by Len Lear

Want to go out to a fine Italian restaurant and then an opera? Get ready to pay some big bucks, not to mention traveling time, parking fees, etc. That is, unless you decide to go to Maria’s Ristorante, 8100 Ridge Ave. in upper Roxborough, on Wednesday, Sept. 28, starting at 6 p.m., where customers will have a full-course Italian dinner while watching a performance of Leoncavallo’s classic opera, “Pagliacci,” about a jealous, hot-headed clown who kills his wife.

As far as I know, this is the first time a dinner-and-opera has ever been performed at a restaurant in Northwest Philadelphia. The concept has been pioneered by Chestnut Hill College graduate Ralph Tudisco, who teaches opera courses at Temple University’s Ambler campus and who founded the Amici Opera Company 18 years ago.

Amici has performed an almost unbelievable 166 different operas in its 18 years, many of them for the first time in the U.S. And Tudisco has sung and acted 243 different roles, which surely has to be more than anyone else on earth. The famous Placido Domingo, 75, is usually credited with the most different operatic roles. According to Wikipedia, “He has performed 147 different roles.” However, said Tudisco, “I have performed almost more than 100 more roles, and I am 18 years younger than he is.”

Amici usually performs in area churches, but they have also put on operas at High Note Café and Franco & Luigi’s, both in South Philly, and at Caruso Trattoria in Souderton, but this will be their first time at a restaurant in our area.

“Ralph approached us recently with the idea, and I thought it was really cool,” explained Dino Dalicandro, the son of Maria’s owner. “We figured we’ll give it a shot and see how it works out. We may do it a couple times a year.”

Maria Dalicandro, her three siblings and parents came to the U.S., speaking no English, from Abruzzi in southern Italy in 1961. They settled in Philadelphia because of an uncle who was already here. In 1968 Maria married Guido Dalicandro, and they opened Roma’s Pizza in Kensington.

“If you were an immigrant in those days and did not speak English,” explained Maria in an earlier interview, “your job choices were very limited. Construction or food or factory work. My husband had done tailoring work and also worked in a factory at Broad and Lehigh, but his family members were all in the food business in Italy, so we decided to give that a try.”

In 1971 Maria and her husband sold the business in Kensington and opened Roma’s Pizza at 6129 Ridge Ave. in Roxborough. They later sold that business to relatives and ran a catering business for years. In addition, Maria was manager of food services for the Colonial School District for five years. (She has more than 45 years of experience, all told, in the food business.)

In 1997 Maria and her children — Ann (a graduate of Chestnut Hill College), Nick and Dino — opened a new restaurant, Maria's Pizza & Pasta, in Conshohocken at 214 W. Ridge Pike. (The family opened the place in Conshohocken in a sorrowful mood since Guido had died the night before.)

After the success of the Ridge Pike location, the family wanted to open a more upscale family restaurant using their traditional family recipes from the old country. In 2002, after an extensive nine-month renovation, Maria's on Summit in Roxborough was opened at 8100 Ridge Ave., a property that formerly housed D’Angelo’s for more that 30 years.

“Nobody anywhere else in the U.S. or even in Europe does a fully staged opera with dinner,” said Tudisco, who has no cell phone or computer and who listens to his recordings on an antique victrola, “and our culture in this country simply ignores opera. There’s very little glamour in opera, just a lot of hard, hard work.

“And talk about prejudice. If you eat 100 hot dogs in 10 minutes, you get on TV and win prizes. If you’re a kid screaming into a microphone at the top of your lungs, you may be the next rock star, but many of the world’s greatest opera singers have died and not gotten one word of an obituary in almost any newspaper.”

Although many people assume that a small opera company like Amici cannot perform at a very high level, the fact is that Amici has many highly trained singers who simply cannot find paid roles because those roles barely exist in the U.S. Some opera singers even have to pay themselves to perform in addition to the many very expensive voice lessons they have to take.

“Ralph Tudisco is the most knowledgeable person on opera that I ever met. He is like a walking encyclopedia of opera,” said Dr. Lewis Snitzer, a retired neurosurgeon in Huntingdon Valley and passionate opera buff. “I have gone to dozens of his performances over the past three years. He also puts together the best possible performances with the best-trained singers that he can get. He works tirelessly at this passion he has for opera at very little (or sometimes no) financial reward.”

More information about the Sept. 28 dinner and opera at 215-508-5600 or 215-224-0257. The cost is $49.95 per person.