Museum and Archive of the Constitution at the Hill, which the Huffington Post reports will document “the making of the South African Constitution—from its African origins in the fight against colonialism, segregation and apartheid until the present.” Visitors to the Constitution Hill museums can, as always, visit the cell Mandela stayed at while imprisoned at Old Fort and learn about the people who were held in inhumane conditions at the Women’s Jail and Number Four (where Mahatma Gandhi was once held behind bars).

During Prohibition, Green Mill was favorite speakeasy of mobsters like Al Capone, who the band would greet with a rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue.”

(Bruce Yuanyue Bi / Alamy)

On January 17, 1920, the Prohibition Act officially took effect, stipulating that “no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act.” With it came the nation’s “worst-kept secret”—the speakeasy. Now, 100 years later, the public is still fascinated by these illicit establishments where men and women gathered to drink bootlegged alcohol and listen to jazz.

By 1924, Chicago had a network of some 20,000 speakeasies. Given this high concentration, the city has become a popular destination for delving into Prohibition history. The Original Chicago Prohibition Tour takes people to the era’s most popular watering holes, while another option, the Chicago Prohibition Gangster Tour, caters to those more interested in the rise in gang activity and mob crimes during Prohibition—making stops at the site of the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the location where notorious gangster and bank robber John Dillinger was killed.

Illinois is also celebrating the 100th birthday of one of its most famous authors this year, Ray Bradbury. The sci-fi author recently made news when the New York Public Library released a list of the most checked out books of all time—his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 ranked number seven. Born in Waukegan, Illinois, on August 22, 1920, Bradbury wrote upwards of 30 books and nearly 600 short stories in his lifetime. When he died in 2012, the New York Times declared him “the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream.” Set to open in August 2020 in Waukegan, the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum will educate the public on the sci-fi author’s life and honor his work with immersive and interactive experiences that interpret his creative works.

Palau’s 183,000-square-mile National Marine Sanctuary is home to an abundance of coral and fish.

(Yuichiro Anazawa via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 3.0)

Travelers arriving in Palau, a freckling of islands in the western reaches of the Pacific Ocean, sign a pledge: “I vow to tread lightly, act kindly and explore mindfully,” reads the passport stamp. “The only footprints I shall leave are those that will wash away.” The statement, adopted in 2017, reflects the dive destination’s environment-first attitude.

In 2020, after five years of work, Palau’s new National Marine Sanctuary went into effect, protecting 183,000 square miles or nearly 80 percent of the tiny country’s waters from commercial fishing. The marine sanctuary is intended to protect Palau’s 1,300-plus species of fish and 700 types of coral but will not dictate where tourists can visit, a representative from the Stanford Ocean Center, which helped create a report for the Palau government on the planned sanctuary, assured Smithsonian. The country also became the first in the world to ban types of sunscreen (about half of the commercially available options, according to the BBC) that contain ingredients known to bleach coral.

Palau’s reputation as an “underwater Serengeti” is warranted; adventurers can snorkel alongside gentle, non-stinging golden jellyfish in the aptly-named Jellyfish Lake, marvel at the giant clam inhabitants of Clam City, or (for experienced divers) spot reef sharks at the Blue Corner. The Rock Islands—uninhabited, vegetation-shrouded outcroppings that are a haven for nearly 400 coral species—are also well worth a visit. The 445 mushroom-shaped islands were proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.

While the majority of tourists partake in the nation’s aquatic attractions, the islands have offerings for landlubbers too. On Babeldaob, the largest island, travelers can hike through the jungle to the thundering Ngardmau Waterfall—the highest in Micronesia. World War II buffs might want to tour Peleliu, an island where rusty plane wrecks and weapons attest to a fierce 1944 battle between the U.S. and Japan over its airstrip.

(Dumphasizer via Flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0)

In 1620, the Mayflower embarked on a voyage from Plymouth, England to the New World. Upon arrival on the shores of what is now Provincetown, Massachusetts, the pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact—a governing document believed by many to have been an early influence for the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. After spending five weeks exploring the area, the colonists sailed across Cape Cod Bay to Plymouth, where they established the Plymouth Colony.

