Ferragosto Fiasco

Italy heads to the beach.

In August, Italy celebrates a holiday called 'Ferragosto' during which everyone has a holiday and goes to the beach. All over Italy, people dress down and chill out. The tradition goes right back to Roman times - the name of the holiday derives from the Latin expression Feriae Augusti (Augustus' rest) - the Emperor Augustus introduced it in 18 BC as a holiday at the end of the harvest season, a time to take a rest. So Italians have been taking their August Rest since 18 BC!

The whole thing was apparently given a boost by Mussolini during the Fascist period in the 1920s. Wiki tells us that:

The popular tradition of taking a trip during Ferragosto arose during Fascism. In the second half of the 1920s, during the mid-August period, the regime organised hundreds of popular trips through the Fascist leisure and recreational organisations of various corporations, and via the setting up of the "People's Trains of Ferragosto", which were available at discounted prices.
The initiative gave the opportunity to less well-off social classes to visit Italian cities or to reach seaside and mountain resorts. The offer was limited to the 13th, 14th and 15th August, and comprised two options: the "One-Day Trip", within a radius of 50-100 km, and the "Three-Day Trip" within a radius of about 100–200 km.
For many families, it was only during these trips that they saw the sea, mountains, and Italy's many artistic marvels for the first time. Moreover, since the trips did not include food, the connected tradition of the packed lunch arose.

The packed lunch on the train? Ah! Another mysterious Italian tradition explained!

I can report that, as far as Amalfi is concerned, the tradition of people with little money packing up and going to the seaside during Ferragosto is alive and well. The town filled up with budget local tourists and the beaches - the free public ones, not the pay-for-your-beach-lounger concessions - were packed. People arrived on buses and in their own sturdy vehicles, not in chauffeured hire cars. Still, despite the shoe-string budgets, they all appeared to be having a good time.

The cantina.

The locals too: up in the Valle dei Mulini, opposite my place, a new joint has opened. It's called 'Msieria & Nobilta - Cantina è musica' - which means something like 'the poor and the rich - cellar and music'. Each evening since it opened we have heard the strains of what sounds like bad karaoke drifting through the night air. The place claims to serve good basic Neapolitan food. During Ferragosto, with the town full of dodgy day-trippers, we decided to eat at the new cantina.

We found the place full of local people, including a long table of friends and numerous children. We grabbed the last table, close to the band, which consisted of two guys, one playing electronic keyboards and the other singing. The singer was the chap from the post office where I buy my stamps. They stuck to Neapolitan pop songs. The post-office singer was fairly tuneful, but the proprietor, a round and cheerful chap named Rocco, liked to take the microphone and add his own less-tuneful voice to the cacophony. Various patrons of the cantina also joined in - there was a spare microphone provided for the purpose. Rocco also had a variety of musical instruments around - tambourines, clappers, strange noise-makers - which he handed out to guests as the evening grew more raucous. I found myself energetically tapping away at a tambourine.

The party starts to swing.

Musical instruments causing hilarity. 

Rocco dances with his customers.

Our fiasco.

Of course, a few beverages will help you to get into the mood for a party like this. The choice of drinks  at the cantina was: water or wine. The wine - red - came in a fiasco bottle, the typical Italian straw-covered, round-bottomed bottle in which we all used to buy cheap chianti in the 1970s, and then save the bottle for a candle. The wine we received at the cantina had no name or provenance, but was very good.

In English the word 'fiasco' refers to a stupendously inept disaster: "A thing that is a complete failure, esp. in a ludicrous or humiliating way;" but Wiki says of the straw-covered bottle:

A fiasco (/fɪˈæskoʊ/; Italian pronunciation: [ˈfjasko]) is a typical Italian style of bottle, usually with a round body and bottom, partially or completely covered with a close-fitting straw basket. The basket is typically made of sala, a swamp weed, sun-dried and blanched with sulfur. The basket provides protection during transportation and handling, and also a flat base for the container. Thus the glass bottle can have a round bottom, which is much simpler to make by glass blowing. Fiaschi can be efficiently packed for transport, with the necks of upturned bottles safely tucked into the spaces between the baskets of upright ones.

Yes, they started to dance on the chairs.

A family occasion.

Rocco's table in the stream.
In case things got too hot indoors, I guess.

