To say I was inspired would be like saying landing on the moon for the first time was just another day at the office. I was moved beyond words. A myriad of feelings seeped out of my heart, my soul, bringing tears to my eyes and standing the hairs on my arms on edge. Right brain met left brain as creative thought vied for position against logic and reason and I had no capacity to articulate that which I could only respond to with raw emotion.

Young people; engaged, enthused, and excited; curious and creative; intelligent, inquisitive, interested, and inspired; and above all, filled with such enormous and unlimited talent, promise, and potential.

True to their age they were energetic, boisterous even, and had the devilish twinkles in their eyes that only comes with youth. Reigning them in, the adults around them; teachers, mentors and coaches; parental figures; surrogate big sisters and big brothers; guiding, inspiring and motivating these young people to reach their full creative potential.

A firm hand to the back to reel in unruly teenage transgressions. A hug and a kiss to soften the blow of raging adolescent hormones. The stern yet loving call of ragazzi filling the classrooms, herding the wayward teens back to their tasks.

At the helm, Gabriele Montagano, a man who has the wisdom of a 100 year old sage, yet somehow, has never lost his spark and still maintains the energy level of a 20 year old. His capacity to be all things, to all people, at all times. Consoler to the student in emotional distress. Proud father of the student who just achieved an important milestone. Administrator of all of the school’s daily operations, its staff, its budget. Mediator and problem solver, dealing with one crisis after the next. Stroking bruised egos and assuaging parental concerns. And all the while, playing host to myself and Ann, leading us through his hallowed halls with the charm and grace of a Lipizzaner Stallion.

His halls, the halls of the artists and visionaries that came before. A pedigree of artists and intellectuals like Prince Gaetano Filangieri and the painter Demetrio Salazar who founded the school as the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in 1878, and Domenico Morelli and Filippo Palizzi, two extremely important artists of the time who played an important role in the school’s organization.

Becoming a public institute after WWII, the school of the past has evolved with the times while maintaining its purpose and atmosphere. Here, there are no antiseptic corridors lined with metal lockers; no fluorescent lights casting a pallid hue. No windows looking out on a dusty sports field or a line of trailers hastily erected to cope with overflowing classrooms. Instead, we basked in the light from 15 foot doors and looked out to the city, the bay, and Vesuvius beyond. We marveled at Greek and Roman statues looking down at us from niches carved into the walls and craned our necks to follow an ancient winding staircase to the classrooms above.

Today, Mauro distributes his gloves internationally, including to France, Germany, and the United States. Many of his gloves have appeared in magazines and the President of Italy even visited his company, writing him a thank you letter.

What’s the secret to Mauro’s success? Every one of his gloves are handmade by expert craftsmen. His employees still use the non-electric Singer sewing machines from the early 1900′s, they cut the leather by hand, and use natural light to distinguish color shades.

Mauro buys his leather from several Middle Eastern countries through intermediaries. From there, the leather goes to a company outside Naples that separates the skin from the wool in large vats filled with water and calcium. The skin goes into a tanning machine, which heats the material for several hours along with vegetable oil and chrome. The leather is then dyed various colors. Mauro takes this prepared leather to make his gloves.

Fifteen people work at the top floor of his palazzo. First, the leather is stretched, being careful to make sure the stretch of the leather will be vertical rather than horizontal. The material is then carefully cut and pounded so that the impression for the fingers becomes clear.

At this point, Mauro has about fifty different elderly women throughout the city who receive the cut leather and sew the gloves together. Many of these women once worked for the glove shops and now continue their craft from home. They return the gloves to Mauro, who gives it to his employees inside the palazzo. They use scraps of leather from the cutting room to fill in the gaps between the fingers. One of these women has worked in Mauro’s company since she was eighteen – she is now eighty years old.

The gloves then go on to be lined with cashmere, silk, or other materials. Mauro explains that the only difference between the way he makes gloves and the way his grandfather made them is that his grandfather used one stitch to marry the lining and the leather together, but Mauro uses glue. The lining and leather are then sewn together at the cuff – usually carried out once again by the elderly ladies in the city. The gloves often come and go from this palazzo twenty-four times before they are ready.

At the very end of the process, every glove is put on a hot broiler that looks like a metal hand. Then it’s placed between two slabs of marble for several hours in order to make it flat. Mauro checks every glove individually before it’s ready to be sent to stores.

Mauro gives tours by appointment. You can visit him at Via Stella 12, Napoli, call him at 081 299 041, email him at omegant@tin.it or find him on Facebook

Author of the Espresso Break, the blog and the book, and the Naples (Napoli) Travel Information Guide, Barbara Zaragoza is off on new projects and adventures. Her love of Naples however has not dimmed, and she has generously willed her Naples stories to live on in the Napoli Unplugged pages.

