“I love Italian opera—it’s so reckless”

. Regular readers of this blog will know my passion for opera. It remains the supreme form of art, combining music, drama, staging and so much more. In a live performance the audience can be enraptured, engaged physically and mentally in a transcendental experience. It all starts with Monteverdi in one of my favorite Italian cities namely Mantua; too often neglected for the admitted adjacent delights of Venice and Verona. The BBC have a wonderful, and deeply sensual series on the history called Opera Italia , well worth a download on its current repeat. I am watching it on the plane to Singapore and will post this on arrival.

As Maria Callas said: An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house. The quote in the title is from D.H Lawrence although he was wrong about Wagner!