In Rob Chaney’s complimentary Feb. 20 Missoulian article, he mentions that there were 200 or so people at Alfredo’s Funeral Mass yesterday held at St. Francis Church.
There were more than 500 in attendance. The church was completely full in every pew, balcony and side aisles to the narthex.
Alfredo was, for me, a special connection to some of my roots. When I arrived in Missoula in the 1970s, people would notice my Italian last name and ask if my dad was a prisoner of war at Fort Missoula. I was shocked and said, “He served and was not captured in Europe and why would the Germans send him to Fort Missoula?” Then I heard the story of our esteemed Umberto Benedetti and another Missoula man named Alfredo Cipolato. I wanted to meet them n and met Alfredo at a Mendelssohn Club rehearsal in 1978.
Alfredo (and his family), in his typical gregarious, colorful way, connected me to my dad’s family in New York and helped fill the only thing missing for me in my new home of Missoula. I think he taught us through his life that we should live to the fullest and make the absolute most of what life brings, whether good or bad.
Alfredo was much like Joseph in the Old Testament, who was brutally sold by his brothers into Egyptian bondage but through his great gifting and divine providence rose to the level of pharaoh’s right-hand man. Just as the Egyptians greatly benefited through Joseph, so have Missoulians greatly benefited through Alfredo Cipolato. Alfredo never betrayed his roots, remained true to himself and decided to share his great gifts with us by deeply planting himself in Missoula for 68 years. Like Joseph of old said, what the enemy meant for evil, God used for great good.
In his eulogy yesterday, Father Rich Perry recounted the great Italian composer Puccini’s story of not finishing his masterpiece opera, that his friends would have to do it after Puccini’s death, which they did. Let us finish Alfredo Cipolato’s great masterpiece, Missoula opera.
Bob Luceno knew Afredo Cipolato for 30 years. He writes from Missoula.
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