I first visited Italy in 1956 in a summer Long Vacation from Cambridge, camping with two College friends in a Hillman Minx. We saw Florence, cities of the Po valley, and Venice. I had an 1890 Baedeker Guide for Venice, and it was not surprising to see that nothing had changed at all!

A second visit was in 1963 to sing in the Bach Choir (as a professional Tenor) with the London Symphony Orchestra under Benjamin Britten, in the first Italian performances of his War Requiem. At the Scala in Milan two soldiers booed. In the street afterwards they said the piece threatened their profession!

Around 1970 I was invited to conduct in the Autunno Musicale di Como. A small, quite good, chamber orchestra played a few concerts of Baroque, Classical and Modern music in churches and the Salotto. Interestingly all the seats were free. This meant that people tended to walk out if they didn’t care for a piece. I rather liked that.

A notable tour through Italy and Sicily was the Monteverdi Vespers with the schütz Choir of London and the london Baroque Players in the late 1970s. We played in eight cities to fascinated audiences who did not seem at that time  to have had any experience of this Italian masterwork.

In the 1980s I was for a several years Principal Conductor of the Orchestra Regionale di Toscana, based in Milan. The President was Luciano Berio, and it was after an ORT concert in 1982 that we hatched plans for Orfeo (QV). I remember one concert in a tiny theatre in a tiny village (Rocca) perched on top of a large mountain. The bursting audience of peasants insisted on applauding every movement of every piece. I very much approved.

More Italian work was with the RAI (Italian Radio) in Milan during the 80s. Two concerts stand out in memory: One of Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony, with the choir valiantly struggling with the English words,- to little recognisable effect. Kay said it sounded like Japanese. The other was a whole programme of American show music: Oklahoma, Kiss me Kate etc etc. The whole orchestra and audience enjoyed it wildly,- and so did I. At the end of the concert I remember people throwing their hats in the air. This was the life. Why did I bother with “serious” music? Delightful.

In 1984, while we were rehearsing Orfeo in London, Luciano Berio begged me to take over the last performance of Rigoletto in Florence for an ailing conductor. “Jumping In” is always hairy, but quite common in the opera world. I had done it with Barbiere at ENO, and Fidelio at Mannheim, and Rigoletto was a piece I knew well from Kent. This was the first time I had experienced a noisy Italian opera audience. The tenor had his problems; his big aria at the end of Act One received a cataclysm of boos. I instinctively ducked down out of sight in the pit in case of more material missiles. After this stressful show was over I was so tired that I actually fell asleep in my dressing room for an hour.

Sometime in the 90s I was invited to conduct a new production of Britten’s Giro di Vite (the Turn of the Screw) in the delightful little Teatro Communale in Como. An endearing feature of the theatre was the hand signage at the artists entrance. One, pointing upwards, said “Artisti”, the other, pointing to the nether regions, said “Orchestra”. I and the English players I had brought with me plodded humbly downwards.

Rehearsals were charmingly chaotic, but we discovered a marvellous rustic restaurant, just outside town but in walking distance, for lunch every day. La Mamma would announce what she was cooking and we chose the wine. One Saturday the show was at 5pm, and one afternoon we arrived straight from a relaxed lunch quite ready to take on Mr Britten. The following year we took this production to Venice, where it had been premiered in 1954.

Two further memories of the Stern of the Crew (as we sometimes called it): In Cambridge in 1956 I saw the first tour of the opera at the Arts Theatre, with Britten conducting, and Peter Pears and Arda Mandikian singing. I was tremendously impressed. The second memory is of a much later English Opera Group tour. The other work on the tour was The Rape of Lucetia. The schedule read as if written by Attila the Hun:

Monday Rape,

Tuesday Screw,

Wednesday Rape,

Thursday Screw,

etc.

In 1987 the Early Opera Project were asked back to the Florence Maggio Musicale to stage Purcell’s semi-opera Fairy Queen. Luca Ronconi directed; we provided the singers; Kay choreographed the theatre Ballet, I conducted the the theatre Orchestra. John Toll

played harpsichord Continuo, and found all the best restaurants. When we arrived a few days before rehearsals. John, Kay and I hired motor scooters and zoomed about town, enjoying being allowed to go the wrong way up one-way streets.

The production had its spectacular side, taking place in the Boboli Gardens of the Pitti Palace, with live animals and hot air balloons. But Ronconi was a nightmare, one minute autocratic, the next leaving town in a childish sulk for days at a time. The show was long, finishing very late at night. I clearly remember seeing the dew  on the violins of my band well before the end.

We had plenty of trouble with hotels, and never did get much of the money we were owed by the Festival. Such was Italian artistic life…

After both operas in 1984 and 87 Kay and I holidayed in a delightful villa outside Orvieto for several weeks. We did very little except swim in the river that ran through the property, shop in the medieval Orvieto market place, read, and relax.

1994 and 1995 saw performances at the Pesaro Rossini Festival. Details are in the chapter entitled Pesaro.