Opera, Gardening, Politics, Cats....

I am just about to go and plant the beautiful violas I bought yesterday.

And I am hoping there will enough blackberries and windfall apples to make a blackberry and apple pie!

I have a whole load of cherry tomatoes on the vine...first time I have tried to grow these, and they are really delicious!

And the other thing I am really happy with is the chili plant....I have lots of chillies, so I have picked some to make chilli oil.

I am also really happy with the way the COMPOST has progressed! (Beautiful image of compost here.....!)

I started the compost bin when I moved into the flat nearly three years ago, and the contents have rotten down to produce some lovely crumbly, brown, rich compost.

We are back from Italy now.....as I sit at my desk typing this, I am inhaling the scent of a vase of freesias which I just picked from the garden!

There are many different kinds of tomatoes...will be able to make chutney again soon!
And I have more courgettes than I ever had before...in fact, I think I have a MARROW!!!

Today we had the great honour of a visit from GARIBALDO BENIFEI, an Italian anti-Fascist fighter and partisan, who is now ninety-seven years old.< here is a YouTube clip of him talking about some of his memories. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYvzawsyxJw He came (with a younger comrade ) to visit us at our house in Nugola, to sign a copy of his autobiography and to tell us about his experiences as a political prisoner during the Fascist era and as an anti-Fascist campaigner after 1943. We owe this signal honour to the fact that he tracked down my partner, TOBIAS ABSE, in the Livorno phone-book! Toby is the author of a book about anti-Fascism in Livorno between 1918 and 1922. (It was originally his PhD thesis, and was expanded for publication). On Sunday we were at a dinner to commemorate the laying of a stone in memory of a young anti-Fascist who was killed in Livorno in 1922, and somebody recognised Toby's name, and....this great hero of the Resistance came to visit us! He is the president of A.N.P.P.I.A (Associazione Nazionale Perseguitati Politici Italiani Antifascisti). There is a link here with more info about the organisation. http://www.anppiasardegna.it/ As you can imagine, I am really proud of Toby and his contribution to the history of anti-Fascism.

This is the garden in Italy....

There is a wonderful old fig tree, from which I have already collected lots of ripe fruit...

Perhaps the most beautiful item in the garden is the rosemary, which my mother-in-law planted about 20 years ago...not only does it look beautiful, but it smells gorgeous!

Wonderful occurrence today - we were rescued by a knight in shining armour!!

Well, actually a friend in a slightly battered old car,   but....we were waiting for the bus to go in to Livorno, and someone told us that we were in for a long wait, as there had been an accident on the road into Livorno.
THEN.....incredibly, with true operatic last-minute timing, a friend of ours appeared at the bus stop and gave us a lift into Livorno! What made it more amazing was that usually he goes in on his moped..... 

Ate the first peas from the garden today! Really sweet and delicious!

The beans are flourishing as well.....

I almost don't want to go to Italy later this week! But we have a garden there too.....

The nasturtiums have started to flower, they look so wonderful!

The lavender is looking well too...it is the variety Stoechas, that you see here....with big fat flower-heads!

BRITISH ECOSOCIALISTS PLAN CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM SEMINAR

[From Socialist Resistance]
Planned for Saturday September 12, Climate and Capitalism is the first seminar organised jointly by Green Left and Socialist Resistance, the ecosocialist currents in two of Britain’s left parties, the Greens and Respect. This energetic and open day of discussion will bring experts, campaigners, radical activists and others together. The event will be in the Friends’ Meeting House, London, NW1 (at Euston).

The plan for the day

After registration at 10, the opening plenary will be addressed by Romayne Phoenix, from Green Left, and Ian Angus, editor of The global fight for climate justice, a new book being launched next month. Romayne is a Green councillor: Ian is one of the Socialist Resistance advisory board.

Before lunch, at least three workshops will be held, all with plenty of time for questions and discussions, to give the context for the combined economic and ecological crises. Amongst those planned are:

1. Crisis and the response: with Sean Thompson, author of new pamphlet on the Green New Deal, and the Scottish Socialist Party’s Raphie de Santos, co-author of ‘Socialists and the Capitalist Recession’
2. Gender, ecology and ecosocialism: with Sheila Malone, co-editor of ‘Ecosocialism or Barbarism’
3. Alternatives to the market: with a panel invited including Derek Wall, former principal speaker of the Green Party

The interaction and sharing of experience will deepen in the afternoon, where participants in major struggles for climate and social justice will be speaking. The discussions will include:

1. Voices from the Global South: facilitated by Ian Angus
2. Direct action and prefiguration; with speakers from British direct action campaigns
3. Sustainable cities; with invited experts including the Campaign for Free Public Transport
4. Alternative production: with speakers from the Swedish and British trade union movement struggles for sustainable manufacturing.

