Two days to go and I am getting nostalgic already. Growing up in a little town in the far north of New York State has conditioned me to grow roots almost instantly. Do I want to leave Montisi? No! Do I want to go home? Yes!! Well, if I don’t want to leave Montisi, but I do want to go home what’s wrong with my head? Tenor excuse set aside; there is nothing wrong with my head. This little hill town has the feel of home already, and moving from here to another adventure in an unknown territory holds less temptation than a beeline to Plattsburgh.
I’ll be heading south to the Big City before I know the bus has left the station. I’ll also be excited at the prospect of discovering even more voices for which the Opera World has a voracious appetite. Yesterday I was happy to see my favorite conductor and his wife. Our conversation centered on our various views of the difficulties the World of Opera faces today, one being a dwindling pool of recognized masters of the Operatic Arts. Given my happy isolation from the day to day affairs of Operatic life, I was more listener than talker at lunch. The quality of the food might have contributed to my minimal participation, but when vocal issues came up I was in there dishing out words with alacrity equal to all three of my table partners. The best part of the day in Firenze was the revelation that my friend wants to write a book…….. Wow!!! I want to be the first to read it. I will certainly need help since my Italian is limited, but I will definitly find, pay for, kidnap or whatever will be necessary to get the help I need to read any book written by Bruno Campanella. He also promoted me to high status in our mutual admiration society by suggesting that we should create a school for singers and musicians of all stripes in the Art of Bell Canto. I smiled big smiles all day long. It doesn’t matter if he was making a serious suggestion or just having a little fun with hyperbole. It made my day.
The evening was something else. Sports have always been a participation issue for me. I loved playing ball. I never liked watching it. My Opera Nut friend, Silvia, does. We went to a small square in Montisi less than a football field away from her front door to participate in a dinner event with large screen view of the Euro Cup match between Italy and Germany. My dinner companions seemed to be half the population of Montisi until I was introduced to the burly man next to me who lives on an altogether different hill in Toscana. Montisi knows how to get the neighbors to come over. If you didn’t know about it already, Italy got the job done. Needless to say there was great celebration. Now I’m going to miss the Italy – Spain match dinner in Montisi. Anyone close enough to catch it, will not be disappointed. The food is good…. I did eat too much. The company is even better.
As I close the few days I have left to play contadino Italiano I begin to wonder if I might find a way to make teaching talented singers something I could do while playing contadino Italiano. Maybe I could kidnap Bruno, drag him south and make him help me teach singers how to get their audiences to applaud and yell bravo as much as the assembled crowd did last night in that little square in Montisi.