- October 19, 2022
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It’s a small world indeed for fans of Giuseppe Verdi. When The New York Times ran a story on Nov. 2 about an exclusive Italian society dedicated to the Italian composer, Sarasota Opera General Director Richard Russell got the news by text from the president of Club dei 27.
Russell wasn’t surprised to receive the text because the Sarasota Opera and Parma-based Club dei 27 have engaged in friendly cultural exchanges over the years because of the opera’s dedication to Verdi under the leadership of Maestro Victor DeRenzi.
The Sarasota Opera is the only company in the world to have performed all of Verdi’s music. The opera began its 28-year Verdi voyage in 1989 with “Rigoletto.” It completed the Verdi Cycle in 2016 with “Aida” and “The Battle of Legnano.”
Russell credits the achievement of the Verdi Cycle to DeRenzi, who has spent more than four decades as artistic director and principal conductor of the Sarasota Opera. “It’s all due to Maestro DeRenzi,” he says.
In addition to performing full-scale productions of Verdi operas over the years, the Sarasota Opera also holds concerts of the Italian composer’s music. Last year, the company skipped this tradition in favor of a Puccini show, but this year it’s renewing its vows to Verdi.
On Nov. 15 and 17, artists from the Sarasota Opera will be joined by the Sarasota Orchestra, which will be conducted by DeRenzi, for a concert of selections from Verdi operas.
Sopranos Rochelle Bard and Virginia Mims, tenor Victor Starsky, baritone Jean Carlos Rodriguez and bass Young Bok Kim will perform songs from “Aida,” “La traviata,” “Un ballo in maschera,” “Attila,” “La forza del destino,” “Rigoletto” and other Verdi operas.
Why does Verdi inspire such love among opera aficionados? To begin with, he lived a long time (87 years) and was quite prolific. Verdi was born on Oct. 10, 1813 to a family of small land owners and traders, which he later romanticized as peasants.
During his lifetime, which lasted until 1901, he wrote 26 or 27 operas (don’t ask), earning himself the nickname the “Shakespeare of opera.”
Verdi himself was a fan of The Bard. He wrote two operas based on Shakespeare works — “Otello” (“Othello”) and “Falstaff” (“The Merry Wives of Windsor”).
In its article on the Verdi club, the New York Times traced the evolution of the all-male Club dei 27. Its ban on female members and a 27-member limit is a source of irritation for some wannabe members of the club, the Times noted.
“From its roots in 1958, when a bunch of Verdi groupies met in a modest panino shop, the club has grown into an established fraternity that hobnobs with A-list conductors and opera singers,” the article said.
Among those A-listers are DeRenzi and Russell, who is in his 13th season as general director and previously served as marketing director from 2005-10. Russell’s relationship with Sarasota Opera dates back to 1989, when he began a four-year stint as a tenor with the company.
According to Russell, the Sarasota Opera was introduced to Club dei 27 by a man developing a documentary on the club whose mother lives in Sarasota.
“As a result of that introduction, some club members, including the president, came from Italy to see our production of a rare Verdi opera called ‘King for A Day,’ in 2013,” he recalled in a recent interview in the Sarasota Opera’s courtyard.
Each member of Club dei 27 has a nickname based on their favorite character in a Verdi opera. The monicker of the club’s president, Enzo Petrolini, is “Un Giorno di Regno” after the Verdi opera “King for a Day.”
Petrolini returned to Florida when the Sarasota Opera ended its Verdi Cycle in 2016. “In the meantime, we did a patron trip in 2015 to Italy and went to visit them in their clubhouse in Parma,” Russell said.
Traveling on that trip to the heart of Verdi country were Russell, DeRenzi and about 20 Sarasota Opera patrons. At a wine and cheese reception for the visitors from Sarasota, members of the club sang “Va Pensiero,” a chorus from Verdi’s opera “Nabucco.” That’s the same song they perform each year on Verdi’s birthday, rather than the traditional “Happy Birthday.”
Club die 27 also produced a concert for the Sarasota delegation in their music school, which is located right above their clubhouse. “There were some wonderful singers and we ultimately hired one of them to sing for us here,” Russell said.
On a recent opera trip to Italy, Russell and a Sarasota Opera group ran into four members of Club die 27 at an opera performance in Naples. “We have a very close relationship with them,” he says.
Verdi fans who can’t make the Sarasota Opera’s upcoming concerts can always look forward to its production of the composer’s oft-neglected work, “Stiffelio,” during the Winter Opera Festival in March. “Stiffelio” tells the story of a clergyman who returns home from a missionary trip to learn of his wife’s infidelity, prompting him to experience a crisis of faith.
