… No opera tonight, but I still made the pilgrimage to visit!
To think that this tiny little theatre puts fear in the best of opera singers!
Can you see Callas’s reflection in the glass covering Puccini’s portrait?! I thought that was quite charming…
When I left Paris I checked the weather for Italy and was thoroughly disappointed to see the forecasted thunderstorms and rain. However, other than on the evening of my arrival, the weather has been fabulously hot and sunny…
That is, until last night, when I had the unique opportunity of experiencing a thunderstorm from an ancient Roman Arena… The Arena di Verona!
But let’s start at the beginning.
I had chosen to attend the Opera Festival in Verona during this week for the chief reason of securing another opportunity to see Placido Domingo live, possibly the last time. He is a great tenor, he’s talented, smart, incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to music (he conducts orchestras, too, the hardest thing to do), appears to be a charming man in interviews.. but he is also in his 70s and at an age when most tenors would have retired…some, like poor Pavarotti, permanently! I simply could not pass the opportunity of this live encounter!
I got to the arena in good time to line up for the gates to open. I had dressed up for the occasion: I might have had to sit on marble steps, but I put on an opera house worthy dress, complete with silk shawl! I had bought Prosecco! Took in a breath, feeling the joy of the moment! This was a night to remember for me…and not just for me! The Arena di Verona soon became truly packed with people….22000 souls ready to be charmed and thrilled by the Great Man! We all got free candeletti at the entrance, those little white candles that, as per Arena di Verona tradition, get lit at the beginning of each performance. A fire hazard, to be sure, but the image of an ancient Roman amphitheatre lit up by thousands of candle lights is thrilling and romantic and creates such a wonderful atmosphere.
I was particularly curious to see how Domingo’s voice would fare in such massive a theatre, given that, naturally, at his age he is no longer at his best. My mum, the opera expert of the family, warned me against possible disappointment. The performance started and I got to realise Domingo is a very shrewd musician: rather than singing the performance solo he had laid out a program of carefully chosen duets; instead of attempting tenor showpieces he had chosen a carefully deliberated repertoire of mostly baritone pieces. In La Traviata he was no longer Alfredo but the father! Appropriate and clever! Smart man! Smart choice. And his voice, given his very strategic choices, was no disappointment, emanating throughout the enormous venue the familiar beautiful and rich sound he had first brought to the Arena 49 years ago!
The first half of the programme went flawlessly and beautifully. And then…. Little specs of blue in the sky forewarned of a possible storm. Intermission was met with increasingly strong winds. Finally, a full blown storm descended upon us and Verona became the sight of furiously pouring rain and some scenic, if also frightening, thunders!!!
The audience then split in two: the pessimists, heading out fast; and the optimists, taking refuge in the catacombs, hoping for a brief storm and a return to Act two.
The pessimists were right. At 12:30, I left behind a mere handful of people, and headed back to the hotel.
Domingo’s appearance at the Arena was fated to be a short one. A sign from God, perhaps, that he, too, might soon look upon the stage as a place belonging to his glorious musical past.
I am back in Verona. It is my third time here, so I think it’s fair to say that by now, Verona is the Italian city I know the best. The old city feels like home: I know the streets, the restaurants, the shops and the supermarket and require no map to find my bearings. What a beautiful city this is, so charming and full of life.
Every summer, the city hosts the Arena di Verona Opera Festival in the old Roman amphitheatre, the Arena….it’s been doing so for 101 years!
Verona is also home to the hottest summers in Italy, and today was no exception: 32 degrees at 7 pm! Tonight I went to see Turandot. The specificity of this festival is that, unless you book premium tickets for the armchairs set up in the middle of the Arena for the event, you get to play Roman for the evening and sit on the ancient stone steps. There is also no seating arrangement for the steps, which get filled on a first come, first sat basis. In practice, this means that if you want a good location on the lower steps, you pack a mini-picnic, bring drinks (but not in glass bottles) and come in early. The doors open at 7 and the good seats are taken by 7:30! The performance usually begins at 9! So, by the time the performance starts, you’ve already been simmering under the hot sun for close to 2 hours.
It was the ‘prima’ for this production of Turandot tonight, and Franco Zeffirelli, who is the director, was also attending. At 91 years of age, he bravely managed to survive the 3 hour performance in the heat and also came up on stage at the end. What a life this man has had! Have you seen the movie “Tea with Mussolini”? It’s a biographical account of his early years. It is also one of my favourite films, and not just because it is set in Tuscany.
Anyway, the opera itself was very good, and the stage production, as it is always the case at Arena, was over the top and impressive.
Afterwards, Piazza Bra is brimming with people, many of whom get ready for a proper dinner…at midnight. All restaurants are open, even some shops. The cheer only subsides around 2!
Tomorrow, I plan on enjoying the old sights, walking around, doing nothing. Then, in the evening, back to fighting for the steps and Verdi with Domingo.
One of my first self-imposed tasks upon arriving in Paris was to go to the address where Maria Callas, the famed soprano, once lived and, tragically, died. My mother has always been her biggest fan, never once failing to shed a tear when listening to Callas’s signature aria, ‘Casta Diva’, despite having heard it hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
I have been an opera fan since my early twenties, when I used to go to the Royal Albert Hall on a frequent basis, having the opportunity of both proximity and those 5 or 10 pound student-priced tickets while attending university in London. I have been fortunate enough to see some of the contemporary greats live, including Pavarotti, Carreras, Domingo, Kiri te Kanawa and Montserrat Caballé on numerous occasions. Yet, somehow, I came to love Callas relatively late.
And so it is partly due to my mum’s undying love for Callas and in part due to my own growing into her unique timbre that I went to see the house she used to live in, on one of my very first days in Paris.
Callas’s voice, as was her life, is unique, tremendous and rather tragic. Her timbre is instantly recognisable, her powerful dramatic soprano resonance sends shivers down one’s spine, and yet, there is a sad underlining tone to her voice…and one can hear this in her early as well as late recordings, though perhaps more distinctly in the latter. Perhaps her voice encompassed a reflection of her life, whereby she came from nothing, achieved everything, and then heartbreakingly descended into nothing, yet again.
It was in reverence to her genius and unique talent but accompanied by the bitter taste of knowing her tragic fate that I went to 36 Avenue Georges Mandel, to have a look at the building that was once her home in the City. Arriving in Avenue Georges Mandel one is immediately impressed by the beauty of the surroundings: old chestnut trees line the broad avenue, old, Haussmannian buildings on each side, lilac trees adorning most building entries. It is a magnificent avenue, in close proximity to Trocadero and within view of the Eiffel Tour, I suspect, from the topmost apartments.
The service street alongside the Avenue has been renamed Allee Maria Callas, in honour of the street’s famous former resident. On the Saturday afternoon of my visit, while just 5 minutes’ walk away, in Trocadero, hundreds of tourists were applauding a Michael Jackson lookalike doing the Parisian version of the Moonwalk, there were only two Japanese tourists beside me…. on a bench across from number 36, looking at the signposts for “Allee Maria Callas”, looking up at the apartment floor, acting like they had an appreciation that this elegant and distinguished building once housed a most elegant and distinguished woman, possibly the greatest soprano that ever lived!
So, if anyone other my mother (who’s surely sobbing now), is reading this post, please do me a favour, go on Youtube and have a listen. I recomend ‘Casta Diva’.
Every week-end in Europe 