One night, after a lengthy post-performance dinner, her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, paid the check and put a cash tip on the table. Although she was then married to a very wealthy man and was being paid double the Metropolitan Opera ceiling by Carol Fox, Callas still operated within a poverty mentality. He did so, took charge and made arrangements for the funeral and the return of her body to Italy.Ī telling anecdote in the colorful Maria Callas legend is said to have occurred at Italian Village. Could you please come to New York?” she wailed. One day in 1957, he received a telephone call from the distraught diva. Tebaldi, like many opera stars of the era, was devoted to restaurant manager Luigi Landini. Giuseppe Di Stefano, restaurant manager Luigi Landini and Renata Tebaldi. The Tebaldi ménage would arrive at around 1 in the afternoon for a light meal and then again after the performance for more substantial fare.

We kept them in different parts of the restaurant.” Tebaldi would arrive trailing an entourage, her secretary, her beloved mother, Giuseppina, her dresser-companion and her toy poodle. It also had wonderful little dens and hideaways-useful in Lyric’s early days.Īccording to Capitanini, “When Lyric was founded, Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi were the two reigning prima donnas. The Village had two private dining rooms, one seating 10 and the other 16, where Carol Fox would preside at dinner meetings and parties. Everyone was excited and would want to eat what they were eating.”

Ray Capitanini remembered those Opening Nights: “When the stars walked in, everyone would applaud. Larkin Flanagan, Carol’s husband at the time. Don Maxwell, Conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Tito Gobbi, his wife, Tilde, Pino Donati, Carol Fox, Luigi Landini (standing) and Dr. Clockwise facing the camera from this side of the table: Maestro Bruno Bartoletti, Mrs. And, throughout the extravagant Fox period, Lyric paid for lavish dinners held in the Village after each opera opening.ĭinner at the Italian Village in the late 1950s. Therefore, the Capitanini’s Italian Village was where they dined in Chicago. There is the original Village on the second floor, the newer Florentine Room on street level and La Cantina below, each with its own staff and kitchen.Ĭonductor Tullio Serafin, left, dean of Italian opera, who developed and coached Maria Callas, Rosa Ponselle and Joan Sutherland, with Alfredo Capitanini.ĭuring the Carol Fox era, opera stars were Italian-that’s all there was to it-and they were accustomed to fine Italian food. This week, we return to both vintage Lyric and AVENUE M in a 1988 interview with Ray Capitanini, a genial member of the family that has owned Italian Village since its 1927 founding.Ĭhicago’s Italian Village is not merely an Italian restaurant, it is three Italian restaurants stacked vertically on West Monroe next to the Xerox Building. In our last issue, we presented a collection of vintage photographs of powerful personalities associated with Lyric Opera,which were assembled three decades ago for Frank Sullivan’s AVENUE M magazine. Birthday candles on the cake presented to him by Italian Village’s Ray Capitanini were no match for the powerful lungs of Luciano Pavarotti.

Restaurants near lyric opera house