Fun with Maps - Malta

Location, location, location.  That well-known real estate phrase certainly rings true for this episode’s map.  In this episode we are looking at the map of a small country that has a great strategic location – about midway between the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal in the Mediterranean Sea. 

You may know it for two popular items – the Maltese Cross and the Maltese Falcon, a 1941 Humphrey Bogart movie.  Of course I am talking about the Southern European island country of Malta, an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea just 50 miles to the south of Sicily, 176 miles east of Tunisia and 207 miles north of Libya. 

 This is an interesting map –some might call it the stuff that dreams are made of – that’s a quote from Humphrey Bogart’s character Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon movie.

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Passing of Cleveland Opera Icon Soprano Andrea Anelli

We are so sorry to learn of the passing of Passing Cleveland Opera Icon Andrea Anelli. She passed peacefully from a long-term cancer in her Chardon home the morning of 1/1/22.

Gregory Polyak, VP of Northern Ohio Opera League (NOOL) said "Soprano Andrea Anelli was the founder and co-director of three different opera companies: Opera Per Tutti (2006), rebranded as Cleveland Opera Theater (2014), and ContempOpera/Cleveland (2016). Each opera company had a different goal and audience to satisfy. And satisfy Andrea did with each company.

She not only created, auditioned, selected music, costumes, sets, directed, produced, found venues to perform in, and raised funds she sang in most of the productions. I am tired thinking of all she did. Succeeding in each endeavor makes her a Cleveland legend.

Most today say her Cleveland Opera Theater is today's highest level and most diverse in NE Ohio. She took them from a "founder-driven" to a "board-driven" entity for growth. "I never dreamed it could become what it did," Anelli said. "It so far exceeded my expectations. It's been quite a journey."

We first saw Andrea perform at the Opera in the Italian Cultural Garden. She and her Opera Per Tutti (Opera for All) performed there for several years.

Here are a few example videos

She was a deserving recipient of the Cleveland Italian American Heritage Award in 2015. She sang the national anthem at the Cleveland International Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2017. You can see Andrea sing in many Italian Garden Opera performances and other places in our YouTube videos. Just search for andrea anelli dan hanson youtube What a voice. What a woman. What a loss.

Fun with Maps - Haiti

Haiti is located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic.

 Haiti has an estimated population of 11.4 million, making it the most populous country in the Caribbean.  The people have suffered a lot. Since 1998, Haiti has been hit by ten hurricanes and other tropical storms, causing widespread loss of life and flooding with every landfall. Other natural disasters, such as the 2010 earthquake, have also resulted in massive amounts of death and property and infrastructure damage, especially in urban areas like Port-au-Prince, the capital.  

They have a proud history as the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt.