feeling damn empowered

Today was just a great day. I got to Treviso first thing, just like I planned, despite being up til 1 last night at a friend’s for dinner. (Making a plan and sticking to it!) Spent the whole day at the archives. (Looked through a ton and even asked for help.) Had a real lunch (after asking where to go.) Made a phone call to the Querini to make sure they didn’t de-deposit my periodical. (Calling strangers no longer freaks me out!) Sang Bruckner’s Os justi at choir. (Boy, can he write for contralti!) Chatted with section-mates. (I can carry on a real conversation, even sotto voce!) Traded cell numbers with a couple of choir buddies. (Now I know I know their names!)

Another neat thing: On the traghetto I had a lovely conversation with an older lady visiting from Milan. She was unsteady on her feet, recently had an operation, and since there’s nothing to hold onto in the boat she took my arm. After we exchanged niceties about holding each other up as we cross the canal, she asked if I was Venetian. This is so cool, even if it was a fluke. Anyhow, we chatted a bit about Milan and Chicago — a sweet encounter with a kindly stranger.

And, finally, two carnevale snapshots:

• waiting for the traghetto — two women disembarking in their full hoop-skirted costumes, complete with themed headdresses: one a ferris-wheel (16in diam.), the other a full deck of huge playing cards arrayed in a spiral to make a two-foot wide disk.
• walking to rehearsal down Calle della Mandola — a couple in exquisite period costume is up ahead, the woman is stopped in her tracks… she’s leaning over a little and taking a bite out of an enormous slice of pizza.

to the pigeons: “va a quel paese”

I’ve heard that the city is finally kicking out the birdfood vendors in the piazza. So far they haven’t budged, but recently, though, I saw a couple of men just outside the piazza who were trapping pigeons in nets and cramming them into plastic crates. Thinking this was perhaps part of a concerted eradication process, I asked what’s happening to them. Apparently they’re being sent to Mestre. Can’t tell you why — my follow up question didn’t get me very far so I stopped bothering the nice man doing the cramming. (If it was part of an eradication process, it’s not a concerted one.)

In other news, I was very clever at work today and came this close to finding a letter or poem in the hand of Policreti. (Long story.) I also dealt with the laundry…. Our washing machine has stopped spinning, so my sainted adoptive family let me come over to use theirs. Actually, mamma G. insisted that I come over and drop off my biancheria, which I did…though not without some protestation. I don’t mind mooching electricity and detergent, but just dropping off two huge loads of wash doesn’t feel right! Oh, and while I was over there they helped me call the dogana (again) and then asked me to stay for lunch. God bless mamma and pappa G.!

at least there are no carnies

I missed all the blowout events that kicked off carnevale.  Presumably those were the events where it made sense to walk around in maschera. I expected a greater density of crowds and costumes given the fair food stands that have sprung up in all the campi.  Thank goodness that, blowout events aside, it’s no more crowded than usual.  I’d say maybe 10% of the people on the street are in some kind of garb, from a simple eye mask to full regalia. It’s like being in a city-wide “costume optional” party.

I did have a wonderful encounter with the 18th century this morning, though. I was walking under the procuratie nuove, and just as I made the right hand turn to the Marciana I nearly collided with a dress — bright crimson and six feet wide — flanked by two liveried (crimson) footmen. I could barely squeek past them in the loggia.

OK, that was pretty sweet, but honestly, there’s no event to dress for. I don’t think I could do it. But I also don’t like practicing trumpet in dense urban spaces. Yes, we all know I don’t like to draw attention to myself. (Present venue excepted.) It did occur to me, though — in a heady moment of life imitating “conceptual foundations” — that if I were wearing a mask, I’d be anonymous. Then it’s not like drawing attention to yourself, and you could pretend to be someone else. Well, duh. That’s the point. (For those of you who don’t know, there’s a lot of secondary literature on self-fashioning. This is not news.) Have to chuckle at myself.

where am I?

We’re having a glorious spate of sunny days, and the city is suddenly different.  It’s not just that I’ve spent most of the last month at home (there, I’ve said it).  There’s a slate-gray flatness to Venetian winter.  Sunshine is to this city as varnish is to fine wood.  It brings out the texture, the depth, the grain, the color.  Animates it.  Gives it life.

Preparations for carnevale are also underway.  I knew this, of course.  Confetti has dotted the sidewalks more and more since New Years — like crocus heralding spring.  The passarelle for aqua alta are disappearing.  And the mask-shop saturation has cranked up a notch.  But I didn’t anticipate market stands (?) in Campo S. Stefano.  And, frankly, I’m a little alarmed that there’s a crepe stand in the little campo on our side of the Accademia bridge.  Somehow that crosses an invisible, psychological line for me.  This is liable to be more crowded and literally carnival-like than I anticipated.

sun’s out!

Here’s what I saw when I went to the window this morning and looked up. Blue sky and sunshine! Maybe winter will end.

shutters

As you know, windows here have outdoor shutters instead of screens and/or storm windows. So it’s batten down the hatches at night to seal out some of the cold. It really works, but also seals out all of the sunlight — wan and forlorn as it may be this time of year. I can’t wake up in a pitch dark room!

nb: I’m not complaining. I still feel like Miss Honeychurch* every time I open or close the shutters.

*And Miss Lavish when I experience “a true Florentine smell.” If you haven’t seen A Room with a View, rent it! I was cheered to see “Camera con Vista” on tv a couple months ago, but dubbing into Italian seriously defangs the humor.

performing at a scuola grande

Thanks to my sight-singing abilities and the great hospitality of my new Venetian friends, I’ve been invited to sing with two wonderful local choirs. One of these, the Complesso Vocale “Antonio Lotti” just happened — just happened — to be working on a 16c program, which we performed yesterday (20 Jan) at the Scuola Grande San Teodoro. Here’s the program:

• Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno
• Rore, Ancor che col partire
• Donato, Chi la gagliarda
• Lasso, Matona, mia cara
• Banchieri, excerpts from Festino nella sera del giovedi grasso avanti cena

Wow! What a treat! They’re such a jovial bunch of people, and it’s so great to sing this music with them!

This concert was my fourth since arriving here. The first three were with two permutations of a women’s choir formed from voice students at the Scuola di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi.” The big Christmas concert was held in Santa Maria Formosa. The two smaller concerts were held at the Waldensian hostel here in town (which is in a large, old palazzo at the end of the Calle Lunga S Maria Formosa) and, of all places, a small parish church in Ca’ Savio (a small resort town by the Adriatic…deserted in winter). Rehearsals were held in the parish building of S. Maria Formosa and in an old convent, now high school in Cannareggio. The Lotti choir meets in the parish building of S. Maria dell’Orto — which means I get to the other side of town at least twice a week.

I said I’m in two local choirs. The other is Coro Murianum (or some such…I’ve never seen it written). Most of the members are from Murano or Burano, but rehearsals are right in my back yard (at the parish meeting room for S. Salvator). Severe illness in the family of the director has kept this choir in limbo for much of the last two months, but they have a great repertoire of more modern fare (Bruckner, Poulenc, and even composers who are still with us). There are a couple of other women who go from the Lotti rehearsal on Thursday directly to the Murianum rehearsal — so I’m hooked up with some of the city’s hard-core choristers. There is a LOT of dialect used in rehearsals, so they are fantastic practice for me.

Happy New Year, by the way. Will see if I can’t post a little more often.