We enjoyed the wine in our fiasco, and as the evening progressed the whole experience seemed to descend into something resembling the English meaning of the word - but although things became a bit ludicrous, I don't think any of the participants would have called it a failure. It was a wild night at the cantina - great to see the Italian locals enjoying their night out.

Buon Ferragosto!

San Lorenzo

San Lorenzo

Here's another instalment in the busy 'feast season' on the Amalfi Coast, when each village celebrates the Saint Day of their special patron saint. On the 9th and 10th of August, the village of Scala put on their party for San Lorenzo, the patron saint of the village after whom its impressive Duomo is named. Scala's church is a little-known secret - the oldest church on the Coast, dating from the 12th century and boasting a lovely majolica-tiled floor.

Read about Scala in this blog post by Laura Thayer:

The heart of town is the Duomo of San Lorenzo in the center of Scala. Dating back to the 12th century, this grand church – far larger than any of the churches in Ravello – retains its Romanesque central portal surrounded by medieval sculptural decorations and two griffins standing guard. Traces of frescoes above the door are all the remain of what once must have been an elaborately decorated façade. The bell tower dominates the town’s main piazza, which is surrounded by shops, the city hall and the town’s elementary school.

Duomo of San Lorenzo, Scala

Stepping into the Duomo, you immediately get a sense of the splendor and wealth of Scala in the Middle Ages. Although the town is quiet today, the size and grandeur of the Duomo reflects the city’s prominent past. The church was redecorated in the Baroque style in 1615, and the ceiling features painted panels depicting scenes from the life of the martyr San Lorenzo, the patron saint of Scala. In the center of the church you’ll find an elaborate and decorative scene on the floor created with hand painted ceramic tiles. The central shield depicts of lion climbing a ladder, which is the symbol of Scala—the word “scala” in Italian meaning “ladder” or “stairs.”

Tiled floor in San Lorenzo's cathedral.

Ceiling frescoes, Duomo San Lorenzo. They date back to 1748.

So what happens during the celebrations of San Lorenzo's Saint's day? Like the other village celebrations - we've covered Santa Maddelena and San Pantaleone this summer - lights are strewn in the trees and along the village streets; itinerant vendors come in to sell gimcrack plastic toys, balloons, corn on the cob and such-like delicacies; the church is open all day for masses and confessions, culminating in a long parade where the effigy of the saint is carried around all the village streets to the accompaniment of incense, prayers and a little hymn singing. A band is hired - Scala's was a good one, they did numbers from Verdi's 'Il Trovatore' (Verdi is always a crowd-pleaser); and the night is capped off by a fireworks display.

Celebrating San Lorenzo's festa.

The village gathers in the piazza to watch the saint return to his Duomo after the procession.

There he is, San Lorenzo.

The band chose Verdi, a popular choice.

San Lorenzo and his grid-iron
 (source)

But, as always, the story behind the saint is intriguing. Who was San Lorenzo, and why has Scala adopted him as their own? It seems he is properly known as 'San Lorenzo di Roma' and lived in the third century, when Christians were still being persecuted in Rome by the Emperor Valerian. San Lorenzo died a martyr's death, according to legend being barbecued on a grill. This grisly end is recalled in paintings and sculptures of San Lorenzo, when he is depicted holding a small grill, or grid-iron. The whole gory episode is shown somewhat more graphically in Tintoretto's "The Martyrdom of St Lawrence" (which is in Christ Church, Oxford):

Tintoretto imagines....(source)

It was rather surprising to discover that San Lorenzo (Saint Lawrence in English) is, rather tastelessly (no pun intended), the patron saint of cooks.

Wiki tells the story of his martyrdom:

A well-known legend has persisted from earliest times. As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church, and the distribution of alms to the poor. St. Ambrose of Milan relates that when St. Lawrence was asked for the treasures of the Church he brought forward the poor, among whom he had divided the treasure as alms. "Behold in these poor persons the treasures which I promised to show you; to which I will add pearls and precious stones, those widows and consecrated virgins, which are the church’s crown." The prefect was so angry that he had a great gridiron prepared, with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence’s body placed on it (hence St. Lawrence's association with the gridiron). After the martyr had suffered the pain for a long time, the legend concludes, he made his famous cheerful remark, “I'm well done. Turn me over!” From this derives his patronage of cooks and chefs.

