Sal's Grandmother - Stage Name Brunetta

Sal's Grandmother, Amelia Cantalupo Ferrari was a music hall singer in Italy and specialized in declamations and recitations from famous plays and poetry.  She came to San Francisco in 1925 and often appeared at Fugazi Hall in North Beach.

Sal's grandfather Gennarino Cantalupo was a lyricist and pamphleteer, denizen of the street scene in Naples.  He died during the Influenza epidemic of 1920. He liked the nickname of Gennarino Bianchi. 

The youtube video (above) is of Montserrat Caballe doing an excerpt from the opera Adriana Lecouvreur.  In the opera she plays a famous stage actress and singer.  In this piece she is doing a recitation from Racine's Phaedra.  The dramatic reading serves the double purpose of showing off her technique and incidentally insulting a woman at the party setting all sorts of craziness in motion.  This moment reminded me of Sal's grandmother and her dramatic technique.  It was she who got Sal involved in the ragazzi/boys onstage in various operas such as La Boheme and Carmen.