Opera Chic

Opera Chic and Grazia.it: Giuseppe Albanese Rocks Out to Franz Liszt

Even in a city like Milan that embraces style and fashion so eagerly, not many piano soloists would have the ballz to show up for their concerts with fashion-forward accessories. Italians also take their great composers and musical legacies quite seriously -- you just need to spend a particularly thorny night in La Scala's boo-heaving loggione to understand the passion and the blood-sport that classical music can quickly become. So only a pianist as cool, practiced, and prepared as Giuseppe Albanese could do it with such finesse -- the young Italian pianist took the stage on a sweltering Sunday night at Milan's Teatro degli Arcimboldi in bright red Versace shoes sourced at the Via Montenapoleone Versace boutique...we always melt at even the smallest sythesis of classical music and fashion.

Those red men's shoes (pianist's legs attached) made a good Hungry-Man tv dinner meal of Liszt's Concerto No.1 with Milan's l'Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali.

Read all about it here (in Italian, guys!) although OC will be adding Albanese's quotes in English when she gets back from Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's sweetly-campy L'Italiana in Algeri premiere tonight at Teatro alla Scala because what he said in an interview to OC for Grazia.it pretty much rocked -- like how only Liszt can rock a block party 'til our hair turns gray. 

Return to Rome with Rai3: Albanese and Luisotti do Rota

OC remembers only a few months ago being under the gorgeous, late winter light of Rome and the creamy Bernini sculptures of Piazza Navona, the pragmatic and ancient Pantheon, the lovably-crusty Jewish Ghetto, and all of Rome's lovers out for a stroll around the Spanish Steps on Valentine's Day when she took in the excellently-robust Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia in the Eternal City. Luccan Maestro (and MD of the San Francisco Opera) Nicola Luisotti was in town to conduct Santa Cecilia in a program bearing witness to Nino Rota's rich legacy. After Beethoven's Fourth, Rota's Piano Concerto in C and Il Gattopardo Suite took the spotlight with Italian piano soloist Giuseppe Albanese cooly banging it all out on the Steinway.

Rai3 was also in the house filming, and tonight, OC (and the world) can fall back into the Rome light. At 1:40 am, Italy time, Rai3 will broadcast the concert. You can watch it on the website in Diretta TV (you can also hear Albanese play it on Youtube from a concert in Ecuador).

Luckily we won't have to wait much longer to catch both stars again -- Maestro Luisotti comes to Milan for his La Scala premiere with a new production of Verdi's Attila on June 20, and we'll find Giuseppe Albanese at Teatro degli Arcimboldi with Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali on June 26 for Liszt's concerto n. 1.

Here's a few of OC's photos from rainy Rome this past February: