Happy Hanukkah - חג שמח

Tonight is the fourth evening of Hanukkah - the Festival of Lights - in which my Jewish friends celebrate the miracle of the oil in 2 BCE.

Tonight in the Ghetto in Roma the fourth candle will be lit on the menorah - in many households the traditional prayers will be said, gelt will be given to the children, dreidels will be spun, songs sung and foods specific to the feast will be eaten.

The communal menorah on Via del Tempio in the centre of the old Ghetto of Rome.

We light these lights for the miracles and the wonders, for the redemption and the battles that you made for our forefathers, in those days at this season, through your holy priests. During all eight days of Hanukkah these lights are sacred, and we are not permitted to make ordinary use of them except for to look at them in order to express thanks and praise to Your great Name for Your miracles, Your wonders and Your salvations.

To all my dear friends celebrating Hanukkah I wish a happy and holy feast tonight and in the coming four days.

04 decembre - Santa Barbara

And Music! Always Music! - I

That title will only mean something to CBC radio listeners who tuned into The Transcontinental on Sunday afternoons in the 80s-90s. Hosted for 22 year by Otto Lowy, a charming Czech who found a home in Canada after the war, it was a "musical excursion across Europe" stopping in various places for coffee, pastry, a bit of history and "music, always music!" And it - and he - was always a delight.

My August is going to be a bit like that - except I guess we could say seafood, wine, a bit of history and "opera, always opera". Over the next three weeks I'll have travelled, if not Europe, a fair bit of Italy and seen five operas.


It starts next weekend with a sort of mini-VerdiFest - in anticipation of the real thing in October in Parma. Saturday morning I'm heading up to Verona - five hours by train with a change in Padova now that there's no direct trains - for the opening of Il Trovatore at the Arena (above). Opera in the Arena has been a tradition since the first performance of, what was to become its signature piece, Aida in 1913. This is "GRAND" opera and gave rise to the tradition of elephants, horses and - in one production - giraffes as the stars of big productions of the Italian warhorses. Though it may not have all the glamour of the big names of the old days Saturday hasn't got such a bad line up - Russian barithunk Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Sondra Radvanovsky, Marianne Cornetti (okay she's no Simonato but who these days is?) and Marcelo Alvarez (okay I could do without Alvarez but who else sings Manrico these days?). The whole conducted by Marco Armiliato - who isn't such a bad stick waver.

And apparently directed and designed by Franco Zefferelli as indeed are all five operas at the Arena this year. I say apparently because I'm still trying to figure out how the Zeff will work his trademark bare-chested hunks, donkeys, children and, reportedly, a troupe of Spanish dancers into Verdi's great gloom and doom revenge tragedy. It should be interesting. (That's a scene from his production of Turandot above.)

Sunday its back to Rome on morning train and off to the Baths of Caracalla for the last performance of Rigoletto. Given the track record the past few seasons: a very good Turandot; an Aida that began with the ballet that Verdi forgot to write music for (so it was danced in silence); a Madama Butterfly where little Trouble was more audible than the tenor; a dreadful Tosca (only the second time I have left a theatre before the end of a performance in 57 years); and a disappointing Carmen I was almost willing to forgo this year's offerings. However my friend David Nice - of I'll Think of Something Later and so much else fame - mentioned that an up and coming soprano would be appearing here this year. So I will be heading off to the Via Appia and Caracalla's old bath house to see Jessica Pratt as Gilda. If David says she's someone to hear and keep an eye on - then hear and eye I will. The rest of the cast is so-so but at least conductor Donato Renzetti is a known quantity.

Then its my last two days at work - let's not go there - and then... 10 days on the road. Our annual ferragosto in Pesaro with a detour through San Franscico di Assisi country before coming back to Rome. A bit more about that will follow shortly.

03 agosto - Sante Mara e Lidia

High Days and Holy Days - The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Our friend Robert maintains that there are four times in the year that it looks like Halloween here in Rome - and none of them come on the last day of October. According to him December 8th and the festivities surrounding the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in Piazza di Spagna is one of those Mr. Dress-up days. So it was hard to resist his invitation to meet him along with Walter and another old friend Yvon, who was in town visiting from Prague, at la Fontana della Barcaccia.

The Statue of Maria Immaculata was erected in 1856 to commemorate Pius IX's declaration of the Immaculate Conception. Its at the southern end of the Piazza just in front of the Spanish Embassy.

The faithful converge around the column to sing their Aves and Salves and present enormous floral tributes to Our Lady. Parishes under her patronage process through the square with banners as do members of various confraternities in capes, caps and plumes. The odd Bishop or Cardinal wanders through with his entourage and various orders of religious join the processions and the singing. I was mildly disappointed that there were no flagellants but was reminded this was Italy not Spain.

And at around 1600 Big Ben and the Boys from the other side of the river come to place a floral crown on Our Lady's head. Well actually Big Ben doesn't do it himself - I'm told one of those brawny brave Vigili del fuoco(firemen) goes up in the cherry picker on his behalf. Then there is just the festive crowd that comes to watch, roam the street and celebrate what is, for most Romans, the first day of Christmas. And of course being Romans they head into the trattoria and restorante for an extended lunch (pranzo.) How could we do less?

Off we headed to Ristorante Mario on Via della Vite. Its a warm, cosy and extremely popular place because of their exceptional Toscana cuisine. For starters two bowls of warm white and black beans in olive oil and a large ball of Buffalota Mozzarella followed by Ribolleti (a thick Tuscan vegetable soup - just the thing on a chilly day) then a remarkably light lasagna (paper thin pasta, a light bechamel sauce, a savoury veal-beef mix, a sure hand on the cheese and not a sign of tomato sauce) and a slice of warm apple tart to finish. All of course accompanied by a very nice white from Tuscany.

The place was now packed - every table occupied by groups of families, friends, colleagues and the two rooms were filled with that now familar sound of Romans celebrating over drink and food - I know it seens odd to say but it is a sound I've never heard anywhere else. As we ordered our coffee the waiter, who had been good but slightly aloof, heard André, a friend of Robert's who had joined us for desert and is currently finishing his Doctorate in Mid-Eastern Studies, speak Arabic with Laurent - suddenly we were his favorite table. He was from Alexandria but has lived in Italy for 25 years. The bottles of grappa and lemoncinni were brought out and left on the table, conversations at this point were going around the table in Arabic, French, Italian and English.

Seemed a highly appropriate way to celebrate a major Feast Day.

16 decembre - 111a domenica di Avvento