However, some party-poopers have suggested that the whole legend is a bit suspect, pointing out that although Christians were indeed killed in those times, a slow lingering death was unusual. Moreover, in a particularly boring deflation of the legend, a certain Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri postulates that it was the result of a mistaken transcription, the accidental omission of the letter "p" – "by which the customary and solemn formula for announcing the death of a martyr – passus est ["he suffered," that is, was martyred] – was made to read assus est [he was roasted].

We can only hope, I suppose, that San Lorenzo did not die a slow and lingering death for his faith; though if the grill story is a typographical error, then I guess we also have to abandon the excellent anecdote about "I'm well done. Turn me over!" -- and the cooks and chefs have only a tenuous claim to San Lorenzo as their patron. Though for those who like a good legend, there is a shrine in Rome that displays the actual grid-iron said to have been used to grill San Lorenzo to death, and the Vatican has a reliquary said to contain his burnt head.

San Lorenzo is big in Rome, and throughout the Roman Catholic world:

St Lawrence is especially honoured in the city of Rome, where he is one of the city's patrons. There are several churches in Rome dedicated to him, including San Lorenzo in Panisperna, traditionally identified as the place of his execution; the part of Rome near the San Lorenzo basilica is called Quartiere San Lorenzo. He is invoked by librarians, archivists, cooks, and tanners as their patron. His celebration on 10 August has the rank of feast throughout the entire Catholic world. (source)

Moreover, San Lorenzo, who is thought to have been born in Spain, has a close connection with the Holy Grail:

According to lore, Lawrence was able to spirit away the chalice used during Christ's Last Supper (the "Holy Grail") to Huesca, in present-day Spain, with a letter and a supposed inventory, where it lay hidden and unregarded for centuries....While the Holy Chalice's exact journey through the centuries is disputed, it is accepted by many Catholics that the Chalice was sent by his family to this monastery for preservation and veneration. Historical records indicate this chalice has been venerated and preserved by a number of monks and monasteries through the ages. Today the Holy Grail is venerated in a special chapel in the Catholic Cathedral of Valencia, Spain. (source)

Added to all this is the fact that French explorer Jacques Cartier gave the name of Saint Lawrence to the widest river estuary in the world. At the mouth of this river is the large Gulf of Saint Lawrence, surrounded by all the Canadian Maritime provinces. 

And there's more: the night of 10th August is known as "The Night of San Lorenzo". It's a time when you can expect to see stella cadenti - falling stars - and your dreams might come true. "The Night of the Shooting Stars" is the name of an Italian fantasy ware drama made in 1982.

As for Scala - I could find no source to tell me why its Duomo is dedicated to San Lorenzo, nor why he was adopted as the town's patron saint. Perhaps they just wanted to go with the biggest and brightest.

San Lorenzo immortalised in a local trattoria.

An itinerant merchant at the recent Festa in Scala,
with a sign in rather bad taste, I thought. Considering.

For more on festivals and Feasts on the Amalfi Coast, you can check this site, though note the rueful disclaimer:

NB.  Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy (but this is Italy and subject to more change than normal!)

Santa Maddelena

Atrani.

July 22 is the Feast Day of Santa Maddelena, and since she is the patroness of the small village of Atrani on the Amalfi Coast, the villagers pull out all stops to give her a huge party. The piazza and church are festooned with lights - the more garish the better - a marching band is hired, and FIREWORKS arranged.

Band!

On the Feast Day the lovely old Church of Santa Maddalena is open for mass - and confession - all day. In the evening the effigy of the saint is taken from her post in the church, where she has been surrounded by luxuriant flowers and many candles, and is carried on the shoulders of the village's strongest on a long parade around the all the village streets. The priest and various religious acolytes march with her, the band plays along, and most of the population follows steadily in her wake - except for the more irreligious, who are already having their dinner at the restaurants on the piazza. The head of the comitato - the organising committee - walks in pride of place behind the saint carrying her banner.

Lights! 

Parade!

comitato

When the parade finally wends to its conclusion, everyone gathers in the piazza for a few words from the priest, some musical numbers from the band, and to party on while awaiting midnight. The car park by the seashore is thronged with vendors selling balloons, snacks and cheap plastic children's toys. The town parties.