Barbara Zaragoza is a freelance writer. She holds an A.M. degree from Harvard University in European History and enjoys writing about history, local cuisine, myth, archeology, politics and more. She has published non-fiction as well as fiction for print and on-line outlets. Find out more about Barbara here.

Read more of Barbara’s articles on Napoli Unplugged.

Dalisi introduces himself with a jovial smile and immediately offers to give a tour of his artwork. “They’re doing the tango,” he chuckles, holding up two tin pots with pointy noses, hats and arms soldered together.

Born in 1931, Dalisi grew up in Italy during World War II when often he had nothing more than potato peels to eat. While still a child, he moved with his family to Naples from the small town of Potenza, southeast of the city. His father, a postman who loved working with his hands as a hobby, encouraged his son to do the same, and to study. Dalisi enrolled in the University of Naples department of architecture, earned a degree, and by 1969 he became a tenured professor there.

He found teaching very taxing and, believing that art should be for everyone, he embarked upon an experiment. In 1971 he set up workshops for children in the most impoverished district of Naples, the Rione Traiano. On his first day with the children, he brought along wooden sticks and strings. He told the children to design whatever they liked. They didn’t question him, but instead began to work without any inhibitions. From these simple materials, the children created complex geometrical designs that, Dalisi says, could have been signed by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, or Marc Chagall.

In 1979 the household goods company Alessi asked him to create a new design for the Neapolitan Flip-Over coffee pot. Because the pot was made of tin, he began visiting countless tinsmiths and junk dealers in Naples. The pot reminded Dalisi of the 18th century Neapolitan theater movement’s opera buffa, which depicted common people in everyday situations. Often a pulcinella, a joker wearing a mask, came into the scene and overturned things. Dalisi began to sketch tin pots with stick arms and stick legs, forming characters such as vestal virgins, traffic cops and the pulcinella-like comedian.

Dalisi handed over his sketches to a tinsmith, Don Vincenzo, who took the designs and soldered the features onto the pots. Dalisi never met the old Neapolitan recluse, communicating with him only through a nephew, but together they created more than two hundred prototypes and sent them off to Alessi.

Alessi felt some frustration with the architect’s endless experiments but stuck with Dalisi. Its loyalty paid off: in 1982 he won the premier industrial design award in Italy – the Golden Compass – for his new rendition of the pot. MOMA – the Museum of Modern Art in New York City – exhibited Dalisi’s tin pots and they soon became part of the private collections of museums in Paris, Montreal, Milan and Denver, Colorado.

Today Dalisi, a retired professor emeritus, spends most of his time at his studio surrounded by artists and gallery directors. Since the 1990s he has devoted himself mostly to sculpture, using simple materials such as brass and copper. In one doorway, a female statue clasps her hands to her chest, her glassy eye welcoming people into the room. Strutting out in the middle, a Don Quixote holds a shield. Dalisi ambles to a table where a medieval farmer on a horse pulls shearing implements. “Horses used to be an important part of medieval Neapolitan culture,” he says.

Dalisi explains that modern art flourishes in Naples today. He not only cooperates with many other contemporary artists, but also uses the city’s history for his ideas. He lifts up a metal mask with a horse-like face, bulging golden eyes and mischievous smile, then explains that these masks were inspired by the theater masks of ancient Greece and Rome.

Accessible and friendly, Dalisi shows his studio to anyone who calls and makes an appointment.

Getting There: Studio Dalisi is at Calata San Francesco 59, Naples. Call at 081 681 405, or e-mail at studiodalisi@libero.it.

Here’s my interview with him (in Italian):

Author of the Espresso Break, the blog and the book, and the Naples (Napoli) Travel Information Guide, Barbara Zaragoza is off on new projects and adventures. Her love of Naples however has not dimmed, and she has generously willed her Naples stories to live on in the Napoli Unplugged pages.

Barbara Zaragoza is a freelance writer. She holds an A.M. degree from Harvard University in European History and enjoys writing about history, local cuisine, myth, archeology, politics and more. She has published non-fiction as well as fiction for print and on-line outlets. Find out more about Barbara here.

Read more of Barbara’s articles on Napoli Unplugged.

I’ve spent several different years of my life living, studying, working, and traveling widely in Italy. For no apparent reason, I had never explored Naples. Happily, that grand oversight was erased a year ago when my husband and I went back to Italy after a long hiatus and in the middle of our nostalgia tour, were offered the ultimate golden opportunity to walk Naples with a dear friend who is Neapolitan.

Walking up Via San Gregorio Armeno as it opens into Piazza San Gaetano, we followed the sound of heavy guitar strumming and a clear deliberate voice belting out a lover’s lament. I remained transfixed by the scene. I had always loved Canzone Napoletana and had amassed an extensive collection of records and sheet music over my years in Italy. I assumed this vast and varied romantic and hauntingly beautiful music was the stuff of recordings.

