Venice's beloved opera house rises from the ashes
Flying from London to other European cities is now so inexpensive and convenient that music lovers can easily include European operas and concerts in their itinerary.
So it was that I found myself sitting in the front row of Venice's much-loved and recently rebuilt opera house, the Gran Teatro La Fenice, for the opening performance of the new season, a recital by world-renowned bass singer
Ruggero Raimondi.
Venice is a ravishingly beautiful city, a magical labyrinth of canals and side streets. As I made my way to the opera house I crossed several little bridges over the canals. Some of the gondolas below had musicians serenading the occupants with arias from Italian opera. Music was in
the air.
The Fenice opera house is in a small square crowded with the tables of a neighbouring restaurant. Its columned marble facade looks as classically correct as any of the myriad period buildings that make up the beauty of this historic city built on a shoal of little islands.
But the truth is that the Fenice was burned to the ground in an act of arson in 1996 - the third time in its 200-year history that it had been destroyed by fire. At first, fingers pointed at the mafia, but it turned out to be the work of two disgruntled electrical contractors.
But 'fenice' means phoenix, and it's an apt name for this elegant opera house, risen once more from the ashes. A gilded phoenix hangs symbolically in the entranceway.
The rebuilding of the opera house was an opera in itself - a soap opera. Millions of dollars. were amassed internationally before architects and contractors were given the go-ahead. But soon the whole project ground to a halt over legal wrangles, and then started up again with new architects, who promptly pulled down the work done by their predecessors. The final architect, Aldo Rossi, died in a car crash before his winning design was completed.
The night I went was a special event. The Fenice had reopened last year, but for orchestral performances only, whereas Raimondi was bringing opera back into the reborn house. Raimondi is well known to film-goers as well as opera patrons. He starred in Joseph Losey's 1980 film version of Don Giovanni and has also had leading roles in films of Carmen, Tosca and Boris Gudonov. Raimondi's immense singing and acting gifts have made him one of the most famous bass-baritones in the world, and for this historic evening he sang arias from his best loved repertoire, including those by Rossini, Verdi, Massenet, Mozart and Gounod, culminating in the powerfully tragic death scene from Mussorgsky's Boris Godonov.
It was a glittering evening, with the audience dressed to the nines, seated in this exquisite golden jewel of an opera house - and so happy were they to have their beloved Fenice back that not even an hour and a half of post-performance official speeches could dampen their elation.
