Accomplished opera singer Nazzareno De Angelis was born on November 17, 1881, in the city of L’Aquila (population 70,967 in the 2013 Census) which is the capital of the province with the same name in the region of Abruzzo. His first serious exposure to music came in local choirs as a boy soprano. Earning praise for the excellence of his voice, he became a part of the choir of the Giulia Chapel and later the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. He left the Vatican at the age of 13 to begin studying with Dr. Faberi at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. For several years, he studied both baritone and bass parts. Eventually, he settled on singing in the lower bass. He spent his last two years at the Accademia developing his repertoire and performing in recitals.

He returned home to L’Aquila at the age of 21 and made his professional opera debut there at the Comunale in May, 1903, in Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix as the Prefect. One month later, he performed at the same theater in another opera, Le Educante di Sorrento, by Emilio Usiglio. Impressed by his performances, the manager of the Teatro Quirino in Rome engaged De Angelis to play Oroveso in Bellini’s Norma in July, 1903. Later that year, he appeared in two productions in the Teatro Adriano: first, as Il Spettro (The Ghost) in Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet and then as Sparafucile in Verdi’s Rigoletto.

During 1905, De Angelis toured the Netherlands. After the tour, he was invited to all the major opera houses in Italy. He made his debut at La Scala in 1907 and appeared often under the baton of its principal conductor, Arturo Toscanini. He cut his first audio discs in 1907 and 1908 for Fonotipia Records. In 1909, he sang at the Paris Opera as the High Priest in Spontini’s La Vestale. During 1910 and 1911, he sang for the Chicago Grand Opera. For the season of 1911-1912, he sang a series of acclaimed roles at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In 1913, he returned to La Scala to sing the role of Archibaldo in Montemezzi’s L’amore dei Tre Re (The Love of the Three Kings). When Italy entered World War I in May, 1915, the draft eligible 33-year-old bachelor De Angelis moved to the Chicago Opera Association and stayed there until 1920. He then returned to Italy and made a sequence of tours throughout Europe. In 1931, he recorded Boito’s Mefistofele in Milan for the Italian label of Columbia Records. It is the only role that he recorded in its entirety. He retired from the opera stage in 1939 at age 58 and thereafter provided voice lessons to pupils in Milan and Rome, where he died on December 14, 1962, at age 81.

During his 36-year career, De Angelis appeared on stage more than 1,500 times, performing roles in 57 different operas. He was especially celebrated for his powerful portrayal of the title role in Mefistofele which he sang about 500 times between 1906 and 1938. He was also admired for his portrayals of Creon in Cherubini’s Medea and Moses in Mosè in Egitto. Selections from his recorded output, consisting mainly of arias and duets by Verdi, Rossini, Boito, Wagner, Puccini, Meyerbeer, Halévy, Thomas, Gounod, and Weber, have been issued by Preiser Records on two separate CDs, i.e. #89042 and #89507. His complete Mefistofele was re-issued on CD by Naxos Records in 2003 as #8.110273-74.

Sources, both accessed March 14, 2021:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazzareno_De_Angelis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L’Aquila

Julia Paola is in Italy!

Julia Paola, winner of the AMHS Scholarship in 2019 and currently a director on the AMHS board, departed for Torino in 2022 to obtain her Italian citizenship, which she did, in 2023. In November 2023, she passed an Italian fluency exam with a C1 “Advanced/Native” level fluency. She is currently studying at the Università degli Studi di Torino, pursuing a master’s degree in Area and Global Studies for International Cooperation, which she hopes to complete in 2025.

As an AMHS scholarship winner, Julia became an honorary Society member and served as an intern. She has remained involved with the Society and supporting events while living in Italy. Julia is originally from Annapolis and graduated in the Spring of 2022 from the George Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in International Affairs and Political Science with a concentration in International Politics for Europe and Eurasia. She also had a minor in Italian Literature and Language and served as the president of GWU’s Societa‘ di Cultura Italiana from May 2020 until she graduated. Her paternal grandparents are Piemontesi and Calabresi. She has been fortunate to visit her family in Torino and study abroad in Siena. During the 2020-2021 school year, she worked as a teaching aid for Italian virtually at her former high school.

After earning her master’s degree, Julia hopes to remain in Italy or Europe to work with refugees, teach Italian or English, or help others with Italian heritage to pursue their own Italian citizenship. She also hopes to write a guide for how to obtain one’s citizenship by applying directly in Italy as it was an invaluable experience for her and unlocked many potential opportunities.
Auguri Julia!

Dear members and friends:

I am excited to share with you some Society updates as we move into the new year. 

First, you will notice a change in the format of our notiziario. We will be moving away from the every other month format to a rolling format. We will send shorter, more frequent notices to the community closer to when events and programs are happening. What this means is that you will receive more frequent and more timely information. The message from the president will be sent quarterly in the future. 