To mark the 400th anniversary of these events, celebrations will be held on both sides of the Atlantic. Plymouth, England, is organizing a multitude of events, from a Mayflower Ceremony on September 16 (the date of the ship’s departure four centuries ago) to a “Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy” exhibition at The Box, a new museum opening this spring. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum (PMPM) has organized a series of commemoration activities, kicking off with an opening ceremony on April 24 in Plymouth and featuring a historical reenactment of the signing of the Mayflower Compact on September 13 on Provincetown’s MacMillan Pier. Provincetown 400, as the series is called, aims to retell the history of Plymouth Colony from both perspectives, the Mayflower Pilgrims and the Wampanoag nation.

As a part of the 400th anniversary celebration, Mayflower II, a full-scale reproduction of the sailing vessel that carried the English colonists in 1620, will sail from Plymouth, where it sits as an exhibit in the Plimoth Plantation, to Provincetown, Massachusetts, on September 10, 2020. “We expect thousands to come to Provincetown to visit Mayflower II and to learn about the beginning of the Pilgrims’ story,” said Dr. K. David Weidner, executive director of the PMPM.

The Beethoven House in Bonn, Germany.

(Thomas Depenbusch via Flickr under CC BY 2.0)

Widely known as the City of Beethoven, Bonn is pulling out all the stops for the 250th anniversary of the classical composer’s birth. Born in 1770 (his real birthday, still a matter of speculation, is believed to be a day before his recorded baptism on December 17), Ludwig van Beethoven lived in this German city until he moved to Vienna at age 22. The house where Beethoven was born and raised for the first few years of his life—known today as Beethoven Haus—is still standing and a popular attraction in the city. Built in the 18th century, the home recently underwent a 10-month long renovation and reopened in December, with its permanent exhibit including instruments, scores and notebooks used by the composer.

The Beethoven Anniversary Society have planned BTHVN2020, a year-long calendar of concerts and tributes across Germany dedicated to the life and achievements of the composer. An estimated 1,000 performances and events are taking place between now and December 17, 2020 in Germany, with the majority of them happening in Bonn. The two-day “Beethoven Bürgfest,” beginning August 14, 2020, will trace Beethoven’s life in Bonn, feature musical performances and remember the 1845 unveiling of the bronze Beethoven monument in Bonn’s city center. The year of celebration will close with a concert held in Bonn’s parliament building, as a tribute to the political significance of the composer’s work—the European Union anthem is based on “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The Met’s famous 5th Avenue entrance.

(Courtesy of the Met)

New York City’s most visited museum—the Metropolitan Museum of Art—is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its incorporation and very first acquisition, a Roman sarcophagus. Both events occurred four short years after lawyer John Jay first floated the idea to a circle of American friends while in Paris and wooed philanthropists and art collectors to support his fledgling museum. While the sesquicentennial doesn’t mean the Met Gala is opening to the public, the museum is hosting a “community festival” with tours and to-be-announced performances and art-making activities the weekend of June 4-6. The “Making The Met, 1870-2020” exhibition (March 30-August 2) will highlight gems of the Met’s vast (it spans 5,000-plus years of art) collection, including rarely-displayed, fragile works like Michelangelo’s studies for the Sistine Chapel’s Libyan Sibyl, a female figure painted on the ceiling fresco. In March, the museum will open 11,000 square feet of gallery space showcasing British decorative arts (think carefully crafted teapots) from the 16th to 20th centuries. And as usual, the Met’s rotation of exhibits will showcase art from around the globe, including early Buddhist art made in India, Cubist paintings and Tudor-era masterworks.

The Met sits in Central Park, which is where the first New York City Marathon was held 50 years ago, with 127 participants who’d paid the $1 entry fee. Less than half of them finished. Last year, 53,627 runners took part in the 26.2-mile run, now spanning all five of the Big Apple’s boroughs. Even non-runners can enjoy the race’s 50th anniversary this year (November 1) by joining the crowds that cheer, sometimes rowdily, the endurance athletes on. (Here’s a list of the best cheering spots, courtesy the New York Times; apparently, there’s even a Baptist church whose choir sings for marathoners at full volume.)

#History

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kay-moved · 8 years ago

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Today is la Festa della Repubblica!

