BOXES 61-62: Venice, Veneto, Verona.

One of my favorite experiences of any of my trips to Europe was visiting a former star of Italian opera, living in retirement in the countryside outside Venice. Here is a corner of her villa, with its Venetian Gothic windows, where she welcomed my friend Mike Bavar and me one warm summer afternoon.

I was in Venice for the second time (as mentioned in the previous post). Naturally I visited some of the same places as before--who would not want to see St Mark's Square again, or ride a vaporetto on the Grand Canal? (To be sure, you'd have to make a considerable effort to explore the city without crisscrossing both.) So here is the Square with the facade of St Mark's, from the vantage point of one of the cafes; followed by a closeup of the Clock Tower to the left of the church, and a view of one of the alleys leading from the Square. Next is a shot of the Grand Canal from a vaporetto, and of the Church of San Geremia as seen from the boat:

As for the opera star: Mike was not only an opera fan but extremely good at getting to meet and even make friends with celebrities. (You may remember that he was the force behind the American Berlioz Society, as reported in BOXES "22-24" and "44-45.") He conducted interviews that were published in Columbia student newspapers and later other periodicals. For this visit to Venice he had arranged to meet one of the great divas of the 1920s and '30s, Toti dal Monte, who was now in her late 70s and living in a villa (the Villa Toti!) about an hour's drive north of Venice, in the Veneto countryside. The only way to reach her was by car. Mike was reluctant to drive in Italy, but I was perfectly happy to chauffeur him. We decided to make a full day of it by detouring to Verona, after the interview, to see Aida at the famed Arena, an ancient Roman amphitheatre used in modern times for a summer opera festival.

Since I didn't know how to drive stick in those days, we were forced to rent a Mercedes, the only car in the rental lot equipped with automatic. I didn't mind that either, though it was a relatively modest model, yet still pricier than a stick rental. As you can see from the windshield shot below, the scenery as we drove through the Veneto was spectacular.

We must have had awfully good directions to have found the villa, which was at the end of a unpaved drive through a thick woods. Below you see part of the drive; the house itself (much grander than we had expected); and part of the gardens surrounding the villa.

In contrast to the bright exterior, the interior was quite dim, with heavy drapes blocking the intense sunlight: like the opening scene of The Godfather but not sinister! With its cozy furnishings and vintage photographs and portraits, together with the dim light, it was the most "Italian" atmosphere you could possibly imagine.

Signora dal Monte was a charming hostess. Her English was poor, close to nonexistent, as I recall, but Mike and I both knew just enough Italian (his better than mine) to follow her stories. Mainly I remember her telling about a time when she was to sing Madama Butterfly (her most celebrated role) in some major city, and had ordered a real kimono from Japan to wear onstage instead of the usual costume dug up from wardrobe. The box from Japan didn't arrive until the morning of the performance, and Toti was shocked to discover that a "real" kimono was essentially pieces of cloth: there were no written instructions on how to fit it together to form something wearable. Her staff had to search the city to find someone who actually know how to wear a true kimono, and succeeded only at the last minute.

Here is the photo I took of Toti with Mike. (I can't make out the title of the book he's holding; mostly likely it's something he asked her to autograph.)

And here is the photograph she kindly gave me as a souvenir of the occasion; the autograph, unfortunately, is almost completely faded. (She is costumed maybe as Lucia di Lammermoor, another of her famous roles.)

Our drive to Verona took us southwest an hour or two. The most memorable part of the drive was the highway taking us through the walled town of Cittadella: an unexpected surprise. In the shots below you see us about to enter through the eastern town gate, then about to leave via the western gate:

There was a golden sunset as we neared Verona, but just as we entered the city the light became too dim for my Instamatic:

Seeing Aida at the Arena was great fun. The atmosphere was more baseball stadium than opera house, with vendors walking up and down the aisles during intermissions shouting "GE-LA-TO!" (The Arena seats 15,000.) The Triumphal Scene was, as you'd expect, spectacular, with a troop of the Pharaoh's horses trotting onstage at the climax. The only drawback was the length of the intermissions, up to 45 minutes each, with an extra intermission between the the two scenes of Act II where the music is supposed to be nonstop. It was 1 am when the intermission between Acts III and IV was about to begin, and Mike and I decided we had better head back to Venice. It was well after 2 am when we got back to our hotel, a small one where we found the entrance locked: it took some ringing to rouse the manager, who was not happy standing in his bathrobe as he let us in.

I took only a few more pictures in Venice: the Grand Canal, the Domes of St Mark's, an alley with laundry, and a sunset. You could say they're all cliches of Venice photography, but I like the way the last two in particular turned out:

Then it was on to Rome, where we were meeting up with an art-historian friend of Mike's. More on that in my next post.