Verdi (Rome)

Available for over a year

Italian food and Italian opera - a marriage of music and menus that combine perfectly in this series which looks at Italy’s rich cultural history. Walter Iuzzolino goes in search of the perfect match of food and music as he visits some of the best Italian kitchens in London and Rome. We’ll discover how the great opera composers such as Verdi, Rossini and Puccini loved their food and felt particular affinity with produce from their own Italian regions. We’ll hear some of the great moments in opera where the banquet takes centre stage, and at the same time we’ll be in the kitchens with some of the top Italian chefs to get their tips on getting the recipes right. Walter Iuzzolino looks at the deep connections between Italian opera and Italian food in this, the second of two programmes on Giuseppe Verdi, Walter is in Rome, wandering from from the busy streets in the fashionable Trastevere area crowded with restaurants to the hushed calm of Santa Maria in Vallicella, a church in the centre of the city. Walter looks at how Verdi carried his love of food in his political and public life in Italy and abroad. Presenter Walter Iuzzolino Producers Francesca Marchese and Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3