Walter Meyer told Lionel and the rest of us:

>>My first trip to Italy was almost 40 years ago and I too heard a Wagner
>>opera (Tanhaeuser, I believe) in Florence, although all I remember was
>>the two Canadian girls I met there who were touring Europe in a Fiat they
>>had bought.

And Richard Pennycuick added:

>I didn't hear a Wagner opera In Florence although I was a day late for a
>concert by the Vienna Philharmonic IIRC.  I too met two Canadian girls but
>at the train station.  Is there some cosmic connection between Canada and
>Florence?

I don't have a Canadian connection to report, but hearing opera in Italy
is truly special.  Many many years ago I heard a performance of Cavalleria
Rusticana in Florence; it was in the courtyard of the Uffizi - one could
look back and see the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria outlined against
the evening sky.  It was my first experience of sitting in an Italian
audience, and the applause for the intermezzo was so enthusiastic and
prolonged that the conductor raised his baton and played it again!  A
magic moment.

Julia Werthimer <[log in to unmask]>
California, USA