By JIM YARDLEY - MAY 6, 2014 - ROME
A true if unlikely tale: Young woman enrolls at a drama school sponsored by nuns, where the artistic director is a former Italian erotic film actress who redirected her career after a religious awakening. The students are selected to perform before the pope at St. Peter’s Square, but during rehearsals the young woman fractures an ankle.
Unable to perform, the young woman, Cristina Scuccia, acts on a persistent spiritual tug and commits to becoming a nun. She travels to Brazil to work with poor children and then returns to Italy to live quietly in a convent in Milan. Except she is still a talented singer, so talented that she wins a Christian singing competition, and then auditions on March 19 for Italy’s version of the television show “The Voice.”
What once was nothing more than a singing show with mediocre ratings has become a TV phenomenon in Italy, with no shortage of potential story lines: Will Sister Cristina survive until the final round in early June? Will she convert her singing coach — the Italian rapper J-Ax — to Catholicism? And why has her appearance stirred such a huge reaction in Italy and beyond?
J-Ax promised the convent’s mother superior that he would protect his protégée from the evils of show business. He also said that once the show ran its course, he would talk to her about spirituality.
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