travelswithalice

September 27, 2011

p.s. La Boheme at the Arena

I have just reread my previous post.

And I'm thinking, but Andrew Lloyd Webber did an entire musical with everybody on roller skates in "Starlight Express" didn't he? (And American Idol always has masses of confetti in the finale ...) I enjoyed that show but my friend Tony couldn't bear to watch it and walked out. That was over 25 years ago. It was innovative and should have ushered in a brave new world in theater.

It didn't. No magic. Of course it was not Puccini and it was not the Arena. But it too had steeply sloping floors, a racetrack even, and moving bridges, and enthusiastic singing … But what were the songs again?

Hah! Maybe in a few hundred years this too would be a revered classic. Maybe not.

Labels: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Puccini

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # September 27, 2011

September 18, 2011

La Boheme at Arena di Verona

LA BOHEME

The staging (a revival from 2005) was a dream in post-minimalist precision. The milky white set morphed like origami from the claustrophobia of an attic room accessed by a trapdoor on a white floor, into a town square, a bar, and finally back into the attic for a death scene set on top of a pile of mattresses.

(As the evening's performance was twice interrupted by rain, a comic interlude was inadvertently added to the program when the heroine jumped up from her death bed and marched up to the apron, hand cupped to ear, straining to hear the Maestro's instructions as to the deployment of the final scene. A few orchestra members, notably the strings, had already begun to evacuate the pit, rushing to protect their prized instruments from drenching. The rain stopped, the orchestra trickled back in, and Mimi sportingly slumped back to her death scene for a few heartbreaking bars, only to jump up again to seek cover from another burst of rain. And once again, da capo! This sliding in and out of character added another accolade for Cedolins: she was game for anything, not a diva brat at all!)

The strictly white on white stage was punctuated by deliciously heartwarming theatrical, cinematic, and photographic gestures: random vignettes of townspeople and circus performers, Musetta in brilliant blue couture waltzing skittishly on stilettos atop a disconcertingly high long bar, Parpignol's runaway balloons floating above our heads, stealing across the arena, up and up into the dark rain-soaked Veronese night. And for the most stunning cinematic effect of the evening, the entire chorus glided swiftly, silently across the steeply sloped white floors and exited offstage on beautiful, big, black bicycles.

At the end of the first act, the giant white tower that loomed menacingly at the back of the set suddenly exploded with a loud boom, sending a huge cloud of confetti shooting up about 50 meters into the air. It then floated airily over everyone on and off stage, giving the assembled patrons in the Poltrinissima section license to laugh and shout and dance and jump in the air, chasing bits of paper, before again settling down to the business of drinking prosecco during intermission.

Because Mimi was sung by the lovely Fiorenza Cedolins, much loved and respected by Arena audiences, I am bullied into silence except to say she sang beautifully, sweetly, delicately, strongly. Marcelo Alvarez was Rodolfo. He too sang beautifully, sweetly, delicately, strongly.

Let's face it, I was there for the grandness of Opera, the theatrical over-the-topness, the party that is the Arena, the buzz of being there. The music too of course, but frankly, it sounds better on DVD.

Labels: arena di verona, La Boheme, opera, verona

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # September 18, 2011

Verona, a bloodied knee, and a new restaurant find

Verona was really just a side trip. To cheer us up after Mum's funeral. We went to all our favorite places- stayed at Due Torii, had lunch at Sottoriva around the corner, went to the opera. It was all very nice. Verona was quiet, just a sprinkling of tourists. Walking around was very pleasant, uncrowded, unhurried.

The evening of La Boheme, Stuart took me to a restaurant he discovered during his morning walk. We have our holiday schedule figured down to a science: Stuart goes down to breakfast, brings me mine (isn't he divine?), then goes off exploring, big professional-looking camera in hand (with which he takes photos from vantages I find too strenuous,) while I take my time over my breakfast and getting myself ready for the day. Works like a charm!

This evening however was made remarkable not just by the opera, which was beautifully sung and staged. Nor just by the newly discovered restaurant Il Bertoldo, which has now replaced Sottoriva as my most favored place in the city. But indeed by the miraculous recovery I had from a spectacularly acrobatic spill on one of Verona's sidewalks. Those venerable pink marble sidewalks, polished by millennia into the pore-free smoothness of a knife sharpener. Bummer!

Stuart said, are you okay, don't move, you don't have to get up right away, just stay there. It was very sweet of him to say all that and so wonderful of him not to panic so my panic wouldn't feed on his panic. But staying there was attracting quite a crowd of concerned citizens asking if I was alright, me sitting on the beautiful pink marble sidewalk, smiling my sweetest thank you smile.