At midnight, finally, the grande finale: firework erupt from the sea, where they were set in the morning on barges, the breakwater and special floating buoys. Since the pride of the village depends upon a fine display, a fine display we get.

The complete name of Santa Maddalena's church in Atrani is the Collegiate Church of St. Mary Magdalene Penitent. It is one of the largest churches in Atrani, a small town of many churches, some dating back to the medieval days of the Doges of the Amafi Republic.

[The church] ...was founded in 1274 on the ruins of a medieval fortress on the initiative of Atrani. Over time the church has undergone considerable restoration. In 1570, near collapse, funds were raised by special taxes on wheat and export of manufactured goods to restore the church. The building underwent a second operation almost a century later, in 1669....In 1753, as the population grew the church was enlarged and expanded by donations from private citizens...It was during this work that the fortress was finally demolished in order to free up additional space enlargement. In recent times, it was renovated by the architect Lorenzo Casalbore of Salerno. The temple is decorated with two transepts. One ceiling is covered externally with tiles; the other has a flat roof. There are numerous statues and paintings placed in various side chapels: The Madonna shepherdess (famous sculpture of 1789) and The Incredulity of St. Thomas (work of the 16th century Salerno Andrea Sabatini). The facade of the church is considered "the only example of Rococo on the Amalfi Coast". The terrace of the sacristy overlooks the Gulf of Salerno as the Belvedere of Villa Cimbrone. The bell tower, with its brown tuff, is reminiscent of the Madonna del Carmine in Naples. (source)

Santa Maddalena waits in the church for her outing.

There she goes!

But who is Santa Maddalena that she should merit such a great Feast and such a venerable church? The Atrani priest coyly described her as 'Jesus' friend.' According to the gospels, she could be considered a female apostle, since she followed Jesus around just like his twelve male companions. She was there at the two greatest moments of Jesus' life, his crucifixion and his resurrection. She was the only one (excepting John the Beloved) who stayed to the bitter end when he was crucified - all the other Apostles ran away. She was also the first to find his open tomb and to see the resurrected Christ, and to recognise him. She took the news to the others. She is described a "the second-most important woman" in the New Testament (after Jesus' mother, of course, which is only right, as Italians know); and if you count all the references to her in the Gospels, she mentioned more often than any other one apostle.

Maddalena, or Mary Magdalene as she is also known, has also been cast as a prostitute, a rather earthy interpretation, possibly appended since she was a female who followed Jesus around. Nevertheless, if we take the Gospels as historical record and we have any thoughts that perhaps Jesus was married (and there was news of this claim recently from scholars), the Santa Maddalena is surely a front runner for the position of 'wife'. Here's Wikipedia's take on her life.

Worth a fine feast, indeed.

Following the saint through the piazza.

Vendors join the party atmosphere.

Fireworks!

Let The Games Begin

The crowds gather: Olympic Park

Sports fans

There has been so much press on the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony that it would be completely superfluous for me to add any more. It would also be a bit difficult, since I missed - or didn’t understand - some large chunks of it. No, I couldn’t get tickets (or didn’t want to pay £2000 apiece for the last-minute seats that appeared). But I was within spitting distance, so to speak, of the Stadium. Out at Stratford, where the Westfield company cannily finished a new mega-mall just in time for London 2012, there were a number of hospitality junkets in progress, and we managed to book into one on a roof top with a great view of the Stadium and the crowds of lucky ticket-holders streaming in to enjoy Danny Boyle’s spectacle. Of course, it did start to rain early in proceedings - it would have been disappointing somehow if Britain hadn’t turned on at least a little rain - so we moved indoors. 

Overlooking Olympic Park.

We settled down with a glass of bubbly to watch the Ceremony unfold on television. The screen was small, the sound was poor, and television coverage didn’t start until an hour after proceedings in the arena (“The Prologue”) began. Weirdly, we could actually see one of the big screens in the Stadium itself from where we sat, so we could catch glimpses of the carthorses and geese and bucolic pastorale even though the BBC wasn’t showing us.

From our cheap seats we also experienced the red, white & blue fly-past overhead (very exciting) and the fireworks at various points (nice). But perhaps most excitingly we could see the Queen leap out of the helicopter. Now, for those of you - there must be one or two - who didn’t watch the Opening Ceremony, that will sound surprising. I’ll just leave it at that.

