Il genio italiano si afferma all'estero
Si legge e si sente spesso parlare del successo degli Italiani all'estero nei campi del design, della moda, della enogastronomia, ma tanti sono anche fuori dall'Italia per motivi di studio e di ricerca. Per la riunione del 6 giugno del Club Italiano Per Piacere abbiamo qualcosa di veramente nuovo per voi: intervisteremo quattro italiani che sono a...
“La Traviata” at Opera Theatre
Enjoy a highlight of the St. Louis Opera Theatre season with Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” May 19 – June 23 at the Loretto-Hilton Center. In the opera, Violetta has one important rule: Never fall in love. She insists on her freedom. Then she meets Alfredo, and things get complicated. It’s a Verdi masterpiece and includes the directing debut...
Restaurant Review: Tavernetta
My chic Danish friend and I walked into Tavernetta on a brisk afternoon a few months ago, she in fabulous boots that look like they’re covered in tiny disco-ball mirrors, me in salaryman Rockports. We passed the fireplace lounge that overlooks the tracks at Union Station and took a sharp left around the massive open kitchen, where, amid a bustle of...
History of former Missouri POW camp preserved in cigarette case
As author David Fiedler explains in his book "The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II," the state was once home to more than 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war. Many of the camps where they were held have faded into distant memory as little evidence remains of their existence; however, one local resident has a relic from a...
Modern languages department cuts Italian language courses
As a result of the university-wide budget recalls in October, the Department of Modern Languages will offer only one Italian course in fall 2018. Courses typically scheduled for the fall semester like Italian I and Italian III have been canceled. The discontinuation of Italian courses will cause the loss of one faculty member: Alessia Salamina, a v...
Ain’t No Party Like A D’Amico Party
The Twin Cities food scene is definitely something to boast about, especially when it includes a catering service with recipes straight out of Italy. Richard and Larry D’Amico started D’Amico Catering in the 1980s, when they opened their first locations in Minneapolis, D’Amico Cucina and Azur. As sons of Italian immigrants and second-generation res...
Opera Colorado closes season with Verdi's comic swan song
For Opera Colorado music director Ari Pelto, Giuseppe Verdi's final opera — written when the composer was 79 years old — is more than a comic epilogue to a long career filled with tragic music dramas. "When I ask performers about their favorite Verdi opera, pretty much everybody responds that it is 'Falstaff.' But most donors, board members and cas...
Why we've fallen for the marvelous Martina, the Twin Cities' Best New Restaurant
There was a time when you could dump some garden-variety ice in a glass, swirl it around with the right ingredients, and I’d knock it back with grateful satisfaction. That was before Martina, where each drink is made with its own particular type of ice: crushed, cubed, stamped, and slivered. No number of slapdash drinks can unring that bell. But wh...
Students at SLU Are Learning Italian by Playing ‘Assassin’s Creed II’
A professor at Saint Louis University is using video games to teach language skills to students. Simone Bregni, Ph.D., started playing games in 1975 when he was 12, according to a press release. During the mid-’80s, he realized playing text adventures helped him learn English. That revelation inspired his research and teaching methods, along with w...
Meet United States Senate candidate Tony Monetti
Warrensburg business owner, Christian author, veteran and flight school instructor Tony Monetti is “pleased as punch” his name will be first on the Aug. 7 Republican party primary ballot. The placement is a happy accident. Candidates who declared their bids for election on the opening day of the filing cycle were assigned placement by random drawin...
It's a labor of love and pizza
Rooted in a love story that first sparked in San Guiseppe Jato, Italy, the owners of The Pizza Shop have been mixing up thousands of quarts of dough to create nearly a million pizzas since their late December opening a little over three years ago. And now, Maggie and Giovanni Canepa, along with baby Nico, are about to add a new chapter to their...
St Louis - Bologna Sister Cities Re-establishes Ties with University of Bologna
In 1987, Franco Giannotti, Angelo Sita, Giovanni Ferrara, and Msgr. Salvatore Polizzi founded St Louis – Bologna Sister Cities Committee with the cooperation and support of Bologna Mayor Renzo Imbeni and St Louis Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl. The sister cities committee flourished for over a decade with reciprocal youth summer exchange programs, lang...