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LIVE STREAM EVENT BUNDLE | “Live Events from Italy in February”

1. Tuesday, March 1, 2022 | “Celebrate Carnevale in Venice, Italy” | 2:00 – 3:00pm ET | 11:00am – 12:00pm PT | 7:00 – 8:00pm London
2. Wednesday, March 2, 2022 | “Shakespeare’s Made in Italy Theater” | 2:00 – 3:00pm ET | 11:00am – 12:00pm PT | 7:00 – 8:00pm London
3. Wednesday, March 9, 2022 | “Oil Painting in Tuscany” | 2:00 – 3:00pm ET | 11:00am – 12:00pm PT | 7:00 – 8:00pm London
4. Saturday, March 19, 2022 | “Tortellini Making in Bologna, Italy” | 10:30 – 11:30am ET | 7:30 – 8:30am PT | 2:30 – 3:30pm London

Each event will include a 45-minute live stream followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Please note:

• Your participation for all four live stream events is confirmed once you have purchased your bundle. You will receive a reminder 24 hours before each event and the Zoom link to join each presentation circa 30 minutes before the start time.
• VIDEO RECORDINGS of all of the live stream events will be available for unlimited streaming at your convenience for 7 days after the event.

Event 1

LIVE STREAM EVENT | “Celebrate Carnevale in Venice, Italy”
Presented by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

After two long years, Carnevale in Venice is finally back! Join us on Martedi Grasso (Mardi Gras) IN REAL TIME DIRECT FROM VENICE and enjoy the magnificent costumes, festivities and spectacles that make Carnevale in Venice one of the world’s greatest celebrations!

The event will include a 45-minute live stream event followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Event 2

LIVE STREAM EVENT | “Shakespeare’s Made in Italy Theater”
Presented by Dr. Eric Nicholson
With Additional Commentary by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

Teaming up with Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins in the 1950s, the late great Stephen Sondheim brought Romeo and Juliet to Manhattan’s West Side, and made the play matter more urgently than ever. For his part, Shakespeare himself had brought the two young star-crossed lovers and their tragic tale onto the 1590s London stage from various Italian sources. These are well-known stories, but many native English speakers still need to learn that Shakespeare’s theater can be called a “Made in Italy” one. For as that famous opera composer and ardent Shakespeare admirer Giuseppe Verdi understood very well, Italy, Italian literature, and Italian culture are vital for the English playwright’s drama. They are so vital that even his only play set in the England of his own time—The Merry Wives of Windsor—depends on Italian sources and role models to drive its plot and create its comic effects. Fittingly, it inspired Verdi’s final and most musically daring opera, Falstaff.

My illustrated presentation will focus on this farcical Windsor comedy featuring Falstaff the would-be lover, comparing and contrasting it to the more overtly Italian-style Much Ado About Nothing, set in Sicily (fun fact: more than half of Shakespeare’s plays have Italian settings). The use of custom-made masks and live performance samples—with a special guest appearance—will help explain such matters as Shakespeare’s response to Castiglione’s immensely popular Book of the Courtier, his adaptations and transformations of the dynamic “commedia dell’arte,” and his engagement with the key innovation of early modern European professional theater: the emergence of the actress-diva. On this note, I highlight not only Falstaff, the Merry Wives, Benedick, and Beatrice, but another dashing “Capitano” and charismatic “Prima Donna” dynamic duo who inspired Verdi, namely Othello and Desdemona. Thanks to these characters, we also will virtually visit the most admired, glamorous, and indeed mythical of all Italian Renaissance cities, Venice.

The live virtual performance will include a 45-minute performance/lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Event 3

LIVE STREAM EVENT | “Oil Painting in Tuscany”
Presented by Marco Klee Fallani
With Additional Commentary by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

Join celebrated artist Marco Klee Fallani, direct from his studio in the heart of Chianti, Tuscany, for a live stream oil painting class. Learn the art of painting in this rich and suggestive medium from an acclaimed maestro in real time. Art will truly come to life during this extraordinary event.

• Optional studio materials:
  • One or two primed canvas that needs to be gessoed and dry beforehand ready to start (or Oil Painting paper)
  • Rags
  • Jars
  • Paper towels
  • Big gesso brush size 2 or more inches
  • Small, medium, and big oil brushes
  • Turpentine or any medium for oil
• Oil paint list
  • Burnt Siena
  • Raw Amber
  • Black
  • White
  • The 3 primary colors

The live stream will include a 45-minute oil painting demonstration followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Event 4

LIVE STREAM EVENT | “Tortellini Making in Bologna, Italy”
Presented by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

Join us DIRECT FROM A HISTORIC PASTIFICIO, or pasta laboratory, IN BOLOGNA to learn how to make one of Italy’s most famous types of pasta. Discover the traditional recipe for tortellini pasta and stuffing and then learn the historic technique to twist it into its iconic shape IN REAL TIME!

The live stream event will include a 45-minute lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.