Milan Part 1

I was looking forward to the train ride to Milan and seeing the Italian countryside. However I ended up sleeping most of the way. I think the jet lag had finally caught up to me, I seem to have developed a bit of a cold also so yesterday I pretty much just went from the train station to our hotel and napped.

Fortunately I was recovered enough to go to La Scala last evening. Even though the opera wasn’t a familiar one it turned out to be really enjoyable. It helped that Dennis had read through the play so could fill in the gaps - it was also great that La Scala has installed little reader displays at each seat so you could get the libretto in either English or Italian. I don’t have any personal experience with opera houses so don’t have much to compare it to but even if I did I believe La Scala would come out way ahead. The opulence of all the boxes going up the periphery of the space, one on top of the other. I think I cheaped out a little bit too much, should maybe have tried for better seats but what we had were still okay.

The thing about that building is that I think you would have great sound no matter where you were sitting and that’s pretty much what this opera was about. It wasn’t a really visual one, fairly minimal sets (although there was one pretty cool effect when he was preaching his Christmas sermon) and we could see Thomas Becket being murdered which was pretty much the climax. I did manage to take a few pictures, in spite of the ushers. No picture taking is allowed so I held off for quite a while but at the intermission I just couldn’t resist so I broke the rules and took a few. I was going to take one of the entire cast at the end but I got a finger wagging from an usher so put my camera away - judging by the overall behaviour within the theatre, the ushers must spend most of their time chastising picture takers.

Now we’re on the train again, heading back to Rome so I’m going to see some of the country side I missed yesterday (it’s Dennis’ turn to sleep apparently).