If I haven't sent out a newsletter on Dec 13th -Santa Lucia, il giorno più corto che ci sia, "the shortest day that there is", as an Italian proverb goes, for it used to coincide with the Winter Solstice - after all the talking we've been doing about her (disguised as Mimì) recently,

it is because I have spent it crying my lumi out for the joy (as witnessed by the video above, shot for my Instagram stories),

for on that very day I got confirmed for my first Conservatory teaching job, namely in Perugia.

Throughout this entire academic year, there I'll be the sole holder of the teaching of

"Poesia per Musica e Drammaturgia Musicale"

-a matter I am sort of... MADE OF, possibly, even more than I am an expert of it-

and have my students bathe with me in the sacred mysteries of quelle cose che han nome Poesìa, bugìa, malìa, Lucìa.

(She's real, guys, and listening to us, I'm telling you. She was a girl from Syracuse who had her eyes torn off her face for she refused to marry someone she didn't love: a freakin' Opera heroine.)

Last Wednesday and Thursday, Dec 21st and 22nd, I had my first official lessons, during which I got to celebrate both the Solstice and the Maestro's birthday. 

This all began, like many magic stories, in New York City: a place where, after a short trip, I decided to stay for a while because I fell in love with someone who lived there (an Italian guy, who ended up marrying/having kids with somebody else) at a time when I began feeding myself by feeding singers Italian libretti syllable by syllable.

Then at some point I decided to come back to Italy because during one of my VISA-expiration-trips I had fallen in love with somebody else who lived here (and without whom, by the time I got my first O-1, I realised I couldn't live: we were in fact supposed to get married a couple of years ago, but that never happened, either).

The idea of publishing videos sprouted from the need to be in touch with him whenever he had a crisis and stopped talking to me for weeks (he later turned out to be an undiagnosed Asperger - as I likely am myself, by the way: I'll keep you posted if I ever find out, but have a strong feeling about it).

This below is not one of the oldest videos I've made, but to this day is definitely one of the most successful, because, possibly, the most helpful:

My point being: there is no such thing as a waste of love.

People may come and go; love, if real, is forever.

As far as I am concerned, from now on, what I do

-here, online, in Perugia, in Martina Franca, in my mind, in my heart, on every single day I warm up on any of the 7 magic volumes of the circle-

is to be looked at as written in the stars.

And job of the stars is to go round and round and round, making everything go round with them, without EVER stopping.

A-mor is nothing but a stop (mora, mors, mortis, morte: pause, suspension) with a denial on top, a Greek alfa privativo:

a-mor is a denial of death.

a-mor makes life death-deprived.

a-mor is something that just keeps going,

no matter what.

A-mor is something you decide, hence you make happen and succeed at - period.

You win every single time you love. 

MAKE. LOVE. YOUR. GOAL.

Buon Natale a Tutti. 

La Maestra

“extremely good at this” (Graham Vick)

"a fantastic coach, extremely helpful for young singers as well as experienced ones" (Barbara Hannigan)

“bringing the language, the music and the characters to life” (Paul Nilon)

“the foundation of a role” (Jennifer Rowley)

“magic conjunction of vocal technique, musical interpretation and building of the character: a radical rethink of the act of singing” (Anna Piroli)

“her incredible breadth of knowledge makes me feel entirely prepared” (Heather Lowe)

“magic effect on the voice and our art form” (Jessica Harper)

“opened up my voice, and a world” (Giulia Zaniboni)

“180° turn in my work with the singers” (Theophilos Lambrianidis)

"like four professionals in one" (Yiselle Blum)

“invaluable: she’ll make a role really succeed on stage” (Ariadne Greif)

“potentially life-changing” (Amy Payne)

“brings life to operatic drama” (Maria Sanner)

“enlightening, professionally and humanly” (Clara La Licata)

“thoroughly prepared and professional” (Marie Kuijken)

“truly unique method and insights” (Jasmine Law)

“a lingual and linguistic genius” (Peter Tantsits)

“entirely devoted to the art of Opera singing” (Ida Falk Winland)

“incredibly informed, consistent, knowledgeable” (Michael Corvino)

“carrying the torch of finest Italian Opera” (Nathaniel Kondrat)

“a crucial basis for all the singers” (David Cowan)

“a cure and a respect of the Music and the words’ musicality that can be learnt so deeply nowhere else in the world” (Matilde Bianchi)