Eventually I had to face the music. As Stuart picked me up off what I supposed would be a bruised and battered bum and as I gingerly found my footing on what by rights should be a broken leg or knee bone (I can still hear the sickening thud I made on the sidewalk ...) I realized I was really okay ... nothing broken!

So we walked the few more meters to the evening's chosen pre-opera restaurant, Il Bertoldo, where the very charming Francesco brought me an ice pack for my bloodied knee and proceeded to restart the evening for Stuart and me with a cheerily poured, perfectly chilled Prosecco, very dry, DOCG, and proudly Valdobbiadenese.

The rest of the evening was magic. And this season's La Boheme at the Arena was my reward for the bravery I showed in the face of an almost certain trip to an Italian ER. Or worse, surgery costing an arm and a leg, figuratively and literally, judging by the sound my bones made as diverse parts of my anatomy bit the dust.

Labels: Il Bertoldo, prosecco, Valdobbiadene, verona

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # September 18, 2011

September 06, 2011

Mum goes home to Epping Forest

In late August, Stuart and I took Mum's ashes home to London. She had died peacefully at 93 years, just quietly slipped away, with Stuart and me at her side.

She had a long time ago made known to us that she wanted her ashes strewn on the churchyard of the old church near their home in Epping Forest in Essex. She had been her most active there as a young wife and mother, busying herself with the Mothers' Union, the Women's Institute, and the various fetes and activities women her age busied themselves with in post war London.

We arranged to meet for lunch at a nearby pub, the Theydon Oak (reportedly frequented and once owned by Rod Stewart), with the Jones cousins- Dilwyn and Marion and Richard and Gill- who came down from Cardiff. It was a delightful family get together, full of joyful recollections of Mum when they were all very young; and jeers and cheers for the retired, the almost retired, and the not yet retired.

Dilwyn, Stuart, & Richard

Gill, Alice, & Marion

The church of All Saints in Theydon Garnon couldn't be more picturesque if Agatha Christie had made it up. A twisty old country road leads to the lovely old church, part of whose nave dates back to the 13th century. It's really quite famous because it is literally on the crossroads of the old and the new travel routes to London. An ancient Roman road passes to the east of the building and a medieval road passes to its west. More useful to today's motorist though is the nearby junction of the M11 and the M25.

Church of All Saints in Theydon Garnon

The Rev Stephen Walker, vicar of All Saints, took us to a spot in the churchyard where Mum's ashes were to be interred. Not scattered, as Mum instructed; but surely even Mum would not have objected. It was beautiful- right next to a paddock where horses grazed.

So, on a lovely sunny afternoon cooled by a soft breeze, Mum was laid to rest in her beloved home. And would you believe it? The ponies came! A small group of about four or more actually mosied right up to the fence to watch the proceedings. It was a perfect coming home.

Dinner was at Smith's Fish Restaurant at Onger, lately restyled as Smith's Brasserie, this time with Uncle John and Auntie Pat, cousins Keith and Lindsay, her husband William and their son Thomas, and Dad and Mum's friends Derek and Barbara with whom we later, much later, drove back- in the uncertain dark of the country and the confusing streets of the city, arriving very tired at midnight at the Parklane Hilton.

At Smith's Brasserie

The next day, just as London reverted back in character into a sad, wet grey, we left for Verona.

Labels: All Saints, Epping Forest, Mum, Onger, Parklane Hilton, Smith's Fish Restaurant, Theydon Garnon, Theydon Oak

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # September 06, 2011

Resuscitating my travel blog- in Shanghai

Okay, due to insistent public demand, I am revitalizing, reinvigorating, or maybe simply resuscitating this blog.

My public of course is Stuart; but hey, the blog was originally intended for him anyway. It was meant to remind him- and me- of the wonderful places we had been to, the nice places we had stayed in, the good food and wine we had enjoyed. To reminisce over when we're both too old to do it all again.

I have to play catch up. We have been running around a bit lately.

SHANGHAI

It's a little late now to talk about Shanghai. I've forgotten the details. (Well, it's age really, creeping up on me. At times, the creeping accelerates to looming. All of which gives this blog urgency.)

All that remains is a general feeling of wellbeing, comfort, nostalgia, called up by the memory of the Waldorf Astoria on the Bund. Even if I was not at all well then. It was towards the tail end of a viral something we both picked up sometime earlier.

That's why it's the big fluffy bed, with its beautiful starched linen, the bed high enough from the floor to almost require a ladder, that figures so prominently in my mind.

That and watching the barges busying the river and the people strolling on the Bund unmindful of the soot-grey 37 degree air, me in the cool, malingering in my deliciously cozy bathrobe and slippers.

Labels: malingering, shanghai, travel, Waldorf Astoria on the Bund