An ambitious woman. Married to an influential and ambitious man. She has many political echos in our own time – on both sides of the aisle, as we say here in the capital of the free world. (Although many of the woman of whom she reminds me are prominent in our own time, I love
Read MorePosts Categorized: Inspector
INSPECTING: Meet the Mayor
Signor Fazzobaldi is the Mayor of Santa Schifezza. (loosely translated: filthy disgusting town) Lucky guy. Actually, it has turned into a pretty good gig. By the time we meet him, Fazzobaldi is pretty happy with the mix of bribery, graft, fraud and racketeering that makes up his life. He must have taken this backwater town
Read MoreThe Inspector, Scene 5: Municipal Mayoral Day!
In the village square, after the Santa Schifezza anthem is mangled, the Mayor enters and announces he will be accepting a position in Rome and that their daughter is engaged to The Inspector. Bobachina and Bobachina stumble on with startling news. They have opened and read Tancredi’s letter to his mother. He is not an
Read MoreThe Inspector, Scene 4: Ciao Mamma, Ciao Pappa
Municipal Mayoral Day, the next morning. The Mayor and Sarelda are both now convinced that Tancredi will offer the Mayor an important post in the new regime. But, just to secure the deal, they ask Beatrice to “be friendly” to Tancredi, a notion that inexplicably offends their daughter. As the Mayor and Sarelda prepare for
Read MoreThe Inspector, Scene 3: Flirtation, Celebration, Suspicion
At Villa Corrizone, the Mayor’s wife Sarelda prepares for “Inspector” Tancredi’s visit and dresses down her daughter Beatrice (at left, literally trapped in Santa Schifezza) for not dressing up for him. Beatrice, silly thing, is more concerned about a certain dictator’s rise in Italy. Cosimo enters ahead of Tancredi, and Sarelda extracts information from him,
Read MoreThe Inspector, Scene 2: White Lies
At the hotel, Cosimo and Tancredi also bemoan their dreary existence in Santa Schifezza and the circumstances that have stranded them there, lira-less, on their way to Palermo. A knock at the door. The Mayor enters. Tension. Cosimo and Tancredi are terrified of the Mayor because they believe he’s there to arrest them for not
Read MoreThe Inspector, Scene 1: Damage Control
It’s a tough morning for the Mayor of Santa Schifezza. The town anthem is being rehearsed in preparation for tomorrow’s Municipal Mayoral Day—a day he instituted in honor of himself—and it sounds awful. But worse, far worse, he learns that an inspector from Rome may soon be visiting his town, incognito, undermining the very way
Read MoreWelcome to Santa Schifezza
*Santa Schifezza: a fictional, small town that would be near Palermo if it existed. Some parts of Sicily are known for their visual splendor, verdant vineyards on cliffs overlooking an azure Mediterranean or quaint fishing villages charmed by Greek, Roman, Moorish and/or Norman architecture. This is not one of those parts. SS is dusty. SS
Read MoreBut Before the Summer…
Yes, we have a fabulous summer season on tap. But this spring has its own charms, in the form of the world premiere of The Inspector – a new comedy from John Musto & Mark Campbell – and a rare DC-area recital appearance by mezzo-soprano and Metropolitan opera artist Kate Lindsey (WTOC 2005, 2006). The
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