Not so.

Standing in front of me that early afternoon was one of Naples last remaining posteggiatori, or public singers, the remnant of a Neapolitan tradition going back several hundred years. He’s Alfredo Imparato and when he isn’t working as a custodian in a middle school in Posillipo, he’s on the streets of the city belting out an endless string of Neapolitan songs accompanied only by his own guitar strumming. I bought his two home-made CD’s and we made our way up the Via dei Tribunali, not fully realizing whom we had just encountered.

When I returned home to San Francisco, I began to listen to Alfredo’s unvarnished versions of classic love songs by Nicolardi, De Curtis, Di Giacomo and many of the other Neapolitan greats, and high-spirited comic songs by Viviani and Cioffi, all from the early 20th century. I realised I had to get to know this man.

Through some sleuthing on Facebook, I tracked down his daughter and began corresponding with Alfredo by e-mail. (Truth be told, his daughter writes for him.) He told me about his many jobs over the years and about his wife and three daughters, but what resonated through our correspondence most was his passion for Neapolitan music and playing and singing in public. The more I saw him in the context of Neapolitan life, the more I fantasized about returning to Naples to experience his world for myself. My fantasy turned to reality when we returned to Naples last March and spent two weeks hanging out with Alfredo while he sang and visiting with him and his family in his home.

Alfredo’s favorite places to hold court are on Via Port’Alba in front of the Amodio Bookstore, on Via Chiaia in the wide area below Teatro Sannazaro, and in the place where I met him a year ago, Piazza San Gaetano.

If you happen by when he’s holding court with his voice and guitar, his presence will immediately draw you in. There might be a crowd of school kids around him begging him to lead them while they all belt out “‘O Sarracino” , one of their favourite anthems, or he might be taking a request from young lovers to sing them the tearjerker, “Carmela”.

If you stay for a couple of songs he’ll chat you up; and during your stay, you’ll enjoy the other show that goes on around him, the Napoletani strolling by and suddenly stopping in their tracks to sing along. They soon realize that he is keeping their spectacular musical treasure alive with the same passion as the Posteggiatori of a hundred years ago.

Kathy Sherak directs the English language program at San Francisco State University. She has lived and traveled extensively in Italy. She spent two weeks exploring Naples in 2011 and will return this spring for more Neapolitan adventures.

Directing William Walton’s Facade for her debut performance at the San Carlo followed by a series of concerts dedicated to Mozart, it was a first for her city, her theater, and for her.

Just two years later, Maestra Stefania Rinaldi returned to the San Carlo taking her place in front of another group of talented musicians. One of the founders of the theater’s Children’s Choir, the Coro di Voci Bianche del Teatro di San Carlo, Stefania has been its faithful director since its inception in 2004.

Surrounded by her young charges, one need only look at Stefania to see her passion. In a word, she simply glows. The love and dedication she has for her music, her vocation and the children she teaches and mentors each year is written all over her face.

Stefania Rinaldi and the Children’s Choir of the San Carlo Theater, Photo Courtesy of Teatro San Carlo, Napoli, Italia

Every year, 120 children aged 7-17 from all over the Province of Naples, from every social strata and ethnicity, come to work with Stefania and to perform at the San Carlo. Together, they create one harmonious voice.

Their journey begins with the audition. The song, Happy Birthday. Or in this case, Tanti Auguri a te. It is, Stefania explained, one of the most useful tools in assessing a child’s vocal capacity. But what Stefania is most looking for in her prospective students is a passion that matches her own. And that’s why each year, Stefania is just as likely to select a child whose technical skills lag their enthusiasm as she is to select the next diva in traning.

I can teach a child to sing, to use proper vocal techniques. But what I can’t teach is a passion for the music. That is just something that comes naturally from within.

That passion breeds energy, and as a conductor on stage Stefania explains, there is a symbiotic nature to the performance. From the eager eyes looking towards her, to the audience behind her and back again, she becomes the conduit through which the energy of the music flows, feeds and grows.

As a teacher, her relationship to her students is as equally symbiotic.

I am their role model and they look up to me, but I learn just as much from them as they do from me.

Whatever her formula for success, it is evident at every performance. This year that included taking center stage for two Christmas performances, Concerto di Natale and Aspettando… La Befana and performances in Inni d’Europa with San Carlo’s School of Ballet and Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohéme. On June 19th the choir will perform in Brindisi in honor of Melissa Bassi, the 16 year old girl who was killed by a school bombing there in May of this year.

Part of the choir’s repertoire also includes Neapolitan music. In 2008 they performed at the Rai Auditorium in the live recital of “Era” di Maggio, Roberto de Simone’s tribute to traditional Canzone Napoletana.

