Build my Bappa

Leading up to Ganeshotsav in the city, young participants shape eco-friendly Ganesh idols using shadu maati clay at a workshop in Mazgaon.

An epic opera in Italy

PIC COURTESY/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Some epics continue to find a fan following, and The Mahabharata seems to have found a new generation of audiences in the distant shores of Italy. Musician Varijashree Venugopal (below) joined fellow Indians BC Manjunath and G Guruprasanna on the Italian conductor Riccardo Nova’s eponymous opera in Cremona, Italy, last Friday. “The first time that Nova and I met was in fact when I was four-years-old. My father, celebrated flautist HS Venugopal, took me along with him for one of the rehearsals when he was in India,” Venugopal recalled. Though she has been working with Nova for almost a decade, the singer-composer added that the opera, with its blend of European music, Indian rhythms and Sanskrit, requires a different level of focus.