The fireworks begin....

...and really take off.

My favourite moment amongst those I did understand was Sir Simon Rattle conducting the LSO, playing the theme from ‘Chariots of Fire’. But fond as I am of the LSO, it was Rowan Atkinson on ostinato at the back of the band that had me in stitches. It was interesting too to see the role that Mark Rylance relinquished because of a bereavement in his family - that of Islambad Brunel, the Victorian engineer. The part was taken by Kenneth Branagh, and apart from standing about in a top hat looking admiringly at the depressing smoking chimney stacks that despoiled the green and pleasant land, his big moment was to read that very excerpt from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. The words were fine out of context, but that play does come rather close to the bone on questions of colonialism...perhaps no one noticed. (IMHO, Mark Rylance would have made even such a role ridiculously memorable.)

Showing us her boots...

When the festivities were done and Sir Paul McCartney had begun his closing number, we joined the rest of the early crowd whizzing out to Stratford Station, humming along to “Hey Jude”, and onto the tube for the journey home. It was 1 am, and most of our fellow travellers at this stage were Olly Vollies and performers from the ceremony. One lady in our carriage talked excitedly, indeed at great length, about her stint as an Industrial Revolution-era worker. She even showed us her boots. It’s moments like these...

But what of the sport? I hear you ask. Well, of course the parade of athletes at the Ceremony was a big highlight, if a 1.5 hour-long highlight. We felt the Australian team’s dignified outfits, and the dapper Great Gatsby-styled team USA looked the best. We criticised Team GB’ s ghastly Wacko Jacko, gold-underarm, High Street designed jackets.

ARCHERY

Happy Archers - Mexico v Italy

Oh, you mean the actual sports competition? Well yes - we must get on to that. Day One saw us at the Archery, handily located at Lord’s Cricket Ground, just a five minute walk around the corner from home. And what a great afternoon of sport it turned out to be! We watched eight teams play off, then the semis, and the medal finals. We learnt a lot about Archery, the scoring, the timing, the equipment, the concentration. We saw the favourites, South Korea, eliminated from the Gold medal round, though they took home Bronze. The Korean archers were named Im, Kim and Oh. Somewhat amazingly, Im is registered as blind. You’d never have known, as the three of them scored tow rounds of three perfect tens in their heat. Playing for Silver & Gold were the USA and Italy -- in a thrilling nail-biter, the Gold came down to the very last arrow. The Italian archer took his bow, knowing that they needed a perfect ten for Gold, and he calmly shot that ten with two seconds to spare on the clock. Wowsa!

Concentration...Mexico.

And after a Gold Medal comes...a Medal Ceremony! A little pomp and ceremony, formality, officials, medals, flowers, flag raisings, and the National Anthem, in this case of Italy. So exciting.

The winners! Italy.

What has he got there?

Our first Olympic Archery experience was also enlivened by the discovery, on arrival, that our seats didn’t exist. Yes, they’d sold us Row 7, seats 88 & 89, for £95 each, and then constructed a walkway where the seats should be. I should mention that the Archery course and seating is all a temporary, narrow alley plonked in the middle of the hallowed turf of Lord’s. The usual broad cricket arena would be too wide for Archery. So we waited for a supervisor, who shuffled us around a few times, once into seats where we had no view at all. Cursing him roundly, I went off to find a higher authority, and was assisted by a terribly friendly and helpful Olly Vollie who pointed me at a hidden ticket office about as big as toilet cubicle. There, waiting patiently for us, was an envelope with substitute tickets - for perfectly fine seats. So apart from missing a few arrows and enjoying some righteous indignation, we felt that the matter was resolved.

Go LOCOG - you’re getting it 85% right. 

And congratulations Italy!

Dressing the Wells

Buxton: please DO drink the tapwater.

The Romans called Buxton ‘Aquae Arnemetiae’, the Victorians flocked to ‘take’ the health-giving waters, and Londoners know that ‘the water comes from Buxton’. Buxton is built on the River Wye, at the edge of the Peak District in the middle of England, not far from Manchester. It is in Derbyshire, and it was the Dukes of Devonshire that first spotted its potential as a spa town and developed the lovely Crescent buildings, the Pump House and other amenities.

