Rose Solari

Poet, author, and actor Rose Solari joins Folger Consort for Virtuosos of Violin and Verse (Nov 7-9), a performance across the centuries in words and music. Below, she shares stories from her Italian-American family background and reflects on the process of collaborating with Folger Consort Artistic Directors Robert Eisenstein and Christopher Kendall. She also discusses the inspiration behind poems she wrote in response to the life and work of two historical figures who are central to the concert’s program: 16th-century Italian poet Torquato Tasso and 17th-century Venetian composer and singer Barbara Strozzi.

It was Teri Cross Davis, former Folger Poetry Program Manager and O.B. Hardison Series Curator, who suggested that I collaborate with the Folger Consort on this series of performances, and so I start by thanking her for this incredible opportunity. As Teri chose me, in part, due to my Italian-American heritage and family background in the arts, a bit of my own story may help illuminate how I approached this collaboration.

My parents, both the children of Italian immigrants, brought and taught the arts of music and poetry in our home. My mother, Maria Louisa Verdi, was certain her family was related to the great opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, though that has never been proved. But more importantly, she was a wonderful amateur pianist and singer with an unerring ear. In addition to regularly playing and singing classic jazz numbers, show tunes, and Italian songs, she introduced her children to opera. I have sweet memories of lying on the floor beside our old Sears console record player, the libretto for La Traviata or Lucia di Lammermoor spread out before me as I followed each word. Though we could rarely afford live performances, the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts were as sacred in our house as Mass on Sunday.

While my mother gave us music, my father, Joseph Vincent Solari, provided poetry and plenty of it. A writer of poems and stories himself, he had a deep love for literature, particularly Shakespeare and the British Romantic poets. He knew great swaths of poetry from memory, could pull from a mental library of whatever Keats, Shelley, or Shakespeare poem might suit the moment, and consistently and lovingly encouraged me to write poems of my own. I only wish that my late parents could be here for these performances.

It was Robert Eisenstein’s idea that we begin with some sort of invocation to the gods. Invocations, in which the writer appeals to a muse or a god for inspiration, have a long and ancient tradition, going back at least to the opening of Homer’s Odyssey, and I have opened each of my three poetry collections with some form of one. Here, I chose to invoke Calliope, muse of music and lyric poetry, to bless us and feed our creative fire. I believe an invocation should be short and sharp, and appeal to the audience as well as the performers. After all, what is poetry, what is music, without those who hear and understand it?

In my research for this program, there were two figures whose life stories particularly interested and moved me. One was the 16th-century Italian poet Torquato Tasso, a prodigy who achieved great patronage and fame in his lifetime. Yet his life story seemed proof to me that success does not equate to happiness. His mental and emotional struggles make for heartbreaking reading. Thinking on this contrast between professional success and private pain, I arrived at “Two Sides, For Tasso,” where this schism is enacted in the metaphor of a piece of embroidered cloth.

The 17th-century Venetian composer and singer Barbara Strozzi had a very different sort of life. The most prolific composer of her era, she never achieved the patronage she sought for her work, despite having helped invent the cantata form. Little is known about her life, but I was fascinated by what is known. In a move spectacularly rare for her time, she managed to avoid both the convent and marriage, the latter despite having four children. She was a woman of passion, and we can hear it in her work. And she had the support of her father, the librettist Giulio Strozzi, in her musical career. I identified with her struggles, her unwavering commitment to her art, her connection to her father, and her deep love of Venice, a city I adore. I found myself fantasizing about dropping back to the Venice of her era so that I could meet her. My “Letters to Barbara” grew out of that.

Just as Robert suggested our opening, it was Christopher Kendall who suggested that our closing poem have some kind of mention of how art can offer us hope in dark times. It is my wish that “A Final Blessing” may do just that, for performers and audience alike.