New book "When in Rome" by Nicky Pellegrino
Steff
The story is (taken from http://www.nzwomansweekly.co.nz/front-page-top-stories/giveaway-when-in-rome-nicky-pellegrino/
“A captivating tale of music, food and love, set in the glamorous “La Dolce Vita” era of 1950s Rome. Serafina is a young woman growing up in a tiny apartment in Trastevere. She spends her days busking for coins in the street with her sisters; spending the money on tickets for movies featuring her idol Mario Lanza. And then the famous singer comes to Rome and a new world opens up. Fame, parties, wealth – she draws close to it all. Almost everything familiar in Serafina’s life begins to change. When she falls in love with two difficult men, she experiences joy and heartbreak, facing difficult choices that threaten her own future.”
While Nicky Pellegrino wrote the book, she interviewed Ellisa Lanza Bregman last year. I haven’t had the time yet to start reading the book, but I see Mario with his family is a VERY important part of the story, and something that immediately got my attention was that, except for the very first and the very last chapter, all other chapters are captioned with song titles that Mario sang, which I think is a very lovely idea: The songs are “Golden Days,” “My Destiny, “Serenade”, “Ave Maria,” “Be My Love”,” Fools Rush in,” “An Here You Are,” “Come Dance With Me,” “Drink, Drink, Drink,” “Cosi, cosa,” Day in Day Out,” “If,” “The Loveliest Night of the Year,” All the Things You Are,” “More Than You Know,” “There’s Gonna Be A Party Tonight,” “ Because”, “ The World Is Mine Tonight,” “You Are Love”, “With a Song in My Heart,” “A Little Love, a Little Kiss, “ “When You’re in Love,” “ A Kiss in the Dark,” “Memories,” “ Softly As in A Morning Sunrise,” “The Lord’s Prayer,” “I’ll walk with God,” D’Arrivederci, Roma,” “ I’ll See You in My Dreams,” “One Alone,” “And this is My Beloved.”
Here’s what Nicky Pellegrino wrote in her “Acknowledgements” at the end of her book :
“I fell a little in love with Mario Lanza the first time I saw him in The Great Caruso. That was years ago when I was a young girl with a passion for 1950s movies and handsome leading men. Every time I listened to his voice while I was working on this book I fell in love with him all over again.
I’ve taken some liberties for the sake of the story. While the Lanza family did have loyal staff in Rome, there was no personal assistant called Serafina and the cook at the Villa Badoglio was actually a woman. Here and there I may have stretched or contracted time but for the most part the details about the period Mario spent in Rome are based on facts […].
I am grateful to Lanza biographer Derek Mannering for his help, most especially for putting me in touch with Mario’s only surviving child Ellisa Lanza Bregman whose memories of her father were invaluable and I thank her for sharing them. My other sources included three biographies: Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy by Armando Cesari (Baskerville), Mario Lanza: Tenor in Exile by Roland L. Bessette (Amadeus), and Derek Mannering’s Mario Lanza: Singing to the Gods (Mississippi), as well as the BBC Four documentary of the same name. I also spent time on the many websites offering Lanza information, the most useful of which were www.rense.com and www. mariolanzatenor.com
My thank you to opera singer Tiffany Speight for helping me to understand what it is to have a voice, and to everyone who has encouraged me in the writing of this book.
More than fifty years on from his death there remain Lanza fans around the world. This book is dedicated to them and to anyone who feels a shiver down the spine at the sound of his voice.”
I’ve just picked out two little excerpt to share with you here:
“And so I got to know Mario Lanza through Betty’s eyes and words, and it felt such a privilege. To others he was a famous star, a face on a record sleeve; for me now he was real. In every story Betty shared he was tender and kind, sweet with sick children and small animals, generous to friends and strangers. He was all I had imagined and more.
At the Villa Bardoglio I lived on the edges of their lives and there was times they barely remembered I was there. But I noticed them, drank in every detail. I listened and watched, felt how a room changed when he came into it, hoped for his smile and the sound of his voice, saw all the many reasons Betty had fallen in love with him. Perhaps it’s true I stayed behind doorways for longer than I needed to, pretended to be tidying the flowers in a vase or picking up toys the children had left behind, heard conversations meant only for the two of them. To me it didn’t seems wrong […].”
And on the set of “Seven Hills of Rome” (the children and Betty being at the set):
“When Damon broke from my side and went racing towards his father, I jumped up to follow, certain I’d be in trouble. But Signore Lanza only laughed, pulling his son on his knee and pinching his cheek affectionately. ‘Does my boy want to be in the movie? What do you think , Rowland?’ He looked over at the older man. ‘A mini Mario for you to direct. A new star, perhaps?’ ‘No, Papa.’ Damon looked solemn. ‘I want to go and look at the planes again.” Both boys were fascinated with the aeroplanes and, whenever he had a free day, their father drove them out to the airport at Fiumicino. I never went along but the chauffeur told me they stayed for hours, watching the aircraft take off and land.”
Steff
Vincent Di Placido
Thanks for this Steff! I just downloaded this on my Kindle app, will give it a read. Talking of Kindle It's great to have Armando's Lanza biography at my fingertips now, great to see it on Kindle.
Derek McGovern
Thanks for the info, Steff, and I'll be very interested to hear what you and Vince think of the book. By the sound of things, it's a benevolent Lanza depicted here, and not the Bessette version, thank God (for all that Bessette's book was one of the author's sources).
By the way, I was amused to see that Nicky Pellegrino has incorporated grumpy Paul Baron's complaint to me about Mario taking his kids to Fiumicino to watch the planes taking off and landing! (I'd mentioned it in my essay Voice in the Night.)
Cheers
Derek
leeann
I am appreciative that Nicky Pellegrino pointed to her sources on the life of Mario Lanza, including mariolanzatenor.com! Certainly her research was even-handed, exploring the various schools of thought on Lanza's life and his work and her acknowledgements juxtapose those works of varying standards of quality and presentation. It was good to note today, as well, that An American Tragedy is number 47 among biographies of classical musicians and composers on Amazon. Even though those numbers slip and slide up and down quite a bit, the book is consistently in the top 50. Wonderful! Best, Lee Ann
Steff
Hi Derek, Lee Ann, Vince,
From what I can see from the first few chapters I read, it's an "easy listening" book, and Nicky Pellegrino
nicely includes some facts she picked up from different Mario Lanza books. Somewhere on a website
Nicky mentioned that it is a book for women" and I agree, it's a nice entertaining summer-story about girls
raving over Mario Lanza. It's an interesting "looking-back" which gives the reader an impression of how a fan
of Mario's must have experienced the late 1950s when Mario lived in Italy. I understand the author also
mentions some negative aspects of Mario's life but I believe this is done in a way that even some "Heile
Welt- Mario Lanza fans" will be able to live with it!
Steff
Angela Turner
Hi Steff and everyone,
Thank you for sharing such a detailed and heartfelt overview of When in Rome. The way you describe the blend of music, memory, and personal history makes it sound like much more than a simple biographical novel. I really like how the story seems to balance admiration with honesty, especially when touching on Mario Lanza’s humanity rather than just his fame.
What stood out to me most is how the book connects passion, love, and purpose across different stages of life. In a way, that feels very close to the idea of ikigai the intersection of what we love, what moves us emotionally, and what gives life meaning. Serafina’s journey, shaped by music, place, and relationships, sounds like a quiet search for that sense of purpose and belonging.
I also appreciate that the book appears to respect fans while still allowing room for complexity. Those kinds of stories often stay with you longer because they reflect real life rather than idealized versions of it. This has definitely made me curious to read it and see how those themes unfold.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your impressions.