Back from Verona

This last weekend we were in Verona where we attended the final performance this year of Hugo De Ana's production of Tosca at the opera (to be reviewed in due course) and sang with London Concord Singers in 3 performances. My motet Deus in Adjutorium received its Italian premiere at a concert at the Church of St. Nicolo and St. Severo in Bardolino on Saturday 1st August and went on to receive a 2nd performance at Mass on Sunday 2nd August at St. Giorgio in Briada in Verona.

Our concert in Bardolino featured Alberto Ginastera's Lamentations and in the audience was a man who had sung in the work's première in 1946! On Sunday evening we sang at San Tomaso en Cantuarense in Verona, on whose organ Mozart had improvised.

On our way back from Verona we managed to call in at Bergamo where we saw the house where Donizetti died. We also saw the tombs of Donizetti and Simone Mayr (his teacher) in the Basilica in Bergamo