ITALY: Learning to love opera where it began

[ASUmusicMAN]

ITALY: Learning to love opera where it began

BARBARA WOIKE, Associated Press Writer

Monday, April 12, 2004

©2004 Associated Press

How do you make the long journey from being an opera hater to an opera lover? When does the shrieking of sopranos and bellowing of tenors resolve into lovely music?

For me, that journey took place on a real trip -- to Italy, where opera was born.

An Italian vacation focusing on opera festivals is as good a way as any to see the country. And for seasoned Italy-lovers who've had their fill of Rome, the Vatican, Venice and the Renaissance art of Florence, it is a whole new way to experience the country. For three enchanted evenings last summer, I watched opera in the 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater of Verona. I topped the week off by seeing one of the operas, Puccini's "Turandot," a second time beside a lake in Tuscany where the composer lived and is buried. And I came back to the states a convert to an art that I had once viewed as haughty and unapproachable.

Continue it HERE

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

[DudeAsInCool]

Nice post--I passed this on to a bud who loves opera.