We were up early to celebrate my wife’s birthday. After a typical Italian breakfast in the hotel’s dining room, we were on the road. A day of shopping in Firenze for my wife, followed by an outing with Andrea Bocelli and friends under the Tuscan stars, was her present. We decided to park our car outside the city and take the train to Santa Maria Novella station, so we found a parking space a few yards away from the train station in Empoli (€0.50 per hour), and caught a regular train on the Pisa-Firenze line into town (€3.00 per one-way ticket, bought out of a coins-only machine). It took about 30 minutes to get to SMN; the train was packed and we had to stand. However, the discomfort was quickly forgotten as we quickly walked over to the piazza in front of the Duomo, and then found the department store La Rinascente a block or so later. As I didn’t want to crimp my wife’s shopping style, we picked a time to meet in late afternoon, and I took off for touring the city on foot, and she took off for the central market. Florence was an absolute mob scene, and it was hard to walk on the street running along the north bank of the Arno. After about an hour of bumping and jostling, I decided I’d rather go back to Empoli, get the car and do a little bit of car touring before meeting my wife at our designated place. As there are trains every 20 minutes or less running on that particular line, I easily and quickly got back to Empoli, got the car, and worked my way back to Florence. I got the idea of setting up a tailgate supper before the concert, so I got off the road, went into an “Ipercoop” (like a Walmart or Carrefour) in the suburb of Lastra a Signa, and put together a beautiful picnic of prosciutto, porchetta, salume, formaggi, olivi, pane, soft drinks and little mocha and chocolate crème filled pastries. Food shopping is a real delightful adventure in Italy, as the choice and quality of fresh ready to eat food is simply amazing, and at times, overwhelming. I used a self-service check out lane that gave out instructions in a disembodied English female voice, and got very friendly assistance from a female employee when the system balked.

I parked at the parcheggio (underground garage) beneath SMN, found my wife, got back to the car and set out for Bocelli country. We got to the parking lot at da Pasquino in La Sterza, where shuttle buses ran up to the entrance to the walkway to the venue at the south end of Lajatico. We tailgated for a time with a group of Bocelli fans from County Wicklow, Ireland who were traveling in a small RV, ate our supper, and walked over to a shuttle bus, got on, and 10 minutes later were dropped off at the road leading to the Teatro. I’m guessing we covered close to one mile, mostly downhill, before we reached the gate, meaning that we would have a dreaded uphill walk back to the bus at the end of the show. We had bought our tickets for the concert just after Christmas, when my wife learned about the concert and intimated that this is what she wanted for her birthday. €207 per person bought us seats in Fila R of the “poltronissima”, which turned out to be 23 rows from and just left of center stage. Although the concert was a sell-out, there were some empty seats near us (clearly due to the usual greed of the scalpers, er, ticket brokers).

Although show time was given as 2015, it was past 2030 when the opening act, the Lama Tzong Khapa Group, appeared on stage. I counted 17 performers. They performed for about 15 minutes Tibetan Buddhist liturgy and chants. According to the program, these men lived at a monastery a few kilometers from Lajatico, which was claimed to be the most important center of Buddhist philosophy in Europe. Their temple had been destroyed by a fire on 26 December 2008, but the community got together to help them rebuild. I sensed that a portion of the concert proceeds were going to be funneled their way. The leader of their group, who was seated in a place of honor on the stage throughout the concert, looked genuinely thrilled to be there (there was a “Free Tibet” table at the back of the venue). There was an ecumenical aspect to the proceedings, as a Franciscan friar from Assisi who is a friend of Bocelli was sitting near the Buddhist monk and some ladies from Japan in full kimonos, and the local archbishop was seated on the other side of the stage. Another honoree was the wife of former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

The theme of the concert was “I Colori dell’ Anima” (the colors of the soul). After the monks had concluded their performance. Andrea appeared on horseback, without an escort (he is blind). He rode about a circuit and a half on a track around a little pond with a metal sculpture in the middle behind the stage, resplendent in a handsome white suit and untied bow tie. He dismounted by himself, emphatically, in a way that would make Italy’s champion jockey Frankie Dettori proud. He proceeded to give a command performance. He struck me as an amazing guy, a world famous singer with tens of millions of fans and lots of money, everybody wants him to appear at their events (for example, he sung incredibly at the Champions League soccer final at the Olympic Stadium in Rome a few weeks before) and yet he has a genuine humility and graciousness about him. The first half of the performance was mostly about familiar operatic numbers from “Carmen” and “La Boheme”, with Placido Domingo dramatically appearing on stage for the final number before the intermezzo (Bocelli explained that he had just come in from Washington, of all places, to appear at this show).

The second half of the show was a mixture of the classics (such as the triumphal march from Aida), duets of Bocelli and Toquinho (who has a really enjoyable smooth Brazilian sound, by the way), Bocelli and Sabina Cvilak, a virtuouo performance from the flutist Griminelli (his performance of the piece known to me as the “Flight of the Bumblebee” accompanied by the orchestra was breathtaking), and then, a final familiar number from”The Merry Widow (La vedova allegro)” involving Bocelli, Domingo, Jenkins and Cvilak, which excited the entire audience, where Domingo tapped Kohn on the shoulder and took over the baton, and Kohn, the concert pianist and one time accompanist to Maria Callas, took over Domingo’s position on stage and started singing along with the other three. A really cool, memorable moment. There was a touching moment early in the second half of the show when Bocelli sat down at a grand piano wheeled up to the left side of the stage, joined by his niece Maddalena, and Bocelli played the piano and recited a poem dedicated to his recently deceased father. Color matrix screens attached to the light towers provided an English translation. There were three encore numbers, one of which, of course, was Bocelli’s signature number, Con Te Partiro (Time to Say Goodbye), which he performed with Jenkins to a standing ovation. The show came to a stunning conclusion when Domingo and Bocelli collaborated on the final encore in a virtuoso performance of the famous Puccini aria “Nessun Dorma”.

I wanted to give a shout out to the conductor, Eugene Kohn. He was really cool to watch in action. His facial expressions showed both a serious, professional side, and yet how much fun he was having as the evening got better, and better, and better. The orchestra and chorale could not have performed better.

On a monument on the venue grounds, a plaque explains that Bocelli came up with the name Teatro del Silenzio because, when he breaks the silence to sing, he honors the land. He truly honored Lajatico and Tuscany with this concert, probably the most remarkable I’ve ever attented, considering the venue and the cast he assembled. Sitting in our seats, looking out to the lights of the beautiful hill town of Volterra in the distance, being with my wonderful wife of almost 30 years and watching the looks of sheer ecstasy on her face, being in a country I’ve really grown to like over the years, this was one of the best times of my life.

Although it was a long, slow walk back to the bus stop, the route through olive trees and under a starry sky was amazing. The venue was filled to capacity, and I’m guessing that the top row at the back of the theatre was at least 150 rows from the stage. I can’t believe that the listed capacity was only 7,490. I estimated that there were at least 15,000 persons were in attendance. I don’t think that a single person wanted a refund after this one. The shuttle bus system worked very well (it took some real skill to drive a bus on the one lane roads in Lajatico and avoiding the stout brick buildings encroaching on the streets), there was not much traffic on the direct road back to San Gimignano, and we reached the hotel at 0130.