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ITALIAN OPERA FOR AMERICAN MUSIC LOVERS

© Paula Damiano

In Italy, opera is just as popular as… well… popular music. People hum familiar arias in the street, on the bus. Small children perform favorite passages at family gatherings. In the United States, Italian opera is also popular—with Italian-Americans and other lovers of fine music. The province of Parma maintains a “Land of Verdi” website, which (with Windows Media Player) allows you to hear arias from the great composer on your PC.

Burbank, California, just outside of Los Angeles, is home to Casa Italiana, an Italian-American cultural organization. The group maintains their own opera company which holds workshops, performances, and more. On the east coast, the Regina Opera Company in Brooklyn, New York -- now its 32nd season – offers fully-staged operas and showcase concerts, and specializes in standard Italian repertoire.

The beloved Italian composer Verdi died in 1901. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of his passing, many opera companies worldwide are performing his works. This is not to slight Puccini and other giants of Italian music, who will all get their turn.

A New York City cable TV show, “The Italian American Experience,” is hosted by Lina del Tinto. Her program aims to promote a positive image of Italian American culture, and opera and related themes play an important role. The show features interviews with successful Italians and Italian Americans, along with coverage of events in NYC.

If you long to flex your vocal chords but haven’t been offered a contract by the Met or La Scala, there’s even opera karaoke available from CANTOLOPERA. This company offers 140 arias available in both vocal and instrumental versions so that you can sing along to your heart’s content.

Following is a list of websites for the Italian opera lover:

Welcome to the land of Verdi http://www.giuseppeverdi.net/ing/index-f...

Photograph of Verdi http://opera.stanford.edu/opera/Verdi/pi...

The Story of Italian Opera http://www.pirandello.com/opera.html

Dictionary of Recorded Opera http://joshua.micronet.it/italian/mariob...

Opera Web Home Page http://www.opera.it/Operaweb/en/home.html

Italian for Opera Lovers: compendium of operatic terms from Italian http://www.bandannabooks.com/opera.html

Casa Italiana (Burbank, CA) opera company site http://www.casaitaliana.org/

Regina Opera Company (Brooklyn, NY) http://www.reginaopera.org/

Italian-American Experience: cable TV show website http://www.civitavecchia.simplenet.com/l...

OTOS: Italian Opera, musical scores and piano sheet music, vocal scores, symphonies, overtures and much more. [click on British flag for English-language version] http://www.otos.net/

Cantolopera:140 Arias available in both VOCAL and INSTRUMENTAL versions http://www.cantolopera.com/

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