Summon the Tiger

I adore Italy. The Tuscan hills and walled cities, the marvel that is Florence, the Amalfi coast, the enchanting Venice. Our first stop was Siena. There was a Countess living in Grosse Pointe, a friend Fred’s, who allowed us to stay in her 700-year-old enclave, high on a steep hill outside of Siena. There were wild boars in the heavy woods heading up to the villa. Simply glorious! I was at a bit of a disadvantage, as my luggage had been lost: I ended up buying a sweater for the chilly evenings until my suitcase arrived on the second day. We were in Siena when they were setting up the enclosures for the annual Paleo di Siena – the famous horse race. We performed in the Siena Cathedral, a magnificent medieval church. I love singing in those old churches: the reverberation lasts many seconds past the last note. It’s absolutely awe-inspiring. We were performing Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, and we brought our own chamber orchestra as well. Lots of time for sight-seeing, lots of great food: what a delight! After Siena we headed to Florence. Our four-star hotel had double shutters on the windows: a set inside and a set outside. I was rooming with Marguerite: the first morning we were awakened by absolutely glorious singing. We were across the street from the Opera House – not the new one, the old one: the Teatro Comunale. What an amazing way to awake! We got tickets for that night: for Verdi’s Aida. Now I know why opera is so popular in Italy: it is Opera meets Las Vegas. The Triumphal March had topless women and all manner of animals that paraded around twice! Most of the characters were in gauzy Egyptian-styled garments, but the two leads were a bit too portly to pull that off. They were therefore artfully, but totally, covered up in heavy Elizabethan-looking costumes. At the end, when the tomb stone was slowly being pushed into place, the only thing I could think of was that those two would last a long, long time before they starved to death.