Berbenno di Valtellina, Italia
Buongiorno i miei amici! It is raining on and off today. This morning, I drove into Sondrio and met Damilia for coffee at Pasticceria Gelateria La Milanese in Piazza Garibaldi. Actually, I drove the the public parking lot behind the train station. It is easy to get to and I know how to work the ticket machine to get a parking stub. 1 Euro gets you two hours. I still don’t know how to use the credit card part of the machine so having monete is important.
It only takes a few minutes to walk to the piazza. Damilia was sitting in just the right spot in the café and it was easy to spot her. We ordered cappuccino e brioche. Unfortunately, when I left the parking lot it was overcast but not raining, however just about the time we finished the cappuccino it was pouring down rain. The good news was that Damilia did bring her umbrella.
We walked back to her B&B on Via Pelosi, I kid you not. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with Nancy or her husband. Then I walked back to the train station. I kept remembering a small chapel I visited years ago. I called it the hidden chapel because it was the private chapel in Plazzo Paribelli. I looked it up later. I took the long way back to the parking lot in the hopes of finding it. Didn’t.
Anyway, I walked back to the parking lot to get my umbrella. By the time I got there the rain had stopped. I decided to get my umbrella and walk back to Damilia’s B&B and help her with her bags. The whole point of this morning was to get her bags and bring them to Berbenno as she is moving into our B&B for the next few days. Got the umbrella and started back to the B&B. I asked Damilia to meet me in Piazza Campbell in front of the Collegiate Church of Saints Gervasius and Protasius. By the time I got there it was pouring down rain again.
Holding our umbrellas and each pulling a suitcase, we walked back towards the parking lot. We got about halfway, mind you it only about 700 meters between the two, and it stopped raining, again. I told her I would take both of them to the car so she could go explore the town. By the time I got to the car it was raining again.
I drove back to Berbenno. Luigi met me at the door and took the bags to Damilia’s room. I went into the breakfast room and sat near the fire. Took off my wet coat while Luigi made me a cappuccino. Mary came down and we finished the canasta game we started earlier this week.
After that I too a pisolino for about an hour. Got up, took a shower and got dressed. Relaxed for a bit and then we headed into Sondrio to met Damilia for lunch. Damilia chose Cima 11 on Via Pelosi just a few doors from her B&B. Cima Undici (Cima 11) is a mountain peak in the Sesto Dolomites, on the border with the Fiscalina Valley, north of Venice. It is composed of two main peaks: the southern one, the highest, of 3,092 m and the northern one, of 3,068 m. Does this have anything to do with the restaurant? Who knows, but the photos on the wall looked like photos of mountains and mountain climbers.
The restaurant is small but very nice. It was opened in 1965, so it must be good because nothing lasts this long without being so. There was a group of twenty to twenty-five civil protection volunteers having lunch. They basically filled up the place. Obviously if a volunteer group chooses to have their group lunch here it must be very good.
We were still not completely hungry but given we weren’t going to have dinner, we thought we should eat something. We all chose to have the barley soup. A great choice but very hearty. We got a tagliere of local meats and cheeses. It was all very good, but because of last nights dinner, none of us could eat it all.
The waitress even “boxed” up the leftover meats and bread. She offered to box up my unfinished soup, but I declined. I think it insulted her that I didn’t take it home, or she thought I didn’t like it. Really it was more about simply not being able to stuff more food in.
When we got up to pay, we had to wait for the volunteers to pay. Now in American it would be a big issue if they all wanted to pay individually. In Italy not so. They each, in turn, paid their individual bill. Yes, it took a while, but so what.
After lunch we made somewhat of a beeline for the car. It had been two hours since we arrived, and our parking ticket was only good for two hours. We arrived back at the car with three or four minutes to spare. From there we drive back to Berbenno it was another time for a pisolino.
Mariagiulia is picking us up at 19:00 to go to the opera in Sondrio. Opera in Sondrio? Yes, this is the capital of the province. In the early 19th century twenty-six families from the Valtellina united and formed the Società del teatro. They hired Luigi Canonica, a student of Giuseppe Piermarini, who had designed the Teatro della Scala. Canonica had also designed the Teatro Carcano in Milan, the Teatro della Società in Cremona, the Teatro Grande in Brescia, the Teatro Sociali in Como and Mantua, as well as the Arena Civica in Milan.
The teatro was built in Piazza Nuova, now known as Piazza Garibaldi. There were some curious additions to the teatro. One of which was an ice house. The Società was profitable by renting out a café and other parts of the building. The first floor of the teatro had rooms for the activities of the box holders, aka the founding members of the Società, ie. billiards, gambling, reading room, etc. The gallery was intended for the population and the servants. The first show was the Barber of Seville by Gioacchino Rossini in 1824. The opera was performed for eight seasons and was the most performed ever in the teatro.
The first film was seen at the teatro Sociale in 1897. In 1940 the teatro was transferred, probably by the fascist government, to Cavaliere Celestino Pedretti. Cavaliere is roughly equivalent to a knight. It closed sometime during the war, but reopened as Cinema-Teatro Pedretti in 1948. It was used as both a movie house and a performance stage, and when it reopened in 1948 it did so with “La Traviata” by Verdi.
It finally closed in 2001 and was redesigned and rebuilt. The old ice house and ground floor were redesigned and repurposed into the reception area. After fifteen years it finally reopened in September 2015. Again, the opening opera was The Barber of Seville by Rossini. Teatro Sociale is one of the main places of culture in the city and province, offering a rich season of theater, music and dance enrich the local cultural panorama.
Tonight, we are going to see Turandot. This was the last, and unfinished opera, by Puccini. 2024 is the 100th anniversary of Puccini’s death. Turandot was first presented in Milano, at the Teatro alla Scala, on April 26, 1926. Puccini, a native of Lucca, wrote such famous operas as La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas.
Turandot has three acts. The opera was unfinished at the time of Puccini’s death in 1924. It premiered in 1926 after the music was posthumously completed by Franco Alfano. The opera is set in China and follows the Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. In order to win her hand in marriage, a suitor must solve three riddles, with a wrong answer resulting in his execution. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot refuses to marry him. He offers her a way out: if she is able to guess his name before dawn the next day, he will accept death.
There is a great deal of symbolism, as there always is in operas, some of which didn’t become apparent, at least to me, until the third and final act. It is a fairly small venue, but that just made the experience more intimate. It was very enjoyable, but it didn’t end until 10:30, which as we know is a good hour and a half after my bed time.
Mariagiulia drove us back to the B&B thankfully. It was pouring down rain, and with the highly reflective wet roadway and all the lights from the traffic I could barely see where we were going. Thankfully she is younger and can see where she is going, at least we made it back in one piece.
It was a beautiful day. Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria
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