71 years ago today, Italian people voted for their country to become a constitutional republic after 85 years of the Savoia dynasty's reign (20 being the fascist dictatorship), winning with a majority of the 89,08% of voters!

La Festa della Repubblica is very important in Italian history, and has many official ceremonies! For example, a military parade has been taking place in via dei Fori Imperiali to celebrate the Republic since 1948.

The ceremony involves laying a laurel crown at the Milite Ignoto, symbol of all those that died in war and were never recognised, near the Altare alla Patria.

The most exciting moment of the parade is obviously the Frecce Tricolori performance: ten airplanes that compose the most numerous flying circus in the world! Here is an amateur video that displays the show very well.

The celebrations in Rome continue in the afternoon, with the Quirinale (the main official residence of the President of the Republic) gardens being opened to the public, with concerts performed by the Italian Army.

photo credits: x / x / x }

#hetaliafandomhub #aph italy #aph romano #here it is orz..#very short post bc school is still killing me #aph ambasciata #aggressively sings inno di mameli*

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artist-titian · 8 years ago

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Titian

Perhaps the most enduringly influential painter of the Italian Renaissance, and the epitome of Venetian sensuality and color, Titian has inspired fanatical devotion in painters from Rubens to Velasquez, Rembrandt and beyond. With this majestic volume, published to accompany what will be the most important exhibition in Italy in 2013, he receives his most substantial monograph treatment in more than two decades. “The Concert” and “La Bella” (from the Palazzo Pitti); “Flora” (the Uffizi); “Charles V with a Dog” and the “Self-Portrait” (from the Prado); and the infamous “Flaying of Marsyas” (from the Kromeriz): these are just some of Titian’s most celebrated paintings, all of which will be exhibited at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome, in an exhibition designed as the magnificent conclusion to a sweeping overview of Venetian painting. In this accompanying catalogue, Titian’s entire artistic career is represented at the most detailed level, decade by decade, scrutinizing his masterly sense of color and the development of his brushwork, with information gleaned from new scientific analysis of works carried out for the occasion. Also included are entries and essays by some of the world’s most illustrious experts on this great Venetian master.

Titian (born Pieve di Cadore, circa 1485–1576) began his career as an apprentice to Giorgione, and soon became the most important of the Venetian painting school. He died in his late 80s, a victim of the Venice plague--the only victim to be given a church burial.

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#hardcover #titian #artbook #amazon

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caveartfair · 7 years ago

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The Ballets Russes Showcased Some of Picasso’s and Matisse’s Most Experimental Work

Set and costumes by Pablo Picasso for Parade, 1917. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The Picassos were dusty, and the Derains needed mending. They’d been languishing in a Parisian storage facility for two decades, after all. It wasn’t until a series of high-profile auctions in the late 1960s that the works had re-emerged, welcomed by a host of international curators outbidding each other for the museum-level collection.

Rather than paintings, however, the storeroom contained the last remaining set design and costume repository of the legendary Ballets Russes. This independent dance company, active between 1909 and 1929, collaborated with an all-star art cast of the early 20th century and pioneered a pas de deux between ballet and the avant-garde. The collection contained originals by Pablo Picasso and his Cubist cohort, Georges Braque, French Fauvists André Derain and Henri Matisse, Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico, Neo-Primitivist Natalia Goncharova, Orphist Sonia Delaunay—and the list goes on.

Tamara Karsavina as Queen Shemakhan from Le Coq d’Or, 1914. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Costume sketch for an angel, from the ballet to spiritual music "Liturgy", 1915. Natalia Goncharova The Aleksei Bakhrushin Central Theatre Museum, Moscow

Serge Diaghilev, the company’s famed impresario, shocked audiences with the richness of color and choreography that characterized the company’s first season in 1909. At that point, ballet was largely considered the realm of children and old men. Diaghilev hoped to distance himself from that trope and the romanticized image of the tutu-touting ballerina immortalized a couple decades earlier by Impressionist Edgar Degas. His audiences would be cosmopolitan, the dance movements more expressive. He would bring his sensibilities as an art critic and collector to the ballet, transforming it into a vital, modern art form in the process.

