mon 21/07/2025

Italy

Everybody's Fine

For a  while, actually, it appears as if a dollop of irony might just be on the cards, and during those passages, at least, British writer-director Kirk Jones's road movie looks poised to be quietly revolutionary. But once the dictates of...

Read more...

Ottorino Respighi, the forgotten composer

Ottorino Respighi: more than picturesque

The latest subject in the BBC Four series of composer portraits by Christopher Nupen is Ottorino Respighi. One of the most unfairly neglected major composers of the first half of the 20th century, his reputation has suffered less from not being...

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Antonio Pappano

Antonio Pappano (b. 1959) enjoys the best of two opulent worlds. At the Royal Opera House in London (now his home city), he's well stuck in to his seventh season as music director, basking in popularity and plaudits previous incumbents could only...

Read more...

theartsdesk in Rome: Building the Future, Slowly

The rapturous reception for Zaha Hadid’s groundbreaking, breathtaking new confection in Rome, Il Museo dell’Arte del XXIesimo Secolo - the 21st-Century Art Museum (MAXXI for short) - has reopened for the umpteenth time one of Italy’s favourite...

Read more...

theartsdesk in Milan: Death of a Quiz Show Host

Italy's quiz-show host Mike Bongiorno: 'a Warholian genius for fascinating, entrancing dullness'

“Guarda, è come se fosse morta la regina Elisabetta, sai?” I didn’t really need the comparison with the hypothetical demise of our own beloved monarch to be spelled out for me by my partner, a somewhat reserved professor of Paediatric Neurology at...

Read more...
Subscribe to Italy