Hey All! I am writing you from beautiful, sunny Frankfurt. Well, it's not sunny right now seeing as it's almost 1 am but, trust me, it was really sunny today. Actually, the past few days have been gorgeous. It started getting nice right after my parents left and it is supposed to get cold and rainy again as soon as Dan and Whitney get here. Hmm, strange. I think I am starting to notice a pattern. When we have guests, the weather stinks. That settles it, no more guests. We need the sun.
I need to get you up to speed on a few things. First, and I think I touched on this a little before, Brenda was amazing as Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. My parents and I got to see her first and last performances and she was absolutely incredible. Of course, you might think I'm biased since we're married and all. Well, the throngs of people screaming "Bravo!" during and after the performance as well as the group of people that waited to get her signature were not biased and they definitely shared my opinion of her performance. After the first performance, some members of the audience stayed longer than I've ever seen before at Oper Frankfurt. The curtain had already been shut for the night and the audience was still clapping so Brenda and the tenor were forced to squeeze out on to the lip of the stage for one final bow. The last performance received a full standing ovation, another thing I have never seen at Oper Frankfurt. A few fans told Brenda that they enjoyed her so much that they came to all 5 performances.
I'm telling you all of this not only to brag about my wife but to also give you an idea of how important this particular opera and this particular role were for Brenda. It is far and away the most recognition she has gotten in Frankfurt in the almost two seasons she's been here. I am so proud of her and am happy that I was here to see it.
Next on the list of things to talk at you about: Italy. Our trip to Italy all started with a trip to the airport to get our rental car. We had reserved a car shortly after my parents arrived in Frankfurt and picked it up almost a week later. As we made the reservation, I showed off for my parents by only speaking German with the car rental lady. She spoke amazing English, of course, but I wanted to prove to my parents that I had actually learned something over the past two years and not just written blogs and eaten pretzels. Well, when we went to pick up the car everything was great except for one small thing, the car had a manual transmission. I don't recall the rental car lady asking about manual or automatic but, then again, she was speaking German and I was busy nodding and trying to act bilingual so that important bit of information could have flown right by me. In any case, I can't drive a stick and my parents hadn't done it since I was -10 years old. Dad, however, stepped up to the plate and, in spite of that elusive 3rd gear, he led us safely to Munich, Florence, 7 (or so) picturesque Italian towns and back again. I was impressed to say the least.
While in Italy, we stayed in a villa at a picturesque vineyard outside of a town we referred to as Collie. We used the villa as our home base. During the day we would travel to beautiful towns in the area (e.g. Volterra, Lucca, Montepulciano, Sienna) and at night we came back to the house, made dinner and drank some wine we had found during the day. We took tons of pictures, of course, and I have included a few below.
Having lunch in beautiful Montepulciano. For all of you New Moon fans, this is where they filmed the scenes that took place in Italy. We didn't see any vampires but that's probably because we were there during the day.
These barrels belong to a wine producing family that has been in business for over 1000 years.
The famous opera composer, Giacomo Puccini, was born in Lucca in the building in the middle of this picture. That is a statue of him in the foreground.
A view of olive trees and vines from the vineyard where we stayed.
It was a great trip and it would have only been better had Brenda been able to join us. And speaking of trips, we are already eagerly anticipating our trip back to the US this summer. It is a little over a month away which seems unbelievably close. Before that, though, we have a couple of operas to perform and some friends to show around Frankfurt so I will surely have some news to share in the coming weeks. For now, I should turn in. Until next time, have a great week!