Certainly Buxton is a ver verdant place, or as one local put it - “we’re built on water here”. The foundations of St Johns Church, built in 1811, had to be supported by a number of pillars going down to bedrock, so spongy is the spring-laden land on which it stands.

Your blogger samples St Ann's Well water.

The Romans, with their unerring eye for thermal baths, first settled the area, but it came to prominence in the 18th century when it was developed by the Dukes of Devonshire, with a second resurgence of popularity in the Victorian era. 

But it is the Well of St Ann that is at the heart of all this watery popularity. It’s been a shrine to St Ann since medieval times, according to Wikipedia. The well stands in the centre of town, near the old Pump Rooms, and to this day spouts warm water - a steady 28 degrees C - available to all. It is also bottled by the Buxton Mineral Water Company and sold far and wide - the company is the official supplier of water to the English Cricket team. The label on my bottle of Buxton Water reads:

Our water fell as rain water 5,000 years ago on the rolling hills of the unspoilt Peak District. During its deep underground journey, it slowly filters, collecting lovely minerals which give Buxton water its unique balanced and refreshing taste. Day after day it rises naturally at St Anne’s Spring, in the heart of Buxton town. 

Discovered in the church...

...what are they doing?

Wandering in to St John’s Church one Saturday in July at the beginning of the Buxton Festival, we happened across a lot of busy people who had just finished decorating some large wooden shapes with clay, and leaves and petals, to make the pieces of two large dioramas. Upon further enquiry, we learnt that they were preparations for something called “Dressing the Wells”. The decorations made in the church were on their way on various local trucks to the Well of St Ann, and another well in the Higher Buxton marketplace) the highest marketplace in England, in fact). When we checked out the results, we found the colourful decorations in place around St Ann’s Well - but the supply of spring water still gushing unaided and free from deep underground.

Loaded on the truck....

....curiouser and curiouser....

The Buxton Wells Dressing Festival seems to be some sort of semi-pagan ritual of thanks. The populace not only go to all the trouble to decorate their wells, they also crown a Queen of the Wells, and Bless the Wells. This year they are also holding a fun day, a carnival, a pet show and a spitfire fly-past. They seem to be very thankful for their springs. 

As well they might be - *boom-boom*.

St Ann's Well, fully Dressed.

Upon checking into the matter further, further information has come to light:

The Custom of Well Dressing is mostly unique to Derbyshire, its origins and history are not certain but its roots are said to come from pagan customs of making offerings to Water Gods, many Wells were thought to have healing powers and during early Christian times offerings continued to be made, as a result some Wells were dedicated to Christian Saints as St. Ann’s Well in Buxton.

A Well Dressing is a picture wholly made up of natural materials on a base of clay housed within a wooden frame.The picture is a collage of flower petals, leaves, moss, bark, seeds etc. Of varying colours and textures which with the skill of the dressers bring the subject matter to life. Each Community has slight variations in the method used to make a dressing but the general principles are the same.

The things you find in Deepest Rural England. 

Buxton Intermezzi

Beautiful Buxton

“Intermezzi” are short, brief entertainments between the acts of a play or an opera. A weekend trip to Buxton (pronounced by the locals as “Books-tun”) in Derbyshire provided a charming interlude to London life. From the first moment of arrival (fast train from London, then a rather slower two-carriage diesel to the local station) Buxton pleased. It is a delightful small town, built of homogenous, presumably locally-quarried, grey stone, set in the foothills of the Peak District. It has many wonderfully preserved buildings from its hey-day as a spa town: Buxton is famous for its waters. There are fine faded old hotels, a huge dome, a pavilion, lovely gardens, England’s oldest market square, and its oldest hotel (Mary Queen of Scots staying the building), a crescent of townhouses and a yet-to-be-restored pump room - just like a mini-Bath.

Buxton's Crescent: under restoration, to re-open 2014

And there is, moreover, an Opera House. It seems that the restoration of this opera house and its rescue from use as a cinema was the catalyst for the establishment of the Buxton Festival, which has now evolved into a regular summer feats of music, art and literature.

