Adventures of a Housesitter: Life in Venice

[selenak]

April is still cold in Venice as it seems to be in the rest of the world, but who cares - it's Venice, and beautiful as ever. Though I will say that when the Canadian couple I met last night mentioned the apartment they had rented here came with two pairs of Wellington boots in case of Aqua Alta, it gave me pause. So sign of water to wade through

Comments

[bimo]

Apart from the gas oven dilemma all of this sounds absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing, though I must admit that my knowledge on Britten and Mann is skimpy at best.

Since you were writing about composers and opera: Last Friday I got a bit daring and actually saw my first full-blown Wagner, Parsifal, in Cologne. Very accessible and audience-friendly yet complex staging, emphazising the metaphysical/religious dimension.

Have a great time in Venice! :-)

[selenak]

By a big coincidence, my first Wagner was Parsifal as well, though usually I wouldn't recommend it as an entry experience for newbies, so I'm glad yours worked out!

True Bayreuth anecdote: the fastest Parsifal was conducted by Pierre Boulez, the most slow by James Levine. The difference between the performances was an hour ten minutes, I kid you not. Amfortas isn't in the second act at all, so it was the habit of the singer who played Amfortas to have a nice comfortable in town dinner during that time when Levine conducted. But on one occasion Levine got sick, Boulez agreed to fill in for him in a hurry, literally, and there was much panic when nobody could find the dining Amfortas until someone remembered which restaurant he frequented!

[shezan]

Did the orchestra plunge into this at Boulez speed unrehearsed???

[selenak]

That detail, I wasn't told.:)

[itsnotmymind]

That house sounds wonderful!

[selenak]

It truly is!

[ponygirl2000]

It all sounds glorious!

[selenak]

It is!

[avrelia]

Fantastic adventure!

[selenak]

*beams*

It really is.

[kathyh]

It sounds amazing and how wonderful to have a more tactile experience of living in a palazzo.

Though I blanched when seeing the gas oven.

Speaking as someone who cooks with gas I have the same problem cooking with electricity! If it's a newish gas cooker it's probably got automatic ignition but don't blow up a palazzo trying to find out.

[selenak]

My first experience with gas, or rather, non-experience, was actually in Britain. I was thirteen and had been sent on a "language holiday" to Eastbourne in order to improve my English. (It worked.) My host family used gas. I had never ever seen one before, but, being 13, I wasn't expected to do my own cooking anyway. However, I had been planning on baking a cake for my host family as a thank you for having me there, and, well, ended up trying to bake it on the not-gas driven toaster. That's how much of a dork I was at the age of 13.

[kathyh]

I think the only response to that is "oh dear!" *g*. If it makes you feel any better my grandmother once nearly blew up my parents' house when she turned the gas on to boil the kettle, got distracted and forgot to light it. At that point my parents decided an electric kettle would be a very good idea.