Today, July 21, the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum will host a celebration of music, art and wine. This special day begins at 4:30 p.m. when Cavaliere Ufficiale Aldo Mancusi will present "The Life and Times of Luciano Pavarotti."
Pavarotti is one of the most loved voices of our time. Cavaliere Mancusi will explore Pavarotti's life, from his birth in 1935 to his death 2007, and discuss his youthful struggle and adversities that earned him so much notoriety and fame. You will also hear how his complex life brought him great wealth, and how in the end depression, pain and death took him away from us all. Using music, film, and the tell-all book, "The King and I," written by Pavarotti's long-time manager Herbert Breslin, Cavaliere Mancusi will reveal many uncensored and interesting tales of Pavarotti, and tell of his personal meeting with Pavarotti.
Aldo Mancusi was given the title Cavaliere Ufficiale for creating the
Enrico Caruso Museum. He was inspired by his father, Everisto Mancusi, who came to America from Italy in 1920 and settled in Brooklyn, New York. Everisto had a great love for Italian opera, and as it grew so did his collection of Caruso records. Aldo acquired his father's passion, along with these records, and they remain at the core of the Museum's collection.
Active in the Italian community for many years, Aldo has devoted most of his time and energy to establishing and promoting the legacy of the world's greatest tenor. In 1990, the
Enrico Caruso Museum was officially opened to the public with the support of Commendatore Michael Sisca, a prominent publisher of the Italian magazine La Follia Di New York.
Today the museum's collection includes rare photos of the Caruso family, books, records, letters, personal items, caricatures and the death mask of
Enrico Caruso. A popular attraction in the museum is the 20 seat mini theater, with chairs and décor from the old Metropolitan Opera House donated by famed soprano
Licia Albanese. Additionally, Enrico Aloi and Joseph Puglisi, friends and biographers of the great soprano Rosa Ponselle, contributed wood carvings from the balcony of the old Met. The museum also has films of Caruso's life and times, including his silent film "My Cousin," in which he plays a dual role. These items were obtained through donations as well as purchases for display by the museum. Caruso family members, have also visited the museum, a prestigious honor for the
Enrico Caruso Museum of America.
Art: At 6 p.m. we will host an artist's opening reception for "Promises," an exhibition of large-format color photographs of banknotes from around the world by Clara Turchi. The images are not retouched in any way, because Photoshop is so sophisticated that it recognizes the images as banknotes and forbids editing, redirecting the user to a government website that explains about money laundering and fraud. The exhibit will also display smaller digital photos of coins embedded in the pavement of New York.
Italian born artist Clara Turchi shot her first photograph at age 5, but it wasn't until 30 years later that she began to take it seriously. After years spent working as a banker during the day and reading about art and photography at night, she finally succumbed to her obsession: "On 15th September 2008 at 7:15 a.m. London time I decided to leave finance for my true calling: photography. At that time I was working for a hedge fund, and when I arrived at the office at 9:00 a.m. I found that Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy-I have never made a better decision in my life!" She gave up her career and enrolled in a three-year course of study in photography at the London College of Communication. Her meticulous work, which creates hybrid objects that take photography to new visual and philosophical heights, has been exhibited in Italy, London and New York.
Turchi's years in banking continue to influence her artistic expression, and led to this show at the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum. She explains, "While working in finance I began to think differently about money. I envisioned the monetary system as an entity just sort of floating above all other human activities-agriculture, industry, services. While these activities involve the production or management of tangible assets, the monetary system is based on the circulation of a good-money-which is represented by a product-paper. This paper is given an arbitrary value by governments, and an enormous importance by almost everyone. That importance, though, does not lead to understanding-the greatest part of the population knows neither money's history nor how it truly functions, and most have never even taken the time to really look at the banknotes and coins that every day pass through our hands.
"When I started studying photography I also began to really look at its surface, which is also paper. And because of my experience in finance I couldn't help but make the comparison with money and found that people treat photographs the way they treat money-we invest their paper surfaces with a nominal value but excuse ourselves from understanding the forces that create and control those pieces of paper.
"Historically, money was a Promise to pay a certain amount of gold, stored somewhere, whose value was directly represented by the note. Until World War II any country issuing money was able to do so based on its physical reserves of gold. But nowadays that parity doesn't exist anymore, which increases the fundamental role that trust plays in the use and circulation of money. Indeed, it is trust in a vast, complicated, and largely misunderstood system-the financial system-that permits us to function fiscally, based on the promise that somewhere, somehow there is gold (intrinsic value) backing it all up. So the success of the financial system is the measure of how much we believe in that promise. Likewise, photographs can be seen as a Promise that somewhere, sometime, the subject of the photograph, which is the nominal value of the photographic image, actually existed in front of the camera and is truthfully represented in the final print."
After the opening, "Promises" may be viewed during regular museum hours, with paid museum admission, until the closing event on Saturday, September 21, 2013.
Wine: Throughout the evening, the museum will be offering a selection of organic wines from the importer/distributer Monsieur Touton. Available for sampling will be red, white and rose wines from Gilles Louvet, one of the biggest organic wine producers in the south of France, and from Castorani, which is owned by Italian Formula One racing driver Jarno Trulli. Enrico Migliaccio will be pouring, and offering information about all the wines being served.
Admission of $20, $10 for members includes all three Music, Art and Wine events.
The Garibaldi-Meucci Museum was the home of Antonio Meucci, the true inventor of the telephone, and a refuge to Giuseppe Garibaldi, the legendary hero who championed the unification of Italy. For over 50 years the museum has fulfilled its mission to preserve the legacies of these great men, and to promote understanding of the Italian-American heritage through cultural, artistic and educational programs and classes. The historic Italian landmark on Staten Island, the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum is owned by the Sons of Italy Foundation and administered by the NYSOSIA-GMM-Board of Commissioners.
Regular museum hours are 1 p.m.-5 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday. Admission is $5 per person, members and children under 10 are free. Call ahead for groups of 10 or more. The first floor of the museum is wheelchair accessible, but the restroom is on the second floor.
