ND76

This was the day of the rehearsal (prova generale) for the big Andrea Bocelli concert to take place next to his hometown of Lajatico, off the road between Pontadera and Volterra, at the “Teatro del Silenzio”, which has exactly one performace per year. As this year’s performance happened to coincide with my wife’s birthday, and my wife is one of Bocelli’s biggest fans anywhere, we had to be there. So we were.

After almost 36 hours of traveling and touring, and sleeping on a very firm and comfortable bed at the Santa Chiara, we woke up about 1100 CET. By the time we got going, it was about 1230. We got in the car, saw the sign “Volterra 28”, and in 30 minutes or so we were in this very quintessential Tuscan hill town, population 11,309. We had forgotten that Volterra has received international fame recently, not for its archeological treasures relating to the Etruscan period, its claim to be the “Alabaster City”, or for its Roman amphitheatre, but for its hilltop maximum security prison, an ancient castle called the Fortezza Medicea, where several times per year its inmates prepare and serve gourmet meals with wine to visitors as a rehabilitation program. There is an underground parking garage at the top of the hill, almost below the prison, where we were able to stash our rental car at the rate of €1.50 per hour. We spent most of the afternoon exploring Volterra; sadly the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta was closed (Volterra is a diocese and has its own bishop), but its associated Baptistery was open. Interestingly, the “duomo” did not have a dome, but the baptistery did. We were treated to a musical performance, as a female soloist sang a hymn exquisitely, and the acoustics inside the octagonal baptistery were incredible. Also notable from a religious and charitable standpoint is that Volterra’s first aid and rescue organization, “Misericordia di Volterra”, dates back to 1291, and its chapel, adjacent to the duomo, doubles as a Mass site and a museum.

We drove to Lajatico via the village of Saline di Volterra, where we found a small bottega to buy a snack. I got a kick out of the main attraction of the little store, “vino sfuzo”, self-service wine, where the customer brings his own bottle (or you can buy an empty bottle there), and fills it up by a hose attached to a stainless steel vat, at the value price of €1.80 per liter. Let me tell you I was sorely tempted. Leaving the store, we headed up route 439 for Bocelli’s hometown. First, we got to the parking lot of “da Pasquino” bar/ristorante/albergo, just across the bridge over the river Era at the hamlet of La Sterza, which is where the box office for the Teatro del Silenzio was located. We picked up our tickets for the rehearsal (all seats were €40). As we were about out of gas, we frequented the only service station in La Sterza, an API. Our Ford Focus required “senza Pb 95”, which was priced at €1.254 per liter. A somewhat crisp €50 note bought 39.88 liters of fuel, meaning that we bought 10.53 US gallons at $6.692 per gallon (I bought regular unleaded at an XTRA Fuels station on Kent Island, Maryland on 7/22/09 for $2.299 per gallon).

We then drove along provincial road 45 to and through Lajatico, a hill town of 1,353 souls, containing a bank, a Coop supermarket, a few other stores, a church and lots of charm. We found the Teatro del Silenzio, which is on a hillside almost a mile outside Lajatico, with the audience facing a point just west of Volterra. We figured out where the parking was for the rehearsal, which was in a farm field about 300 feet vertically below the entrance to the venue which was to the rear of the stage. We then continued on to the end of route 45, the tiny hill town of Orciatico, where I proceeded to do what I did in Portofino, drive up a road which proved to have no outlet. Fortunately, I was able to turn around and avoid a head-on collision with an oncoming car on the one lane road.

Now, it was 1830, and with the rehearsal not starting until 2100 we needed to find a place to dine, and we found a beautiful ristorante called La Vallata, on route 45 between Lajatico and La Sterza. As we walked through the door, the chauffeur of a large black Mercedes sedan slipped in front of us, and announced to the hostess that he had the Katherine Jenkins party with him. We were a bit stunned as the Welsh mezzo-soprano, one of Bocelli’s co-stars, and her small entourage went by. We highly recommend La Vallata as a place to dine; it features hearty local Tuscan fare and incredible pizza with impossibly good crust, and very pretty dining areas, both inside and outside.

From La Vallata, we drove to the parking “lot”, and really got some walking exercise as we trooped up the hill and into the venue. Placido Domingo was not at the rehearsal, but Bocelli was, along with the aforementioned Ms. Jenkins and Slovenian soprano Sabina Cvilak, who is really something very special. Eugene Kohn conducted the Istitutione Sinfonica Abruzzese, based in L’Aquila. The orchestra was “backed up” by Il Nuovo Coro Lirico Sinfonico Romano. Other stars appearing were the Brazilian guitarist/vocalist Toquinho and the flutist Andrea Griminelli, as well as ballerinas Francesca Malacarne and Dalila Frassanito. There were also acrobats that were dangling from the light/sound towers around the venue. The rehearsal was basically flawless, until the final number, when a few raindrops fell from the sky (storm clouds had drifted in to the Lajatico area after dusk, making the temperature drop from the high 80s to almost 60° by 2300), and, according to maestro Kohn, the cellists were about to revolt if the rehearsal continued. However, the raindrops ended after about half the crowd of 4,000 or so had left, and the rehearsal concluded as planned. We got out of the parking lot surprisingly quickly, and almost as quickly found the direct road back to San Gimignano, and we reached the hotel around 0030 Saturday morning