Diaghilev’s professional beginnings in his native Russia included co-founding an art journal, Mir iskusstva (The World of Art), and curating exhibitions. He arrived in Paris in 1906 to organize a blockbuster Russian art show, which he followed with a concert series of Russian music the next year, an opera production, and, finally, ballets. He initially worked exclusively with the Russian artists he’d featured in his journal, introducing them to the West. Later, his collaborations widened to include a veritable who’s who of the Parisian art scene.

Léonide Massine in The Legend of Joseph, 1914. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Diaghilev’s artists auditioned with gallery shows, not theater portfolios. It was his visit to a large-scale Moscow retrospective on Goncharova—a prominent member of the Russian avant-garde, inspired by folk art and Futurism in equal measure—that led him to commission her for Le Coq d’Or (1914). Years later, Joan Miró was invited to create the backdrop and costumes for Romeo et Juliette (1926) after the impresario saw his work at a Surrealist exhibition in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris.

Many artists collaborating with the Ballets Russes considered it an opportunity to experiment, since the short-lived use of the scenery and costumes gave them a heightened sense of freedom. “It was not something that was going to stay,” says Lynn Garafola, professor emerita of dance at Barnard College. “The ephemerality may have been a kind of attraction.”

Goncharova, for example, designed the scenery and costumes for Le Coq d’Or in a style that combines Byzantine religious iconography with Neo-Primitivism. The primary colors and simplified lines look simultaneously medieval and modern—an amalgamation she may have never explored were it not for the opportunity afforded her by Diaghilev. Matisse’s first-ever use of the paper cut-out technique was while designing the costumes and set for the company’s 1920 production of Le Chant du Rossignol. The artist pinned pieces of paper inside a wooden crate, diorama style, in order to work out the overall composition. (Matisse would return to what he called “drawing with scissors” as a standalone art form decades later, as a wheelchair-bound old man.)

Matisse’s contemporary and artistic rival, Picasso, was involved in the design of six ballets for Diaghilev. It was in Picasso’s first production, Parade (1917), that he took advantage of the opportunity to explore themes from his studio in a different setting. “You can see Picasso’s entire shift [toward a more figurative mode] taking place in Parade,” Garafola notes. The drop curtain was full of Saltimbanque circus people, but the scenery and certain costumes were very Cubist. “So in a sense you get everything sort of mishmashed—where he was coming from and where he was going,” she continues.

Although Diaghilev embraced art’s cutting edge, he also honored the historical traditions these modernists had emerged from. In 1914, Russian artist Léon Bakst designed costumes for one-act ballet, The Legend of Joseph, in the style of Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese. “The commonly known biblical legend is interpreted in the way it may have been done by sixteenth century artists,” Bakst later wrote. “The luxury of the flamboyant oriental colours will pass, as it were, through the artistic vision of the Renaissance.”

Costumes designed by José María Sert for Las Meninas, 1916. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Diaghilev also commissioned Spanish muralist José Maria Sert to design Diego Velázquez-inspired costumes for Las Meninas (1916)—a performance intended to thank Spain for sheltering the dance company during World War I. Dancers wore dresses inspired by those in Velázquez’s canonical 17th-century Spanish royal portrait, foregoing tutus for corsets and wide, brocaded skirts.

This interweaving of the visual and performing arts was not entirely unprecedented. A generation earlier, post-Impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created a set and Norwegian painter Edvard Munch illustrated programs for the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre in Paris. But the intense focus the Ballets Russes placed upon merging dance and contemporary art was singular. “There was criticism of the Diaghilev company by the mid-1920s that it was really just like an art gallery,” Garafola says.

Pablo Picasso, (wearing a beret) and scene painters sitting on the front cloth for Léonide Massine's ballet Parade, 1917. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

That accusation turned out to be prescient. Many of the sceneries and costumes once intended to be ephemeral are now considered significant parts of their artists’ oeuvres. According to Jane Pritchard, curator of dance at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Picasso’s costume for a Chinese conjurer in Parade has been displayed in three exhibitions of the Spanish artist’s work. (Just last year, it was loaned out from the V&A for “Picasso: Between Cubism and Classicism, 1915–1925” at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome.)

Thus, the Ballets Russes found a new venue—in museums across the globe.

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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