Puccini Festival

NOTE: I am currently a little out of sorts, so if this post seems a little angry you should know this in advance, I am doing a flying one day visit to Florence in order to tick a few boxes, I have just found out that both the Uffizi Gallery and Academia are shut on Mondays. Florence can go fuck itself - they are just lucky their is at least a fake David in one of the squares...


Festival Opera appears to be a little bit of a bloodsport. The battle being fought between a mixed group of people thrown together for a short while each year, all with different loyalties and drivers.

There are the towns people, intent on squeezing every dollar out of the festival, setting exorbitant parking prices, 7 euro's to get into some house the Maestro used to live in, lots of bars and restaurants that conveniently share names with famous opera's, VS the customers, mainly tour groups who come in, in cost saving maxi coaches with coolers and thermi (or is it thermoses?) sandwiches and cakes, one libretto between three or four (don't think the towns folk will supply subtitles) all to ensure that the towns folk don't prosper too much.

Then you have organizers and principles, desperate to forge or improve their reputations, genuinely swept away in the brilliance of the Maestro's work, conveniently looking past the fact that their theater has no roof (what if it rains) and the fact that the shows can't start till 9:15 because of the light, VS, the ushers and musicians, drawn to the festival by the promise of a few weeks worth of eating money; desperate to finish each nights work as soon as possible in order to get out of town, back to the normality of their Monday to Friday, 48 other weeks of the years lives, don't use exit 1 immediately after the final curtain, you will be swept away in a sea of black clad muzak types swinging their instrument cases like weapons in order to ensure they get thru the crowd first and out fo the traffic.

Despite all this, for all Puccini Freaks out their (and I know my readers are all Puccini crazy) I can give a five star big thumbs up rating to Puccini fest. I got into town on Friday night in order to see Madam Butterfly, which was very impressive - so much better then the ROH version, however my opinion may have been influenced by the lack of obstructed view in Torre Del Lago Puccini - Joe Knorks - Did you realize there was a kid in show???? Anyways, very good- the customers/set designers in the Puccini Fest team are extraordinary, as was Butterfly. Pinkerton, or Stinkerton, as I think he should be called was also very strong. The theater is incredible, right in the banks of the lake, you have to walk across this bridge across the Marina in order to get in.

Anyways, I slept the night in the car park then the next day headed off to explore the township, one thing I can say about these Tuscon's is that they love their push bikes, every inch of road was taken over by the things, driving the whale through the town was quite difficult. Once I parked the thing and began walking along the streets I was constantly dodging cycles, bells ringing everywhere, if you closed your eyes it was like being back in Saigon in 72, it reminded me of that time I had to save my friend Christopher Walken from a game of Russian Roulette in a back room off the harbor... or wait- was that Deer Hunter???

Anyways, after I shoke off the Nam flashbacks I went down to the beach where I spent the course of the afternoon. The best and worst bit was the sand, I love sand at the beach, much better then the stupid rocks of many other beaches. I don't love sand when I return to my motor home and have to try and get it all off... Coarse Black sand that they have over here, gets everywhere. Anyways, overall the beach was good- lots of hard bodies, and windy enough that you could almost pretend like you were catching a wave as you came back into shore after a swim. Before the show I went to the Puccini fest, just near the Theatre, which was very interesting, and was where he lived for a long period around the turn of the century.

That nights show was Tosca, one I hadn't seen before, but I quickly read the Libretto before the kick off so I had a fair idea of what was happening - another outstanding performance. Although with the extra intermission it did go very late into the night- we're talking quarter to one before it ended- so I don't think old Kloss dogg would really be able to handle Puccini fest... The other problem with night two was I could only get a more expensive ticket, so it met the budget was blown for the Sunday night performance of La Boheme, but I felt I had covered Puccini Fest anyways, so decided to head off on the tourist trial the next day.