MUSIC TOURS

One day in 1989 Joan announced, out of a clear blue sky, that she wanted to sing the Verdi Requiem in Verona, with the World Festival Choir, in 1990. So I said I would enrol as a bass and come too. This was the first of our four European music tours.

1990 VERONA

It was a misty early morning in late July when Chris and Madeleine dropped us off at la Gare de Dijon. We changed trains at Lausanne and went to the dining car. “Swiss railways must be subsidised. Look at this menu.” I said to Joan. Unsure where we would eat that night we tucked in to three courses, forgetting the substantial difference between French and Swiss francs. The waiter then stood patiently and without expression while I dug out a few pound coins and French francs. Well, the  Swiss are bankers, after all. At Florence we were overwhelmed by the art, the architecture and by Hari Krishna, tinkling and chanting absurdly towards us across the Ponte Vecchio. Outside the gleaming green and white marble of Santa Croce four ragged gypsy children robbed us without our knowing it and, to our astonishment, handed back passports and money (“Mister, you dropped these”) when they saw the three Polizei advancing menacingly. In our confusion we thanked the children profusely.

We set out from Florence in a hired 750cc Fiat  Panda which we nicknamed the Tin Box. It had five forward gears but you needed a good following wind to get into top. A lazy little thing, it took a siesta while we stopped for a picnic and was hard to wake up. Summer storms in Europe last only five minutes, as Beethoven will show you in his Pastoral symphony. After the storm we watched, from our quaint little medieval room in Rada in Chianti, its rainbow arched right across the pastoral landscape that Beethoven was painting. Now heading north to Verona, grinding our way up over the Appenine,s looking for scarce accommodation, the Tin Box sensed our anxiety and became quite asthmatic. Italy was our enemy in WW2 but I wonder what really went on up here in these dark brooding mountains. For example our proprietor, directing us to the autostrada next morning, addressed me coldly in German. “Mi dispiace, Sono Australiano” I explained whereupon he laughed and shook my hand vigorously. In Padua the Australian singers were accommodated in the Hotel Sheraton, resembling an enormous concrete grain silo in an industrial wasteland on the sort of ring road that is called a Beltway in America. From our bedroom window we watched middle-aged choristers in shorts and akubras risking their lives across to the bus stop, returning later with bags of fruit, bread, cheese and salami to eat in their rooms. There is time to explore before rehearsals start and we find an extraordinary peace and serenity in row upon row of Giotto frescoes in the Palazzo della Regione. One of the largest rooms in the world, from the outside it looks like an enormous upturned wooden boat. In the photo that hangs in our hall the second basses are in a block above the right hand stairwell. In front of the Australian basses is a row of giant, well-disciplined Swedes who have sung this many times. Behind us is a line of Americans with a wide range of singing skills. The worst, Sid, is really there in the choir to sell his Tee-shirts, on the front PAVAROTTI SANG WITH ME, on the back KEEP THE WORLD GREEN – SING VERDI. The arena is in great demand and some of our rehearsals have to be at night, adding to the magic. Our coach, for example, floats silently along the autostrada past a moonlit landscape of medieval towns perched dreaming up there on steep terraced hilltops.

At 4 pm the temperature on the hot white steps in the Arena was 45and the Scandinavian ladies were down to their bras and panties. Maazel was pleased with the eight trumpeters from Oslo, placing their long, proud instruments four and four at the rim of the arena. He is highly articulate with a dry sense of humour. After their moment of spine-tingling glory he said to them “You may leave now. Don’t go back to Oslo, I need you, be careful of the local wines.” With us he was less certain. “If you do not know the Libera Me by heart you had better get another conductor” We tried again and were now “Only just within the zone of tolerance.” Later “I know you all feel you have entered the gates of heaven up there, in your own little paradises, but down here in this acoustic I can hear every word you sing, every thought you think, and your pianissimo is still MUCH TOO LOUD”. Though Verdi’s Sanctus goes at a hundred miles an hour we finally got it right. “Amazing” he said and we all clapped with relief.

It was a time of Eastern Europe’s liberation and tourists were now crossing two and three borders in high speed coaches for day trips to Venice. Concerns by the city Fathers for overcrowding nearly banned our trip but we got there, clicking cameras all the way along the Grand Canal. Our other excursion was to Aida where an Italian family shared their salami and Panini with us in exchange for our autographs (they had found out why we were in Verona). The marble stairs were still hot to sit on, but grey clouds were growling overhead. Even so, beautiful shafts of golden sunlight were making me look up for the chubby little angels that peep round those same bulging clouds in the Ufizzi, the Frari, the Doges Palace, and all those galleries that lovingly preserve the huge outpourings from the Renaissance. It rained, of course, after the first act, but the private enterprise network of vendors responded instantly. Cries of “Panini, gelati, tonica” were changed to “impermiabile, molto economico” as we thankfully donned plastic raincoats.

Finally, all 3000 of us stand in evening dress watching the sun go down, awaiting the ritual. It starts always with the man in the medieval fancy dress striking a shimmering gong three times. Then comes swaggering onstage the magnificent Moscow orchestra, then the eight trumpeters from Oslo, Sharon Sweet, Dolores Zajick, Luciano Pavarotti, Paul Plishka, and finally Lorin Maazel. Next, thousands of candles illuminate the eager wall of faces around the arena, a long silent pause and then a gasp from the audience as our own wall of 3000 stand up in one silent movement. At least we got that one right.

VERONA IN CONTEXT. The Verona Arena – The Largest Opera House in the World cost $3.50 at the 2MBS-FM book and record bazaar, and its magnificent aerial photos take me back to my first visit in 1960. There, in the huge town square, is the open-air cafe where Gran, Granddad, Tim and I watched that colourful pageant of plumed hats, the evening stroll that Italians call The Passagiata. And there, on page 95, is the photo of us, indistinguishable in the swathe of 3000 choristers reaching right up to the rim of the arena. One year later we held a Verona reunion dinner for the 60 Sydney choristers in the back garden at Morton Street. Madeleine, back temporarily from England and now with some catering experience, and also with help from Rebecca, cooked and served the entire banquet. Two years later the Swiss tenor, who always had a capatavo (corkscrew) whenever someone wants one, called on us at Morton Street with their new son Blaise. After they left we speculated on a future request from a school friend “Mum, can I go to Blaises?”

ON LOVE – ROMEO AND JULIET

It was years later that we found Juliet’s balcony in a back street of Verona. And now, even more years later, I am facing two problems, the struggle to understand my journey through life, and the struggle to express it. As always, Will Shakespeare is an inspiration, and I find it in the story of “a pair of star-crossed lovers…in fair Verona.” Whereas I might say that spring follows winter, Will says “Well-apparelled April on the heel of limping winter treads.” By Act two Romeo is in love “It is the East and Juliet is the sun. Arise fair sun, and kill the envious moon” and he admires her eyes “two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return”. But now gang warfare erupts between the houses of Montague and Capulet. Mercutio, fatally wounded, puts on a brave face “tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door, but twill serve. Ask me tomorrow and you will find me a grave man” Then humour deserts him and he shouts “A plague on both your houses”

Meanwhile Juliet asks of gentle night “Give me my Romeo and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun”. But Romeo, now wedded to Juliet, is also “wedded to calamity” and must get going before daylight.  “Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.” They all die.