Night at the Opera

What a husband I have.....he cooks, he gardens, and he even let me drag him to see the Puccini opera Madame Butterfly last Tuesday! Gotta love that guy! Well, we went to see the show with our friends, the Campbells. Kathy is the "Home Ec" teacher (she's not too thrilled that Phil is in the home ec room at school instead of her!!) and Charlie is the "supply" guy. He used to be an Avid tutor, but when he left, I took his place. Anyway, we all went with ITT on the tour bus down to Catania to the historic Bellini theatre. It's a beautiful theatre that was built in the 1800s. It is said to be the 2nd or 3rd best opera house in all of Italy! We sat on the main floor, which is covered in comfy red velvet covered seats. There is also box seating which surrounds the perimeter of the house and is about 4 levels high. On top of that are the gallery seats, but they're really cramped and too high up, in my opinion. Phil and I would not have had too much fun sitting up there for 3 hours--restless leg syndrome--hello?

The opera was really magnificent. We never received a program, so I don't have any info on the singers, but they were amazing. The tenor performing the role of the Lieutenant was rocking the house. He received many a "Brava!" from the Italians sitting behind us--yes, they actually do that here! The set was cool--the stage had been raised by using a grassy material which was the yard of Cio Cio San's (Madame Butterfly) house. They represented her house with delicate looking paper screens that slid across the stage to create different places in the house.

I'm thinking of going back in May to see The Nutcracker, but I'm not sure if that marvelous husband of mine will be willing to go back so soon--we'll see:) Here are some sites for the theatre:

http://www.dolcevita.com/events/opera/teatroct.htm

Oscar in the great outdoors.

A Girl and her Dog

Oscar and I decided it was time to get out of the house today, so we packed up and headed up the mountain to find some snow and wide open spaces. That's the beauty of Sicily; we have both beautiful beaches and snow covered mountains to enjoy! Afetr driving for about half an hour, I found a little road that looked promising and would hopefully lead us to a secluded and snowy terrain (also not so steep that we couldn't walk up it!!). At the end of the road was a lodge where I guess one can rent cross country skis and the like. There was no one around, and Oscar was ecstatic to be off his leash after so many months of taking walks on it! There were tons of forest green pine trees and not much lava rock in site, so that was nice for a change! It was a beautiful day, and while we were there we encountered some light snow falls as well as bright, warm sunshine. Oscar keep rolling around in the snow like a madman and searching for small critters to chase. He found a little bunny to race, but it had too much of a lead on him. We just got home, and Oscar is fast asleep after that exhausting workout. It's too bad this place isn't closer to our house, or I would definitely be taking him back there all the time! Oscar was definitely in his element there--he's not much of a Sicilian dog!