Italian Profiles

Donna Demaio

Grace under pressure
It may not sound like a life-affirming moment, but Donna Demaio’s close encounter with a charging police horse proved something of a career highlight. And when push came to shove, she followed her instincts and kept talking. “It was when the World Economic Forum was on [in Melbourne, in 2000], and there were big protests,” Demaio says. “Then the mounted police came in and [the protesters] were throwing plastic barriers. […] I was just reporting, describing what was happening – it’s what I do every day. And I nearly got trampled by a horse”.

Venero Armanno

The dark side of the volcano
When most Australians think of Queensland, it’s usually to conjure up images of sun-drenched beaches, lush tropical rain-forests or picturesque outback towns. It’s a bright, happy world in which men are men: tough, laconic, pragmatic, unfailingly upbeat. Introspection is for the repressed masses south of the border.
So how is it that the novels of someone born and bred in Brisbane feel so much like film noir? What part of Queensland’s collective imagination could produce these hard-boiled worlds, where alienated characters move around sombre streetscapes?
Yet Venero Armanno’s imagination is unapologetically dark, one inhabited by complex characters often with enough emotional baggage to fill an airport.

Aldo Di Toro

The traditionalist
To an outside observer, Australian opera singer Aldo Di Toro has it all. He lives in a small village nestled in Italy’s picturesque Apennines, he stars in six productions a year – often with some of the best opera companies around – and he loves what he does. And while he’s not complaining, Di Toro reckons his life would be even better were it not for European directors wanting to bring opera to the masses. “I’ve worked with many of them, both English-speaking and German, who have said to me ‘Aldo, don’t take what you’re singing literally’,” he says. “And I reply: ‘Why? Why not explore the period, that particular identity?’ Then they say: ‘We’ve seen it done that way a thousand times before – let’s put a new take on it and make it relevant to new audiences and get bums on seats’.