Verdi on iPods? Nope! But “O sole mio”, nightly in Piazza Castello? Si! Certo!

So I’m walking home Tuesday night when I come upon one of my favorite hangs in Turin, especially at night. It’s one of the covered walkways lining Piazza Castello, which is where we saw the symphony on Republic Day.

Every evening I have walked by this place, there is some hodge-podge group of septuagenarian musicians jammin’ on one of the benches – always some combination of accordion, guitar and voice – and only sometimes (e grazie per questa!) trumpet. And today, it reminds me of one of my cohorts in graduate school, a tenor who mysteriously explained to me that the reason Pavarotti was so great was because he had “The Hook”…which is, from what I could tell, the never-ending vise grip a tenor might hold on a high-C; much to the delight & cries of ‘bravi’ from the audience, be they in velvet seats or on picnic blankets.

Which is funny, because as Italian as we think we are, all cool at Opera in the Park with our BRAVO signs – I never hear anyone say bravo (or brava , or bravi, for that matter) in a musical context – no no! I hear it in line at the post office, at the café, even the times I actually conjugate my verbs correctly -- but at the concert hall?? Non mai!


What I really liked about this particular night was the down-home camaraderie among these musici. As I approached, there were these two guys trading off verses of some Puccini, I think (?) – one would finish his verse, and then just kinda pace around the courtyard area, a relaxed pacing though – and of course, they both had The Hook to which I refer -- I tried to get a picture of it, but I don’t think they’ve designed our digital cameras to record phenomena of the human voice -- even at a 7.2 mega pixel resolution. Schade!



The other curiosity – it made me smile – was watching this guy and his lady friend – they were kind of hanging back from the rest of us, looking a bit as if they were on a date. After the 1st song, I see the gentleman pull out his cell phone, say a few words into it, and then, once the next song began, continue to hold out his phone, as if there were someone on the other end who couldn’t make it to Piazza Castello just that second to hear The Hook for themselves.