arts & entertainment
Dougal Macdonald Tarzan swings back into action
Celebrating Banjo’s day Helen Musa arts in the city
LATERAL-thinking Robert Stephens, of Aarwun Gallery, has Max Cullen speaking and performing at the opening night of Ted Lewis’ exhibition of paintings, “In the Footsteps of Banjo Paterson”. It runs at the Federation Square gallery from 6pm on September 19 to October 14 and marks the 150th anniversary of Paterson’s birth. THE Australia Cuba Friendship Society ACT is throwing one of its famous Cuban extravaganza nights in St James Church’s Hall, Curtin, from 6.30pm on Saturday, September 27. DJ Mateo will host an evening of live Cuban music with Latin dances, Cuban beer and rum, wines from South America, Latin American food and pastries and soft drinks. Proceeds will go towards a healthcare centre in Cuba. No bookings.
Crooner’s story to open festival By Helen Musa “FROM Italy with passion” is this year’s slogan for the Italian Film Festival; an apt tag for a festival opening with a biopic about a Calabrian-Belgian crooner and ending with Sophia Loren in “Marriage Italian Style”. When I talk to 76-year-old singer, composer, accordionist and grandfather Rocco Granata by phone to Antwerp, I’m already humming his most famous song, which goes “Marina, Marina, Marina” and has been covered by Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong and most recently, André Rieu. Festival opener “Marina” is based on Granata’s autobiography and stars heartthrob Matteo Simoni. During 1948 in a Calabrian village,
Musician Rocco Granata… “I started to learn music in Italy when I was six years old and papa paid for that.” young Rocco sees his father leave for the mines in Belgium to support his family. It’s a classic emigration story, with the family following and being treated unkindly by some Belgians who stereotyped Italians as a lower form of life.
“Marina,” he says, is very up to date “because now there is a new problem with all the people coming to Europe from Africa… it is exactly the same as if it was 50 or 60 years ago and it’s like being an African American now”. But music, talent and love triumph in this feel-good film. “I started to learn music in Italy when I was six years old and papa paid for that,” Granata says. “When we followed him to Belgium and I bought an accordion and papa saw that I wanted to make music my life, he was not happy. “But strong water goes to the sea, so I played and I played and I played.” Most of the film is true, but two scenes worry Granata – one where he and his Belgian girlfriend bathe nude and another in which he is unjustly accused of raping her. He says: “Italian boys, we like women, but we respect women, so when the director told me what he wanted, I told
him: ‘I don’t like it, don’t do it’... but he said young people today expect that kind of thing.” Granata’s been a star since 1959 when he sold a million records in Germany. “Thank God,” he says, “or thank Buddha, or thank Jehovah or thank Allah… that guy up there was on my side.” He’s been heaped with national honours in Belgium, performed in Carnegie Hall and travelled everywhere, even to Brisbane. He’s off to Rome and is preparing a new album. Best of all, the film is being shown to Belgian school kids, the grandchildren of those mine workers. And did he eventually make his father Salvatore proud of him? Well, yes, he says, “but with Italian fathers, you won’t hear it from their mouths, you have to look an Italian father in the eyes to know.” Italian Film Festival, Palace Electric Cinemas, September 23-October 15. Bookings to palacecinemas.com.au/ cinemas/electric/ or 6222 4900.
CANBERRA REP’s next show will be Peter Shaffer’s ever-intriguing play “Equus”, with barb barnett in her first directorial role there. Ian Croker, who previously played the psychiatrist Dysart, is designing the set and now plays the father, Frank Strang, while Ben Hardy, well-known as a child actor in the past, now plays the disturbed son, Alan Strang. Theatre 3, September 26-October 11, bookings to 6257 1950 or canberrarep.org.au THE Gospel Folk Choir will perform at the next free concert at the High Court, 1pm, Sunday, September 21. The choir, led by Brian Triglone, gives concerts and performs at public events such as citizenship ceremonies and Floriade. ART Song Canberra’s next concert will be by noted soprano Merlyn Quaife, with baritone Erwin Belakowitsch and Stephen Delaney on piano. They will perform “La Dolce Vita – Hugo Wolf’s Italian Songbook” in the Wesley Music Centre, 3pm, on Sunday, September 21. Tickets only at the door. JUDITH Peterson’s “Couples Don’t Talk” is five plays each with a different slant on relationships. Domenic Mico directs and as well as an original song by Frank and Judith Peterson there’s some Frank Zappia (not Zappa) music. Part of ticket sales will go to Menslink. At Smiths Alternative, Civic, September 26-27 and October 3-4, bookings to trybooking.com/96483 OPERA Australia’s artistic director Lyndon Terracini has put the cat among the pigeons by announcing a production of Cole Porter’s musical “Anything Goes” for 2015, using non-opera principals. We know of at least two Canberrans who have withdrawn their subscription in protest!
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Matteo Simoni stars as Rocco Granata in “Marina”.
capo.org.au/auctions/auction-tickets/ CityNews September 18-24, 2014 21