magical - domenicomonteforte.com

San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com | Saturday, July 21, 2012 |
E3
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Painter depicts inner landscape
Tuscany from page E1
“The Wait,” an oil
painting by Domenico
Monteforte, is among
the works on display at
his show at the Italian
Cultural Institute in San
Francisco. “In Tuscany
the colors are much
softer because the light
is different,” the artist,
right, says.
sense of empatia, or empathy, and discovered they’d
grown up a few miles
apart.
In November, Monteforte accepted Luisotti’s
invitation to visit San
Francisco, where he was
introduced to Fabrizio
Marcelli, then consul
general of Italy, who asked
the painter to put together
an exhibition. Eighty
percent of the paintings at
the Italian Cultural Institute were done specifically for the current show.
from Forte dei Marmi,
where Monteforte grew
up. He still has a studio
there and a larger one not
far away in Camaiore,
where he now lives.
Reserved, unlike work
“I met Domenico as a
human being and then got
to know the artist. I didn’t
expect him to paint like
this. He is a quiet and
introverted person, while
his painting is the other
way, very bright and colorful,” said Marcelli, who
returned to Rome in June
when his four-year appointment ended.
Hearing this, Monteforte laughed. “I am
reserved but extroverted,” he said. “It takes me a
while to enter a relationship. I’m an observer
before expressing myself.”
In the exhibition’s
catalog, Marcelli wrote:
“Monteforte’s paintings
create a sense of calm and
the desire to appreciate
once again what we have
lost by living in cities:
nature in its infinite seasonal variations.”
Three of his paintings
are in the collection of the
Italian Senate in Rome,
‘Not postcards’
“Domenico’s paintings
don’t speak about the
Tuscany that we know,”
Luisotti said. “They are
not postcards. They are
an emotional place. This
landscape doesn’t exist. It
is the Tuscany he has
inside. It’s true but not
real.”
Although Monteforte
also has painted in Germany, France and Sicily,
he never tires of Tuscany.
“Depending on the
region, colors change
completely,” he said. “In
Sicily, for example, the
blues and yellows are very
violent, very pure, very
alive. In Tuscany the
colors are much softer
because the light is different. It’s a type of landscape that’s almost religious, with an air of the
sacred. It makes you think
of meditating.”
Monteforte would like
to spend a few months
painting in San Francisco.
“It’s always windy
From page E2
What “Postcard” does
boast is a beguilingly
varied score that ranges
freely across snippets of
pop balladry, Wagnerian
pastiche, operetta and
more, as well as providing a series of opportunities for each singer to
step into the spotlight
and deliver a solo. And
the Merolini took the
occasion to show off
their artistic prowess,
one after another, in a
bravura display of eloquence and adaptability.
Tenor AJ Glueckert,
as the painter Mr. Owen, transcended the
role’s dramatic limitations (furrowed brow,
air of oversensitive suffering) to unleash a
soaring and rather
touching final aria of
liberation, graced by
polished high notes and
limber phrasing.
“SEXY, SMART AND
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-Avi Offer, The NYC Movie Guru
Photos by Federico Neri
and another was donated
to Pope Benedict XVI
during a public audience
in 2007. His work has
been exhibited in London,
Madrid, New York, Milan
and elsewhere. He enjoys
visiting cities but is always relieved to return to
his studio, where he cooks
to relax, smokes one cigar
a day and listens to music
as he paints, often well
into the night.
“Domenico inspires
me,” Luisotti said. “And I
Mezzo-soprano Carolyn Sproule was a soignee torch singer in a
mysterious foreign
tongue, and soprano
Aviva Fortunata gave a
heartfelt and perfectly
lovely reminiscence of a
bygone romance.
Andrew Stenson
brought a warm-toned,
fluid tenor to his serenade to a suitcase, and
baritone Joseph Lattanzi, as a shoe salesman,
combined robust vocalism, deft soft-shoe skills
and plenty of charisma.
Soprano Suzanne Rigden gave a zesty, piquant performance as
an operetta singer, and
bass-baritone Matthew
Scollin was a witty,
demonic puppet master.
Conductor Mark
Morash, leading a nimble eight-member orchestra, presided over
the performance with
dexterous assurance.
inspire him. Artists need
to meet other artists,
because we are not in the
forest alone. When I conduct, all the time I speak
about colors. I never say
notes. What is interesting
is to find the right colors
inside the score, the music. Domenico does the
same thing in his paintings. He tries to find out
the color of the emotions.”
Luisotti is from Corsanico, in the province of
Lucca, just a few miles
Director Peter Kazaras’
staging, though unable
to give the piece much
shape, did pepper the
evening with enough
beguiling theatrical bonbons — sudden blackouts, waltzes, balloon
animals — to hold the
audience’s attention.
WOODY ALLEN
ALEC BALDWIN
ROBERTO BENIGNI
PENÉLOPE CRUZ
Joshua Kosman is The
San Francisco Chronicle’s
music critic. E-mail:
[email protected]
there’s a spirit of freedom.”
Patricia Yollin is a freelance
writer and editor. E-mail:
datebookletters@
sfchronicle.com
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