... much has happened since last time, and mostly of the pleasant, light weight, Tuscan summer kind. This feels like as a counter weight against the grim events that are unfolding in other parts of the world, and it makes me wonder, often, if it is wrong to enjoy all this merry making? Or perhaps we should just Carpe Diem, as long as it is possible? Who knows what is looming around the corner..
I have been lucky to have some lovely people here, and my summer has been punctuated with different little groups of house guests who did not know each other when they arrived, but soon became friends, and we have had at least three such little 'families' formed during the summer.
Here, above, is the lovely young pianist Javelyn from Switzerland to the left, here for a three weeks masterclass at the Chigiana Music Academy with the famous Russian pianist Lilya Silberstein, and in the middle is Charles-Henry, a young Frenchman who works in Fashion Marketing in Paris. We are lying on a blanket and wrapped in another one in the Piazza del Campo, on the only chilly evening in the whole of the summer. We are enjoying a fully staged performance of La Traviata on a huge stage in front of the Palazzo Pubblico.
And below, Javelyn to the left once more, with me, Paolo (my architect) and Ilaria, at a a great piano concerto at Castello di Murlo in Chianti, on a warmer summer evening, where the said Silberstein played double piano with her son Anton Gerzenberg. And what did they play? My absolute favourite piece of classical music: Beethoven's Grosse Fuge.
Then there was the trip to the Apuane Alps in northern Tuscany, a stunning area where my walking group went not only to walk and enjoy the breath taking views, and have a four course lunch in a little village restaurant,
He managed to be not only funny, but also profound, and found ways to quote some poignant poetry by Robert Frost, as well as making me see a new side of the ending: rather than the defiant, heartless Don Giovanni who falls into a Hell he richly deserves, he made him into a tragic and grandiose hero almost, who rather than lacking heart, has in fact an excess of heart which makes him grasp on to LIFE and LOVE, refusing to the end to let go... I was so taken by it all that I wrote to this Alessandro Riccio afterwards, wondering if he know the famous Dylan Thomas poem... the one that goes: do not go gentle into that good night, rage rage against the dying of the light... he wrote back and said that theatre had made us meet and touch each other, and he said that I had given him brividi...(goose pimples...) so that was a nice encouter.
And then it has been PALIO of course... here is our horse in the ONDA church being blessed by Don Emanuele, although it is hard to make it out... 'Vai e torna vincitore!' says the priest, sprinkling holy water on our horse called Veranu, but alas, that did not work this time...
It was in fact Paolo's Valdimontone that took the victory this time, and it was a great Palio! Here they are, arriving at the Piazza del Duomo after the victory, about to enter the cathedral for the time honoured Siena Te Deum sung by the high alter in front of a medieval painting of the Madonna.
And, as if all this is not enough, tomorrow early I am off to Ferrara, where I have never been before, to meet up again with the lovely Charles- Henry the Fashion Frenchman. I am studying it all, that is the Ferrara history, which includes two most interesting women of the Renaissance: Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia, the latter probably unjustly maligned from what I seem to understand...bad father Pope and bad brother, but maybe not so bad herself?
No comments:
Post a Comment