Naples!

O Sole Mio; Luciano Pavarotti

I’ve often commented to my friends upon the poetry herein: Approximately halfway between Minneapolis and Annapolis is Indianapolis. The only folk who would ever notice this phenomenon – it’s a little bit of a phenomenon, isn’t it? – come from stock, like my father, who don’t believe in toll roads. The logical route from Annapolis to Minneapolis follows Interstate 90 where, after circumventing Cleveland, one slingshots around Chicago to the right. But Interstate 90 is expensive with toll roads. So I take Interstate 70 through Columbus, to the north of Dayton, and around Indianapolis.

I don’t know what the citizens of Minneapolis and Indianapolis collectively call themselves. Citizens of Annapolis call themselves Annapolitans. Isn’t that pretty? In that same vein, citizens of Naples, Italy, or Napoli, as the locals call it, for centuries have dubbed themselves Neapolitans.

When I first picked up “O Sole Mio”, featuring Luciano Pavarotti, at the Brookings Public Library when I was still in high school, I made no distinction between the two terms Neapolitan and Italian. I didn’t know what Neapolitan meant. I figured that Italians call their folk songs Neapolitan songs. “No, no, no, no, no,” my authority on all things Neapolitan told me. “It is not the music that makes a song Neapolitan or Italian. Neapolitan song composers infuse their art with texts that reflect the Neapolitan dialect.” Then, with his Neapolinose in the air, he added, “Someone who grew up in a different region of Italy wouldn’t sing the words of a Neapolitan song with the proper stress, timbre or inflection.” Well, la-de-Sole-Mio-da-di-pasta-poopi-dio. So, I should throw out my Pavarotti album of Neapolitan songs? “I suppose there are some who can – get by – with their Modenaich accent.” Oh, that’s it. No Toblerone for you. I’m giving you M&M’s for Christmas.

I heard someone say that Mr. Pavarotti had the sun in his voice. I like that. The comment has stuck with me for a long time. It made me recall this album. With the beautiful blue sky in the background on the cover, I’m taken back to the beautiful landscapes that surround the city of Naples and the imposing vistas of the sea.

The Neapolitans may burst with not just a little hubris concerning their dialect. It’s similar to those “Beverely Hills, 90210” kids, who think that their zip code is better than anybody else’s. So be it. But there are no toll roads anywhere near the city of Naples.

Credits: To Toblerones. Oh, yeah!