When we arrived in Montecatini Terme yesterday, I wasn’t sure what to expect beyond hearing it was a smaller town in Tuscany. After spending our first full day here, I’m happy to say I was blown away by everything Montecatini Terme had to offer! We began our morning with a guided walking tour and the first major sight we saw was the Church of Santa Maria Assunta (also our evening performance venue). Unlike most other churches we’ve visited, Santa Maria Assunta was constructed from 1957-1962 and features a gorgeous dome and stained glass inside. After leaving the church, we arrived at Viale Giuseppe Verdi, which is a street named after Verdi. Verdi lived in Montecatini for 10 years, and in addition to the street, a theater is named after him. The theater is a large open-air space, and the first work performed there was Verdi’s Aida in 1930.
After our walking tour was over, we had free time, so a small group of us headed to a cable car called the Funicolare. The cable car travels to and from a smaller village in Montecatini called Montecatini Alto. The ride took about 8 minutes, and the views were the best I’ve seen in Italy so far. When we arrived we got lunch and coffee first and then explored the village some before heading back down. At the top of one of the village’s hills, there’s a gorgeous small church called Santa Maria a Ripa. It was filled with beautiful shrines, paintings, and stained glass, but the most enchanting part of the church was how the stained glass cast shards of light across the tile floor. After seeing so many churches filled with more art and details than I can comprehend, being enamored by light stretching across the floor reminded me natural creation surpasses our best human attempts time and time again.
Once we returned to Montecatini Terme, we had a sound check at Santa Maria Assunta. Speaking of light shining through stained glass, the light coming through a huge stained glass panel at the back of Santa Maria Assunta was a welcome background for the choir to see during the performance. Following the sound check, we had dinner and a few minutes of free time, and then we arrived at the church again for a 9:00 PM concert. I was thrilled with our performance again, and my solo went great! The church acoustic was very echoey and fun to sing in, but the echo also meant the choir and orchestra had to intently watch Dr. Hatteberg to stay together. The highlight of the concert for me came during the “Lacrymosa” movement of the Requiem. I’ve performed this work multiple times with 3 different choirs this calendar year alone, so I’ll confess that I’m starting to lose the excitement of it during performances. Then, during the “Lacrymosa,” I noticed an Italian woman in my sightline who was singing every word. I forget and let myself grow numb to the fact that the Requiem has universal resonance, and seeing that woman’s clear love of the work reignited a spark in me that I needed to deliver the performance as honestly as possible.
Following the concert, I got some gelato to celebrate, and unlike last time, I remembered to take photos! The shop had stunning chandeliers in it, and my black cherry and cheesecake scoops were delicious. As you’re looking at the cup I’m holding between two fingers in the photo below, consider that it’s a medium size! In my travels over the last few years, I’ve yet to find another country with sizings as excessive as the US, and I fear that is a surface-level commentary on America’s indifference to dietary health compared to other nations. Thank you for reading, and I’ll look forward to updating you on further explorations tomorrow!
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