The Palace Hotel, Buxton

Upon our arrival at The Palace Hotel, a fine old faded lady, the reception hall was filed with a capella song as a visiting choir warmed up. We checked in to the strains of “It’s a Wonderful World”, then set out to find what Buxton had to offer. It soon dawned on us that we had happened upon a real gem of a town. We were spilt for choice of atmospheric old pubs at which to lunch, and -- uh, oh! -- we found the place filled with bookshops. Buxton is, you see, also a university town, a campus of the University of Derbyshire. Apart from the permanent bookshops, Buxton was merrily hosting a a literary festival, so there were extra bookstalls sprinkled about. There was also, under the dome of the pavilion, a serious antiquarian book fair on display. Did we buy books? Of course we did. My highlight find was as copy of a small chapbook written by Virginia Woolf, and published in 1934 by Hogarth Press - which was run by Leonard and Virginia Woolf in their basement in Tavistock Square. (Without getting too excited, I remind you that some of my philosophy classes at Birkbeck were held in the very same building on Tavistock Square...but I digress...). In 1934 the small book sold for “one shilling & sixpence net”. In Buxton in 2012 it cost me £20. A bargain!

Buxton Opera House

But we weren’t in Buxton just to enjoy its ambience and its book-buying possibilities. We were here for another “Intermezzo” - the rarely-performed opera by Richard Strauss. The lovely little Buxton Opera House was hosting the opening night, under the baton of conductor Stephen Barlow (who is , interestingly, married to Joanna Lumley, though we didn’t spot her in the stalls). The maestro and the director, Stephen Unwin, provided half an hour of ‘opera talk’ before the performance, which was illuminating. 

The opera, you see, is autobiographical, and domestic. It’s the story of a squabble between the composer and his wife, and it fairly closely factual. The action takes place in Grundlsee and Vienna, Austria in 1924. Christine, the wife in the piece, is a wild and argumentative harridan, and it is said that Strauss‘ real-life wife Paulina was none too happy when she saw it. Bust as Michael Kennedy writing in the program tells us:

They were an oddly-matched couple. He was phlegmatic, easy-going, good-natured. She was volcanic, outspoken (she would sometimes decry he husband’s music in public) and she became a domestic matriarch, keeping their home immaculately clean and well-run. They adored each other and their marriage lasted for 55 years until Strauss’s death in 1949. When he died, she went to pieces and survived only another eight months. from their marriage until she retired in 1906 [she was a soprano], they gave many recitals together and he regarded her as the best interpreter of his songs. Elements of Pauline can be found in most Strauss operas. She fascinated him totally.  

Apart from its unusual domestic and autobiographical subject-matter, the opera is also musically unusual. It is very much a continuous ‘conversation’, with no interspersed arias or choruses - though it does end with a wonderful duet between ‘Christine’ and ‘Robert’. Typically of Strauss, the final music is so resplendent that you are inevitably left wanting it to go on and on...

Summer Festival, Buxton

The soprano role. Christine, is huge - she is on stage for 10 of the 13 cinematographic scenes through which the opera speed. I Buxton, the sets were naturalist and beautifully rendered, minimalist on furniture but rich with props and details. Christine was sung by Janis Kelly, and marvellously. Her husband was sung by Stephen Gadd, equally well. In fact, al the voices were excellent indeed. The opera was sung in an English translation (by Andrew Porter), which worked fine (German to English translations never seem to suffer too much). 

Strauss subtitled “Intermezzo” - “A bourgeois comedy in two acts”. The director Stephen Unwin told us that he was a theatre director whose style very much favoured a naturalistic approach. he even quoted a remark of Zola as an inspiration:

“There is more poetry in a little apartment of a bourgeois than in all the empty worm-eaten palaces of history.” 

Strauss defended his decision to write a more or less plotless opera - nothing really happens, it is like the ‘Seinfeld’ of opera - and said that his “attractive and consistent character portrait” was “more interesting than any so-called plot”. 

Unwin writes in the program: 

...this rejection of conventional opera was more than merely formal, it was a self-conscious embrace of modernism’s contention that all lives, of every type, are worthy of interest and capable of being rendered into art...

Bravo, Herr Strauss. And bravissimo Buxton.

Buxton

Buxton

Buxton locator: in the Peak District

Map from: http://www.swainsleyfarm.co.uk/getting-here.htm