Turandot is probably not the easiest of Operas for people who don’t know much about this form of music but the performance at Verona’s Arena was a wonderful introduction to it.
Sitting in the world’s biggest arena where people have come to be entertained for hundreds of years made it a special experience from the start.
Even if you didn’t appreciate the music it would have been difficult to have remained unimpressed by the visual spectacular. Some of the scenes are on YouTube here.
Then came Nessun Dorma which earned an encore and provided a wonderful finale for our holiday.
A performance of that song from the Arena a month ago is also on YouTube.
I acknowledge that I am a philistine, but sometimes i do recognise the finer things in life.
The first time I heard Nessum Dorma was at Italia ’96, i think, sung by Pavarotti.
Man, did it make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. That with the Italian football team that year I was in football heaven.
since then I’ve heard any number of arias but that one is my absolute favourite.
Good driving music too!