Giancarlo Esposito revealed that his grandfather was only five minutes away from being executed by firing squad under Benito Mussolini’s regime before a surprising phone call intervened and spared his life.
The actor recounted the remarkable family story during his appearance on the latest episode of Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals, which was uploaded on Tuesday (Nov. 10).
Around the 48-second mark of the video linked below, Esposito explained that both his grandfather and father worked at an opera house. During Mussolini’s reign, his grandfather was responsible for storing, transporting and setting up opera productions.
“There’s 26 operas in the operatic world, and in Napoli, the opera house in San Carlo was very small. So you can’t store all the operas within the opera house,” the actor explained. “They had to be shipped out and put in different warehouses around town.”
Esposito described his grandfather as “a drinker” who regularly found himself “cursing out Mussolini” in the streets. His repeated outbursts often landed him in jail, although he was eventually released each time. However, his final arrest nearly cost him his life.
According to Esposito, Mussolini wanted to watch the opera Madame Butterfly immediately and needed his grandfather, who knew where the production’s set had been stored.
“Five minutes away from a firing line, they had marched him out and the phone call came in, ‘I’m looking for Esposito. Where’s Esposito? Where’s Esposito?’ ‘Why? Why?’ ‘Because I wanna see Madame Butterfly and he knows where the set is,'” Esposito recalled. “[He] literally was saved very close to losing his life. He delivered that set, and then he and my father raced away to the resistance in the mountains and finally left Naples because that call was too close for comfort.”
Esposito had previously recounted a version of the remarkable family history during a 2020 appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast. However, that earlier account placed the opera sets at La Scala, while his latest recollection identified Naples’ San Carlo Opera House.
