Drama and the Opera

We kicked off a little culture week by going to the Uffizi for the first time on Tuesday. We were extremely lucky to be able to use our passes to 'jump the queue'--the very, very long queue. (According to Rick Steves the Uffizi books up weeks in advance, even during the winter months!). Our motivation to fight the crowds was to catch the end of the Caravaggio exhibit. Being fans of Caravaggio, it was a big disappointment that the exhibit displayed only one Caravaggio, but at least we got to spend a little time poking around the first few rooms of the main gallery (Middle Ages through Leonardo). Even the early Renaissance works were totally amazing! The trip to the museum was followed by a concert of French Baroque music at I Tatti Thursday night (also so-so). Not only was it cold, but I was also horribly under-dressed.

We were looking forward all week to seeing the opera Salome last night. We wanted to leave I Tatti a little early to have enough time to get ready, but when we were offered a ride home with friends we bypassed an early bus home. However, as we were pulling out of the parking lot the car broke down. We left the car and friends (poor guys!) to catch the next bus, 40min later than we were originally planning. At least the car died right away instead of in some unfamiliar part of Florence where it would be hard to get home.

When we finally made it home we quickly started whipping up dinner, and in the middle of this we blew a fuse, stranding us in the dark. We tried clicking the power back on but it didn't work, so as we were considering how annoying it would be to have to call an electrician (we had tried calling a plumber a few weeks ago and he never showed up--apparently a common thing with plumbers and electricians in Italy) luck would have it that our landlady called us at that very moment. She lives a 30min train ride away but wanted to tell us that her son was in town for the day and asked if we could meet him to give him rent money. We weren't able to because we were going to the opera, but she then informed us of an additional fuse box to switch the power back on.

Certainly in a hurry by now, we rushed out the door and as soon as it closed behind us Seth let out a rare four-letter expletive. We had left our keys in the apartment and the door locks automatically! This had been one of our biggest worries since we arrived, especially since we don't have a spare set to stash somewhere in case this very thing were to happen. At least we remembered that the landlady's son was in town and he might be able to help, but of course we didn't have the landlady's phone number on us. As Seth fought with the door, I resigned to talk to the crazy woman downstairs who would have her number. (More on her later, but bear in mind she is crazy). It was a bit of a time-consuming ordeal, but we eventually made arrangements to meet the son at the theater.

Especially late, we hopped on a short bus to cross town. This was amazingly efficient, and we arrived just in time for the 8:30pm show. Seth offered to wait for the son, who had to bike across town to deliver his set of keys, and I went inside. I was just late enough to not have an usher help me to my seat and was told to sit anywhere. Seth came in some time later and was sent to the opposite side of the theater, where there were no available seats. He had to stand, then sat on the steps. I met him after the show, which was actually really good and worth at least some of the horrible ups and downs of the evening. It was a modern staging of the somewhat modern opera (1905) on the ancient story of Salome. In this version, Salome was so fascinated by (actually infatuated with) St John the Baptist ('Giovanni') that she asked for his head to be delivered on a silver platter so she could finally kiss it.

On our way out of the theater the evening got even better when we realized the bus had stopped running at a certain hour and it was raining pretty steadily. Of course we didn't have umbrellas, but after a brisk--and wet--35min walk home, it never felt so good to have keys in our hands and be able to step in through the door!