I had an amazing night last night. With one of my friends from school (Anita) I went off to Torre del Lago which is this beautiful lake just back from the coast at Viareggio where Puccini had his summer house and wrote most of his operas. There is this amazing open air theatre there and we had the privilege of watching a performance of Tosca. Amazing!! A perfect midsummer night, one of those times when you just know how privileged you are to be doing this.
We got a shuttle bus there, had a lovely meal on a terrace over-hanging the lake as the sun set with extraordinary pastel hews across the lake…hard to describe but amazing. We then went and watched the opera in fantastic seats. There is also something about watching an opera in Italy, firstly you start(just start) to understand the words but secondly the enthusiasm of the audience is fantastic. Half way through the second act the soprano sang the aria (no programme so don’t know who she was and can’t find it online) and the audience went mad and started screaming ‘Bis’ ‘Bis’ for an encore so lo and behold the whole opera freezes while they repeat the aria…never seen that happen before…and then when she finishes the other actors pick up where they left off.
It went for 3 hrs + and we got back to Lucca at 1.30am and the apartment at 2am. A very late night for this old girl.
Then a few hours later, fortunately all tucked up in bed, the lightning and thunder started to pound and it rained!! As I sit and write this the thunder is cracking, its dark and rain is spitting. It is so humid but for the first time I have opened all the windows and it is cooler (not that it’s cool!!), its lovely.
Lots of writing up to do of the last week of school, photos to label etc so an indoors type of day…sneaked my coffee in during a break in the rain!!