The closing plenary will provide an opportunity to see how anti-capitalists in Respect, the Green party and elsewhere on the left can deepen their co-operation – both in the run up to the Copenhagen demonstrations at the end of this year, and next year’s general election. ‘Socialist Resistance’ editor Liam MacUaid will discuss strategies for uniting reds and greens while Green Left’s Andy Hewett will discuss the tasks going forward to Copenhagen. The event will close at 5.30pm.

How to register

You can register in advance and make two savings: get one-third off the price of your ticket, and a further two pounds on the cost of the book being launched at the conference. Tickets cost 6 pounds unwaged (4 in advance) and 12 pounds waged (8 in advance). To register, make your cheque payable to ‘Resistance’ and post it to PO Box 62732 London SW2 9GQ.

Find out more

Visit http://ecosocialism.org for updates on the event. You can register on that site for updates, and to take part in the preparations of the event. If you have any questions or comments send an email to seminar@ecosocialism.org.

Cast

Violetta...............................................Renee Fleming
Flora...................................................Monika-Evelin Liiv
Marquis d'Obigny.............................Kostas Smorignas
Baron Douphol................................ Eddie Wade
Doctor Grenvil..................................Richard Wiegold
Gastone............................................Haoyin Xue
Alfredo...............................................Jospeh Calleja
Anina.................................................Sarah Pring
Giuseppe..........................................Neil Gillespie
Giorgio Germont..............................Thomas Hampson
Messenger.......................................Charbel Mattar
Servant...............................................Jonathan Coad

Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Antonio Pappano

Such a wonderful performance, with a dream cast and conductor! Right from the first note of the prelude, Pappano conjured incfrediblyh wistful sounds from the orchestra, and the entire performance was of this high standard.
Renee Fleming was the best Violetta I have seen in years, looking beautiful though fragile, as Violetta should. She gave a very nuanced performance in Act I, pensive in fors'e lui and frenetic in Sempre libera, with a sub-text almost of hysteria, as she acknowledges that she knows she is dying, and is determined to enjoy what life remains to her. I was delighted that she and Pappano didn't leave a space for the audience to applaud between the two halves of the aria!! (They did at the rehearsal...my view is that it spoils the continuity by interrupting Violetta's train of thought).
Calleja as Alfredo was perhaps less subtle and sensitive in Act I, but then he is playing a rather unsubtle and insensitive young man, so this was in character! Certainly he sang the high notes of his Act II arias with ringing confidence.

Thomas Hampson brought his usual mellifluousness of tone and elegance of person to a character with whom the audience usually has difficulty in sympathising.

I've never heard anyone sing "Amami, Alfredo" with such passion and desperation, and the orchestra reflected Violetta's feelings with equal intensity....I had already started to cry during the scene between Violetta and the father, but this literally had me sobbing. (I didn't bother to try to control it, as nearly everyone else in the audience, at least near me, was crying too!)
I'll just make a few comments about the production. It's a 'conventional' production, i.e. set in the nineteenth century, but I don't have a problem with that!! In the first act, Violetta is wearing a white dress, which one might have thought was unsuitable for a woman in her profession, but (a) it's a beautiful dress and Fleming looks gorgeous in it (b) in fact the statement she is making is..."I can afford this". When she comes to Flora's party in Act II, she is wearing a equally expensive and bejewelled black dress.

After the shocking scene in which Alfredo throws the money at her, the father gives her his hand and escorts her from the room - this wasn't done in the production before, could it have been Thomas Hampson's idea? It's this sort of detail that makes or breaks a production. The point is that just after Alfredo has thrown the money and she collapses, the father offers to help her and she turns away, but then later she accepts his help....
The Prelude to Act III was unbearably poignant - of course, as I intimated, I had already started crying long before. "Addio del passato", of which she gets both verses, was heartbreaking, I am sure that she and the orchestra deserved the applause but for me, I just sat in stunned silence!