Over the past eight years, Stefania’s journey with the Children’s Choir has taken them all over the region. Her own journey has taken her around the world and back home again. A classical pianist by training, by age 14, Stefania knew she was destined to be a conductor.

A graduate of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, she continued her studies at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia and at the Musical Academy Chigiana in Siena and went on to achieve numerous awards and accolades.

She is also the founder and director of an all female orchestra, the Alma Mahler Sinfonietta that is dedicated to performing music written and performed by women such as Alma Schindler Mahler, Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn. In 2005, they released the CD Clara Schumann: Piano Concerto; Piano Trio.

The Alma Mahler Sinfonietta, an ensemble for women musicians under Stefania Rinaldi, recalls in its name Alma Mahler, the wife of Gustav Mahler, a woman of intelligence, beauty and talent, and has the aim of promoting the music of women composers, breaking the apparent conspiracy of silence in this respect.

Stefania’s curriculum vitae rivals that of any of her male contemporaries and there is no doubt, the sky is the limit for this talented and dedicated musician and conductor. I could easily see Stefania standing at the podium of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, or a return engagement at the San Carlo.

But at the same time, as prestigious as those postings might be, perhaps Stefania’s greatest legacy will be the profound impact she has on the 120 children she guides and inspires each year. Exposing children from all walks of life to this important part of their cultural heritage, imparting on them a love and appreciation for the theater, opera, classical music, and Neapolitan Canzone. Perhaps, there is no greater achievement than that.

As I was being pulled in 20 different directions with events to attend, pictures to take, news to keep up with, and posts to write I was feeling a bit too caught up in the glitz of it all. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the spectacle, but I was missing the whispers.

My encounter with Neapolitan artist Luigi Mazzella couldn’t have come at a better time.

At the suggestion of my friend Anna, I went with her to meet Luigi at his studio in the Vomero. Tucked into the former wine cellars of Cardinal Ruffo of Calabria in the historic Villa Haas, it was everything I’d hoped for and more. Walking into a dimly lit anteroom, I found myself surrounded by an extraordinary body of work created by a man who has dedicated his entire life to his craft.

I didn’t know Luigi’s work before meeting him, though I confess I should have. He, along with his brothers Elio and Rosario who are both painters, have been fixtures in the Neapolitan art scene for over half a century. Known as Fratelli Mazzella, the Mazzella Brothers, they are among the major figures of the 20th Century Neapolitan Art World and post WWII artists in Italy.

The student of artist Ennio Tomai (1893 – 1969) whom he still remembers with fondness and reverence, Luigi’s calling is sculpture. His medium, is primarily bronze. An ancient and perhaps dyeing craft, Luigi’s works are anything but antiquated. From sketch to sculpture, his work is realized in a contemporary language all his own that is characterized by fluidity, movement and reflection, both material and personal.

Best known for his large bronze works, primarily statues and panels, Luigi’s public and private works and private and collective exhibits are too numerous to mention. A few however, stand out. Of special note was an open-air exhibit of his large scale panels and sculptures at Palazzo Reale in May 2001. In 2010 Luigi was among the Neapolitan artists inducted into the Novecento a Napoli Museum at Castel Sant’Elmo. And in 2011 he participated in the 54th edition of the world famous Biennale di Venezia.

Most recently Luigi put his talent to work creating a series of commemorative statues for the America’s Cup World Series, Naples 2012. And this of course is why I went to meet him. To see this maestro’s take on the event that was consuming the city.

What I found was a series of work that could have only be created by an artist who has spent his entire life in Naples. Centered around the theme of Naples, Vesuvius, sailing, and the sea, each piece artfully connecting this historic event to this ancient city. Hand cast in bronze, the theme is carried out on front and back, commemorating both the event and the city and of course, bearing the maestro’s signature.

In the short time I spent with Luigi and his younger brother Elio, who currently has an exhibit at the Museo ARCA, Museo d’Arte Religiosa Contemporanea, I got much more than I came for. Wandering through his studio was like wandering through his mind, though clearly my map only showed the major highways.

Books, sketches and prints, and works by him, his brothers and his maestro Tomai cover every wall, every horizontal surface and even the floor.

Old wooden tables play host to Luigi’s smaller works like his Pulcinella atop Vesuvius.

And glass cabinets house his beautiful jewelry collection that includes necklaces, bracelets, and his hand crafted signs of the zodiac, one of which I am now the proud owner.

Luigi and his brothers take great pride in their work individually and collectively and they are happy to share it with anyone who is interested. To learn more about Luigi’s work check out his website Luigi Mazzella or contact him at archmarianomazzella@libero.it to arrange a tour of his studio.

Luigi’s America’s Cup collection is available for purchase in 3 sizes and a commemorative key chain at his studio in the Vomero. His jewelry, zodiac collection and small works are also available for purchase there.