Secondly, something I have been very interested in doing is reaching out and cooperating more with other Italian organizations in our area. We are successfully fostering our relationship with the Italian Cultural Society and will be sharing some of their events with our members. To highlight two in particular, we will be joining them on a tour of the National Gallery of Art and most excitingly we are being offered discounted admission to their Savoring Italy Abruzzo discussion with food and wine pairing. 

Thirdly, we are interested in soliciting any feedback from members on improvements they would like to see to the  Society. This could be things that we used to do that you would like to see come back or entirely new ideas. We have several new ideas on the horizon that we are working on. We will also soon be looking to amend the bylaws of the Society to make the organization more dynamic and efficient. You will hear more about this process in the future. If there are any ideas regarding the bylaws or other matters, please reach out to me at  president@abruzzomoliseheritagesociety.org.

We also have many interesting virtual and in person events and activities on the horizon. Please visit our events calendar to be in the know and keep your eye on your email for further communications: https://www.abruzzomoliseheritagesociety.org/mission/events/#!calendar.

Best regards,
Chris Renneker 

For the first AMHS program of the new year, members were treated to a very informative and entertaining talk, “Show Me the Money!” at Casa Italiana on January 28, 2024. The speaker, Michael C. Markowitz, is an expert on Roman coins. He told us all about the evolution of Roman coins from lumps of metal in 300 B.C. to gold Imperial coins by 476 A.D. It was a good way to fight off the winter blues, have a fun afternoon of camaraderie, and get a history lesson, all at the same time.

Mike, who gave us a virtual talk last July, was born in New York City. His mother’s side of the family is Italian (Neapolitan), while his father’s ancestors emigrated from Ukraine to Romania. Mike attended the University of Rochester, then the University of California, Irvine. He worked for many years in the aerospace industry in southern California before moving in 1991 to northern Virginia where he is a senior research specialist for the Center for Naval Analyses.

He is a contributing writer on ancient and medieval coins for CoinWeek.com and a member of the American Numismatic Society and the Ancient Numismatic Society of Washington, D.C. He also serves on the vice president of the Fairfax Coin Club. Mike said that one of his most memorable times was spending an afternoon inside the coin vault of the archaeological museum in Siracusa, Sicily.

As Mike explained, coins were a Greek invention that the Romans borrowed. The gold, silver, and bronze coins resembled the Olympic medals. The process of minting the coins involved a hot furnace, so workers wore caps to keep their hair from catching on fire from sparks. Since most Romans could not read, the symbols on the coins were a form of official communication.

During Rome’s long history, Mike noted, billions of coins were struck in thousands of types, and millions of them survive today. Mike advised anyone interested in collecting Roman coins to “buy the book before you buy the coin,” to avoid getting scammed. He displayed on a nearby table some of his collection of coins and books which he referred to during his talk.

Michael C. Markowitz

He explained how coinage in the Roman economy went through cycles of debasement, inflation, and currency reform.

One of the most interesting coins Mike showed during his Power Point presentation was a Sestertius of Emperor Titus, with its detailed depiction of the Colosseum. It sold for a whopping $409,395 in April 2011.

Interestingly, Roman coin designs influenced classic American coinage. For example, the image on the U.S. winged Liberty dime, which was minted from 1916 to 1945, was sometimes confused with the Roman god Mercury who wore a winged helmet. Hence, the American dime with the winged Liberty head on the front was commonly but erroneously called the Mercury dime.
One fascinating historical fact Mike told us about was the Julius Caesar coin, probably the most famous Roman coin, which got him killed. No living person was ever depicted on Roman coins until Julius Caesar had a coin minted with his profile on the front. However, on the back, the coin had the Latin abbreviation DICT PERPETVO (“dictator in perpetuity”).  The coins were minted for less than two months from early February to mid-March, 44 B.C., because Caesar’s brazenness so alarmed some of the conservative senators of the Republic that they assassinated him in the Senate on the Ides of March.

We also learned that one of the principal uses of the coins was to pay the army. Since there were no banks in those days, the payroll master would often put the coins in a terracotta clay pot and bury the clay pot underground in a field or an unused area. Of course, if the payroll master died in battle or from the plague or another disease, the clay pots would remain hidden. So, even recently, these pots filled with coins have been discovered by accident across areas of the former Roman Empire, including Great Britain, Spain, and Italy.

Many thanks to AMHS Secretary Sonny Scafetta for suggesting the speaker, to Maria Marigliano for her technical assistance, to Peter Bell for handling the logistics of organizing the lunch which was catered by A. Litteri, to Julie Finigan Dal Forno for assisting with the raffle, and to all those members who donated prizes and bought tickets.