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Concert ravings
May. 25th, 2003 04:34 pmVisiting Siena on Friday turned out to be an inspired idea. Not just because of the beauties of Siena - which is a town not onlike a very carefully carved chess set gone city-size - but because we found out Andrea Bocelli would be giving a concert there on Saturday night. Even better, while all the seats had the usual outsized prices and were mostly sold out anyway, the standing places were free. Now, the concert took place on the Piazza del Campo in the heart of old Siena, which double functions as the location of the Palio, the legendary horse race, and forms an almost perfect circle, falling down towards the middle. So, a concert in a legendary square, surrounded by red brick medieval and Renaissance buildings; you can bet we returned to Siena again on Saturday, aber a long, leisurely drive through the Chianti. Since I don't drink alcohol, everything but the sight of beautiful vineyards, gnarled olive trees and ancient castles was wasted on me. But I very much enjoyed the strawberries and cherries we bought en route and munched, sitting on a low wall along one of those vineyards and contemplating the Italian scenery.
The concert didn't start until 9:30 pm, but since we wanted a good place, we arrived early. I had bought some papers at the local Feltrinelli (British readers: think Waterstone; Americans: Barnes and Nobles), which served a fortunate double purpose. They gave us something to do at first (read: grimacing every time we read the name "Bush", admiring Senator Robert Byrd's newest speech, snorting over Berlusconi's most recent diatribe about how the judges persecute him, etc.), and were improvised mattresses to sit on later. Something between our backsides and the piazza at any rate. Which was getting fuller by the minute.
About two hours before the concert started, we got an unexpected treat: a one-hour sound check and rehearsal. Bocelli, his fellow singers and the orchestra were all in leisurely slacks, but sung with no less verve than they would later (though they didn't always complete the songs). Himself had a small child on his back, a boy as far as we could see, and my mother who makes it her business to be up to date with the gossip wondered whether this was his offspring by the first or second wife. (She came to no conclusion.) The voice was wonderful, of course; so were the ones of the soprano and bariton he sang with.You could hear people humming along and applauding, and I thought, not for the first time, about how much less stuffy and distant the relationship between Italians and their artists is than the German equivalent.
By the time the concert started, which it did punctually - no fashionable lateness here - there were about 40.000 or 50.000 people on the piazza, and the sun had set. Thankfully, the introductory speeches (this was a charity event) were held about ten minutes before the official beginning. Viva Italia, I say. The orchestra (from Pisa) started with, what else, the Va Pensiero from "Nabucco", i.e. the unofficial Italian hymm ever since Verdi wrote it in the 19th century. Then we got treated to aria after aria, mostly Puccini (he's a local boy, a Tuscan) with a little Verdi and Rossini here and there, sung beautifully by Andrea Bocelli, Soprano Maria Luigia Borsi and a Japanese looking bariton whose name unfortunately I did not understand. At any rate, he did a fabulous rendition of Figaro's signature piece in "The Barber of Sevilla". I noticed that Bocelli, as opposed to the rehearsal earlier, held himself very straight and used much less body language than his fellow singers. (A side effect of being blind?). When he sang "Lucevan e stelle" and you could see the Italian night sky above him, you felt you could hardly breathe.
They used no less than FOUR bits from "La Boheme", but the Mimi-Rodolfo duet which for me is now always associated with Giles finding dead Jenny was particularily moving. Really, the only downside was the mysterious irregular clapping we heard sometimes from one of the ristorantes around the place. Come the break, this was explained. Apparently the local football team had just won an important game, the results of which were also repeated to the audience at large by the organizer. Towards the end of the concert, there was the occasional interruptive noise from celebrating football fans which made me want to strangle them, but it didn't spoil the experience. We had to push our way through them, though, once we had left the piazza behind, on our way out of Siena. But hey, who cares? It definitely had been the highlight of my time in Italy.
The concert didn't start until 9:30 pm, but since we wanted a good place, we arrived early. I had bought some papers at the local Feltrinelli (British readers: think Waterstone; Americans: Barnes and Nobles), which served a fortunate double purpose. They gave us something to do at first (read: grimacing every time we read the name "Bush", admiring Senator Robert Byrd's newest speech, snorting over Berlusconi's most recent diatribe about how the judges persecute him, etc.), and were improvised mattresses to sit on later. Something between our backsides and the piazza at any rate. Which was getting fuller by the minute.
About two hours before the concert started, we got an unexpected treat: a one-hour sound check and rehearsal. Bocelli, his fellow singers and the orchestra were all in leisurely slacks, but sung with no less verve than they would later (though they didn't always complete the songs). Himself had a small child on his back, a boy as far as we could see, and my mother who makes it her business to be up to date with the gossip wondered whether this was his offspring by the first or second wife. (She came to no conclusion.) The voice was wonderful, of course; so were the ones of the soprano and bariton he sang with.You could hear people humming along and applauding, and I thought, not for the first time, about how much less stuffy and distant the relationship between Italians and their artists is than the German equivalent.
By the time the concert started, which it did punctually - no fashionable lateness here - there were about 40.000 or 50.000 people on the piazza, and the sun had set. Thankfully, the introductory speeches (this was a charity event) were held about ten minutes before the official beginning. Viva Italia, I say. The orchestra (from Pisa) started with, what else, the Va Pensiero from "Nabucco", i.e. the unofficial Italian hymm ever since Verdi wrote it in the 19th century. Then we got treated to aria after aria, mostly Puccini (he's a local boy, a Tuscan) with a little Verdi and Rossini here and there, sung beautifully by Andrea Bocelli, Soprano Maria Luigia Borsi and a Japanese looking bariton whose name unfortunately I did not understand. At any rate, he did a fabulous rendition of Figaro's signature piece in "The Barber of Sevilla". I noticed that Bocelli, as opposed to the rehearsal earlier, held himself very straight and used much less body language than his fellow singers. (A side effect of being blind?). When he sang "Lucevan e stelle" and you could see the Italian night sky above him, you felt you could hardly breathe.
They used no less than FOUR bits from "La Boheme", but the Mimi-Rodolfo duet which for me is now always associated with Giles finding dead Jenny was particularily moving. Really, the only downside was the mysterious irregular clapping we heard sometimes from one of the ristorantes around the place. Come the break, this was explained. Apparently the local football team had just won an important game, the results of which were also repeated to the audience at large by the organizer. Towards the end of the concert, there was the occasional interruptive noise from celebrating football fans which made me want to strangle them, but it didn't spoil the experience. We had to push our way through them, though, once we had left the piazza behind, on our way out of Siena. But hey, who cares? It definitely had been the highlight of my time in Italy.
