Weekend Trip to Milano

This is our third wedding anniversary and we are going to Milan for the weekend on the Tren Alto Velocita , (high speed train) from Rome a 4 hour trip, the train as a top speed of 300 km per hour.

The Termini Train Station today was filled with tourists and luggage. It is well organized when you think of the thousands of people who come through this station every day.

This is the Red Arrow train offering service from Napoli to Roma, Firenze, Bologna ending in Milano.
The gentlemen helping the helpless tourists with their luggage (usually North American families) are part of the pick pocket gangs of the Station, did you not notice that they speak a foreign language and they do not look Italian. Yes it is the old trick, prey on the unsuspecting tourist who does not realize that in Italy anyone working somewhere or in any capacity wears a uniform and has an ID badge, these guys are in street clothes, they do not work for Tren Italia. They are very brazen, after helping you badly with your luggage, they ask for payment all the while his colleague picks your pocket. Then they tell you be careful on the train there are many pick pockets. They are gone as quickly as they appear out of nowhere.
LOL!!!!!
Sure enough some people discovered minutes later that their wallet was gone. Coincidence, I don’t think so. To avoid such people, when you spot them, look them sharp in the eye, they will not bother you, they know you spotted them.

At the stop in Firenze, Santa Maria Nova Station, almost every one gets off. A great relief this means we can go and have lunch in the restaurant car, reservations required, in peace.

The menu today, it changes regularly is a first course of pasta then a second course of veal with herbs, dessert, fresh fruits (not canned) and pastries. Wine list available.
The food is usually good, it is an Italian train after all and the service is pleasant.

We arrive in Milan, Province of Lombardy at the border with Switzerland, a Northen City, the Central Station has been redone, built in 1932 during the Fascist Era, it says so on the wall, it is a mixture of Art Deco and Fascist motifs, all done to dwarf the traveller and impress. We are staying in the centre of Milan by the Scala Opera house and the Duomo. Today the centre is crawling with police, the Prime Minister of Italy Sylvio Berlusconi is entertaining his Russian friend V.Putin. The two are good friends and this in turn is good for Italy, trade wise.

Piazza della Scala with the statue to Leonardo da Vinci

Love Milan, the stores, the fashion, the restaurants, everything oozes elegance and style, do not look at the prices, just buy it. This is not Rome, where Rome has history and faded grandeur, Milan has money, banking, trade and style. Look at the bankers in their expensive suits, beautiful ties and highly polished shoes. Every store wants to offer something exclusive. Even in home décor, you can decorate your house to match a designer name. Style reflects who you are or who you want to be. Armani is opening an Hotel in Milan near the Duomo. I can just imagine the room rate.

We went to look for a summer hat for W. so we went to Borsalino, makers of the famous Panama hat. One would say the original, because Borsalino is a name by itself. Wear one and everyone will think you got style. For a simple straw hat, the price is steep. Many people come into the store to look and try on a hat, mostly men.
They are beautiful, classic in style, they are also on sale right now, mid-summer sales in Italy, next month the winter fashion comes out. You can purchase a Borsalino for as little as 174 Euros and spend as much as 350 Euros.
Wear one, it is like driving a Ferrari down the street, all heads will turn.

Borsalino in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II, Milan

Tonite we go to La Scala Milan, the venerable and renovated opera house, famous around the world. I was at La Scala 10 years ago to see a work by Francis Poulenc, Le Dialogue des Carmelites, a stunning work. Tonite we are seeing the Barber of Seville with Juan Diego Flores.
Which means that his fans will be there to give him rapturous applause, he is a great tenor and has a superb voice. At La Scala, men must wear a jacket to enter the theatre, it is required. It is very hot and humid today so I brought a linen suit and shirt.
We will have dinner afterwards, a late dinner around midnight.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II, Milan

Carmen, the Opera

The French composer George Bizet wrote the music of the Opera Carmen in 1875 from a story written by Prosper Merimée and it has become one of the best known operas in the world and is also much loved. This week the Scala Milan opened it's new season 2009-10, this is one of the big events of the social calendar in Italy. The President of the Republic comes from Rome to preside opening night with special guests, usually the Head of State of a country, tickets for this special night usually sell around 1000 Euros a seat or more. It is broadcasted live on RAI television and every one watches.

This year the cast of Carmen featured a new sensation from the Republic of Georgia, mezzo-soprano Anita Rachveslishvili and also a new design and production by a famous theater producer from Sicily, Emma Dante called the new Spirit of the South (Italy) Dante had never produced an opera before and introduced many new concepts to her production of Carmen. Unfortunately for her, the Milan public, which can be very harsh booed her loudly off the stage, live on RAI Television in front of the President of the Italian Republic, the venerable Giorgio Napolitano and the world watching. It was painful and sad for her and you could see on Dante's face how she was on the verge of tears. Even the European ARTE TV channel presenter did not know what to say at this very vocal, loud and persistent criticism. But it happens in Italy, Opera is deadly serious business and be prepared to be attacked if you displease the public, there is no forgiveness. The Conductor, Maestro David Bareboim was visibly angry at the reaction of the audience, but the public is master, right or wrong. Other singer were Jonas Kaufmann (Germany) as Don José and Ervin Schrott (Uruguay) as Escamillo. I did not like the production either as being to Broadway, however it did one thing that of illustrating how all the characters are prisoners of their world.

You often hear from different people in the opera world how Carmen, the character is a free women, how she does what she wants, she is a wild Gypsy, she chooses the men she wants etc... some of the Arias give this impression but it is all bravado. Carmen is a factory worker, a brawler, a leader in her group, the tough girl who throws her weight around, but all this is constrained by the little world she lives in, a very limited confining world, she is poor and belongs to this under world of beggars and thieves. In the Seville of her time, Carmen would have been held in contempt by society, there was no social upward mobility and she was condemn to live in poverty, dreaming of a better life.

What liberty does she have really, not economic, not as a women in a repressive society where people like her are kept down. She sleeps around, we are told, but is this true or is it part of the prejudices and gossip of the society around her, who assigns her this role, or does she, in the hope of catching a rich lover someone who might bring her up in the world, Don José as a the soldier is a possible good catch for her and then Escamillo a far better one. But all this is for naught, she is oblivious to the danger of rejecting male dominance, of not accepting her position as a subordinate and for this she is brutally murdered in the street.

As for the 2 other characters in this opera, Don José the lowly officer soldier, he too is in a low social position, he has an elderly mother who calls for him from her death bed but he ignores her, he is a bad son, something Seville society would frown upon, he lacks judgement, is dissolute and immature, he also has a poor image of himself as a man and needs to assert his manhood by murdering Carmen because she rejects him for Escamillo. Don José is arrested after the murder and being an army deserter, it ends badly for him too.

As for Escamillo, he is the super star, a bullfighter, he has fame and money, for him Carmen is a play thing nothing more and he despise Don José as no good, again a prize winning bullfighter had in Seville a much higher profile than a poor soldier. Escamillo in this love trio will do better because of his status in society, but his job brings him face to face with death everyday in the ring, the bull does not always loose.

I do not see love in this opera, the characters do not love each other, they are posturing, feeding off each others insecurities, they know that theirs is not a pretty life. So you have sex and lust and people running after illusions. This production by Emma Dante had a very gritty side to it, it was not pretty, the music of Bizet is beautiful but tragic with a very sad ending.