THE ONES IN OUR LIFE!!!!!

I have been talking about myself in this blog, may be too much, about friendship, colleagues, sometimes about enemies or people who fail us for reasons beyond our reach, may be because we failed them, willfully or not… I hope most of the time with no intention to deceive or betray.

What about the people who really are “the ones in our life?”

How to deal with spouses, children, siblings, parents and family?

How to deal with friends who are in the business and the ones who are not in the business? For the moment I will let that aspect of life aside and talk only about two persons who have been keys in my life for the past 30 years. Two persons who have their own dreams, their own personality, their own successes and failures but who are intimate part of my everyday life, of my growing as a human being and as an artist.

May be later in the coming months, I will address the men and women I met during my already long life and who have been also instrumental in my growth, my understanding of the human heart and the social behavior. These people are always present in my mind, they are part of who I am, and they have helped me by their presence and their trust in me for growing and thinking.

I have been extraordinary lucky to have Diana, a great singer, a great artist, a great woman, as my wife;  I have shared incredible moments of creativity and artistic pleasure with her. We worked together on a magical number of operas we were creating for the first time… Faust, Romeo and Juliette, La Traviata, Butterfly, Tosca, Angelica, Fedora, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mefistofele, Manon Lescaut, Manon, Carmen, Tabarro, and many more.  For each of them we gave together our thoughts, our passion, and our soul.

We discover and confirm in each other during each experience, the great joy of artistry and the wonderful feeling of being TOTALLY ALIVE because of those moments of total abandon, total immersion, and thorough re-creation of ourselves.

In the same time we had the opportunity to know each other more deeply, to understand each other with more compassion, and our love grew stronger year after year.

What may be called sacrifice for most people was not for us but on the contrary became a way of life, a way of knowing, a way of becoming one.

For more than twenty years, we travelled together all over the world to work and to try to be the absolute best … sometimes in difficult situations…but most of the time leaving Italy, or France, or South America

or Germany with incredible memories, and many fabulous moments we shared…

Of course, the business of Opera sometimes separated us for months and year after year, and that was sometimes difficult, but always we brought with us the smile of the other, the knowledge of the other, the hope that this experience will enrich our relationship even more when we were finally together again.

The great artist, the great singer, the great woman is now a great teacher who is giving back to others what we have acquired together and that again feels me with joy, pride, tenderness and also with the feeling of how lucky have been 33 years ago to accept to direct dialogues in Boston for a production of Faust, my first contact with opera, and to meet the singer called Diana Soviero who was singing Marguerite.

Diana, thank you

I have been extraordinary lucky to have as a daughter, Vanessa, an extraordinary young woman, an artist in her own way, a leader, a magical brain.

I have shared with her for 10 years now, in probably the last adventure of my life, a management company.

Certainly it will not be the last adventure of her life.

I have been accustomed all my life, sometimes unhappily, to always having to be in charge, to be always the boss, to be always the one who believes (often wrongly) that he is making the right decisions about everything… As a young man trying to succeed or even to survive, as a director, as the general director of a company, I have been in charge of my destiny and most of the time of that of others.

Vanessa was always special, already as a child she knew what she wanted…she learned how to play the piano in a few months, she learned how to be on a horse in a few hours, she wanted to study film production and she did, and she was able to do everything she wanted to achieve. 

She was as a child, as a teenager, the one who was always in charge, the one who instinctively KNEW.

She became as an adult a young woman who fills me with admiration, with love, sometimes with incredulity that this amazing person is of my blood.

She learned about the opera business at an incredible speed and I can say without any hesitation that she knows about the repertoire, the intricate functioning of the business, more than I do. She became in a very little time the helm of our ship, the center of our operations, the engine of this new, incredible, difficult adventure in my life.

I can go on with all my activities, directing, management, writing the next novel, and all my dreams because a young woman called Vanessa, my daughter, is in charge of the new adventure and still supporting me, caring for me BUT always remaining herself, letting me know when I am wrong, when I am pushing, when I am too much MYSELF.

Thank you Vanessa.

The world is not easy for people who want a career.

How can I manage a family and a career?

How can I express myself as an artist when I have my young children who need my attention?

How can I avoid competing with my spouse who is also in the same business?

How can I deal with loneliness when I am away on a job?

How can I dismiss temptations when away alone?

How can I explain to my family my need to do it?

How can I be a responsible human being in charge of a family financially and…?

How can I look at myself in the mirror when nothing is happening in my career?

How can I justify to the world around me that I am not yet a STAR?

How…?

How…?

All these questions have to be asked, thought through, and dealt with.

Not an easy task!!!!

Should I bring my family when I work somewhere? I know most of companies do not like that even if they act like they do, but what choice do I have.

Should I refuse work when my family needs me at that time? But how can I have a career if I do that, the competition is already incredible.

Until when should I try to really make it in the profession I want? And may be waste so many important years of my life with the ones I love.

Should I? Why? How? Until when?

Do I have answers to all this? Unfortunately no… each case is unique, each personality has to deal with it, and there is no recipe, no rules, and no formula. WE have to know what is the best for us, WE have to think, feel and make CHOICES about what is REALLY important.

Life, society, relationship, has changed drastically in the last 15 years, and will continue to change even faster…

To continue to dream the possible dream is correct but we need the support, the understanding, the sharing, the common sacrifice of the ones in our life…without it, the dream will become an impossible dream and something as to change or we have to go in another direction.

I wish to all of you a Diana and a Vanessa.