Chuck taught painting all day and, after Macy Chadwich showed us how to complete our personal "portfolio box", I made a dry point etching of our Italian summer mascot: the mosquito.
We finished up the day and hoped into our little Alpha to drive over to Cortona - think "Under the Tuscan Sun" - to the Tuscan Sun Festival to see and hear Renee Fleming in person. We arrived early enough to hear her rehearsing with the Puccini Orchestra.There was no microphone for the rehearsal but we could hear her THREE BLOCKS aways during our quick dinner of piped ricotta mouse with grape must, carmelized figs with pecorino cheese, country watercress and walnut salad and pork with porcini mushrooms and, of course, Cortona Sangiovese.
The concert started at 9:00: imagine walking down into a sloping medieval piazza with towering walls, lanterns and some 500 very stylish people speaking every European language and very little american english. After a remarkable prelude "A Dream of Tuscany" composed by a 15 year old Californian named Arcaini and selections from Bizet's Carmen, we were in for even more of a treat. Instantly, all of us (children included) were mesmerized by "The People's Diva." She sang arias by Strauss, Massenet, Leoncavallo (the other La Boheme) and tried to end the concert with "I Could Have Danced all Night." Four encores later (from Gianni Sacchi to Porky and Bess) , we left completely enchanted.
If she had asked us to follow her off a cliff, we all would have done so quite willingly.
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