Remarkable Women Documentary & Discussion Program

Viva Verdi

Directed by Yvonne Russo

Introduction by Jane Applegate and Tara Young

Film Summary

VIVA VERDI! offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of the celebrated opera singers and musicians living out their “third act” at Milan’s Casa Verdi retirement home built in 1896 by the most influential Italian opera composer of the 19th century, Giuseppe Verdi. With aging bodies and timeless passion, these distinguished “guests of Verdi,” ranging in age from 77 to 103, prove age hasn’t dulled their love of music or relentless drive to create: They are still actively creating, performing and mentoring the 16 gifted music students from around the world who study and live among them.

Director Bio – Yvonne Russo

Award-winning filmmaker is the director of VIVA VERDI!, a feature documentary that she is also writing and producing. She is currently serving as director/producer of RING OF FIRE: The Life of Annie Mae Aquash, a true-crime docu-series currently in production, produced by Amy Kaufman and Caroline Waterlow with Jake Gyllenhaal’s, Nine Stories. Most recently, she directed, produced and wrote the PBS animated short, MINNIE’S WAR BONNET. A producer on KELLY’S BAR, an indie feature with Casey Affleck’s Sea Change Media, Russo worked as Production Advisor on WOMAN WALKS AHEAD, starring Jessica Chastain, and as Production Liaison/Advisor on HBO Mini-Series, Lewis And Clark. She served as producer on Gale Anne Hurd’s feature documentary, TRUE WHISPERERS: THE STORY OF THE NAVAJO CODE TALKERS, and on the feature film, NATURALLY NATIVE; she was Co-Producer on THE RESCUERS: Heroes of the Holocaust. Russo worked for 15 years on a diverse slate of domestic and international television and film projects for such companies as HBO, National Geographic Channel,Discovery/TLC, and the CBS/Smithsonian Channel. She has a television development deal with Handmade Films to adapt the 1989 cult classic film, POWWOW HIGHWAY, based on a novel by David Seals, and has been contracted by Warner Media and Bad Robot as an executive producer on a new untitled television series in development. A member of the Academy of Television and Sciences, she is also a member of the Producers Guild of America where she formerly served on the Board of Governors. A Board Member of NYWIFT, Russo divides her time between New York and Los Angeles, and is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Tribal Nation.