IT is an early summer morning along the Po River near Parma. Rays of sunshine through patches of rain scatter shards of rainbows. Red poppies punctuate fields of green and gold. In the distance, a late-season snowstorm has dusted the highest Alps.
Rows of trees fly by. I am streaking through this tableau in a silver-blue Maserati coupe, accompanied by the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso — a treasured recording of his performance of the Verdi aria “Celeste Aida” is soaring on the stereo.
As Caruso reaches a crescendo, the Maserati — in third gear, nearly at the tachometer’s 7,600 r.p.m. red line — provides appropriate accompaniment.
Now this is the way opera should be heard.
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But opera is also visual, and to answer the question of how this art form should be seen, I am driving this new Maserati GranTurismo S Automatic to the ancient Arena di Verona, Italy’s national opera amphitheater. Later that day, Plácido Domingo will perform as Radames in “Aida,” the role in which he made his celebrated debut here 40 years earlier. Italian fans were abuzz in anticipation.
The Italians are mad for opera, of course, and each June for nearly 90 years Verona’s ancient stone arena has provided a backdrop for several nights of lavishly produced operas — often works of the revered Verdi — under the stars. Those attending favor tuxedos and formal gowns.
On the way to our unforgettable night at the opera, the Maserati leaves Villa Verdi, Giuseppe Verdi’s farm (now a museum) near Busseto. A few miles east, we enter the village of Roncole Verdi, where we stop at the house where the maestro was born in 1813. His bust out front wears an enigmatic smile.
The journey resumes on flat, narrow back roads that zigzag around farmers’ fields, making occasional crossings of the meandering Po.
If you believe in the power of context, what better place than Italy to drive a Maserati? And what is more Italian than a Verdi opera? Like Verdi, the Maserati was born here.
Since 1937, the company’s headquarters has been nearby in Modena, just a block from the birthplace of Enzo Ferrari. Although Ferrari and the six brothers who started Maserati were not in business together during their lifetimes — their companies were rivals, after all — the fortunes of Ferrari and Maserati are now intertwined as parts of the Fiat Group. In fact, Maserati engines are now made at the Ferrari factory a few miles away in Maranello.
A delight of this version of the GranTurismo is the 4.7-liter 440-horsepower V-8. A Sport-mode setting changes the shift points, firms the suspension and changes the exhaust tone, bypassing the silencers to create a livelier tailpipe serenade. If you hit the accelerator you should be prepared to crank up the volume of the arias on the stereo, to compete with the staccato notes from the V-8.
The engine is positioned behind the center line of the front wheels. This placement, along with a new ZF 6-speed automatic transmission, helps the chassis — a shortened version of the Quattroporte sedan — to achieve a nearly ideal weight balance of 49 percent in front and 51 in the rear.
The GranTurismo’s uncanny balance is evident as it unflappably lunges left, then right, through 90-degree turns at each farmer’s property line. The car’s braking is particularly strong.
Accelerating out of each corner, the V-8 propels this two-ton missile of steel and aluminum quickly back up to speed. In fact, from a standing start, the GT-SA can hit 60 m.p.h. in five seconds flat.
The ZF transmission — replacing the unloved Duo Select semiautomatic — offers an automatic mode or two ways to shift manually: either with the stick in the center console or with handy flutes on either side of the steering wheel. If an opera is blaring, try stroking the paddles with the flourish of Liberace.
The autostrada provides a welcome intermezzo after an hour or two of scattering chickens along farm roads. Out of Sport mode, at cruising altitude, the Maserati becomes a quiet and refined grand touring machine — albeit a thirsty one, with highway mileage in the high teens and a $2,600 gas-guzzler tax.
Yet there seems to be a bit of uncertainty in the racing-inspired suspension as the car moves from, say, 70 m.p.h. to about 75, as if it is hunting for a sweet spot between its low-speed and high-speed personalities.
It is easy to assign a character to this Maserati. Its profile is one of the most seductive ever created by the Pininfarina design house.
The car fairly oozes elegance and panache. Yes, the taillight treatment is a bit garish, but that’s a nitpick. The nose evokes great Maserati racecars of the past, glossing over the dark years when the company was owned by Citroën and De Tomaso — periods when the brand was tarnished almost beyond repair.
One could certainly argue that that this car, the GT-SA, belongs among the greatest road-capable Maseratis ever.
This latest evolution of the GranTurismo line also represents the pinnacle of Maserati coupe development. A convertible model is in the works, as the brand looks to expand its offerings beyond just the GranTurismo coupe and Quattroporte sedan.
Although it offers just these two car lines, the company says the long options list allows owners to configure Maseratis in three million combinations. So, few, if any, cars will be exactly the same.
Customers seem satisfied; a record 8,650 Maseratis were ordered last year worldwide in the midst of an economic decline — more than a 10-fold increase in sales in the last decade.
There are few visible differences between the GT-SA and the base GranTurismo (which has a less powerful 4.2-liter V-8): mainly subtle side skirts and distinctive 20-inch alloy wheels.
Yet there is something beyond the tangible that sets this coupe apart and consistently earns it approving nods and gestures. It was as at home amid the earthy Po Valley farms as it was among the opera-going swells in Verona.
If the goal is to own a maximum-attack track-day sports car, there are certainly other choices: more luxury can be found for less. But few competitors offer Maserati’s compelling mix of Ferrari-inspired performance with true grand touring sophistication. In a sense, the GT-SA is the most Ferrari you can buy, brand new, for $130,000.
Parked among a big-money crowd of Bentley Continental GTs, Mercedes-Benz CLs, BMW M6s or even Jaguar XKRs, the Maserati would stand apart on its looks alone.
A sour note in its otherwise beguiling leather interior was the seats, which were firmer than I’d have liked. A long stint in the driving position, especially while enduring the firm Sport mode suspension settings, left my derrière nearly as numb as sitting on stone blocks at the Arena di Verona for the two and a half hours of “Aida.”
But should there ever be an occasion to re-create this epic drive, I wouldn’t hesitate to pack this 2-plus-2 with four adults. In back, there’s more than adequate room for both Radames and Aida — and wouldn’t they love a chance to get away?
My getaway, back to the Modena factory, was a quick albeit loud one, with the Sport button engaged. I left the “Aida” recording with the car; the Maserati and Verdi seemed, like Radames and Aida, destined to remain together.
I took a train to Milan, where Verdi is buried. It is said that his state funeral in 1901, which proceeded through the Milanese streets, attracted the largest public gathering in Italian history. The whole nation mourned; monuments rose in the maestro’s memory, thoroughfares were renamed and public squares were dedicated.
In Modena, shade trees arch over a street that leads to what has been, for more than 70 years, a gate into the red-brick Maserati factory. All too easily missed is an old marble plaque on a nearby building that bears the name of that street: Viale Giuseppe Verdi.
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