A quick visit to La Spezia

Last weekend Danny and I took the train up to La Spezia, a pretty port town on the Ligurian Sea. Our main reason to go was to see our friend Romano sing a leading role in a local production of Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore" there. Romano played Dr. Dulcamarra, the quack who sells the bogus love potion of the title and thereby sets the plot in motion.

La Spezia is a pretty town on the water, with a lot of Italian tourists, many of them heading to or from the Cinque Terre, which are nearby. The opera was presented in the Teatro Civico, a small, quite charming hall in the middle of town, not far from the port. (I swiped this photo off Google--apologies to whoever the photographer was.)

We ate fried fish and penne with squid at a funky place next to where all the boats dock, then headed over to the opera, which started at the very European time of 9:00 p.m. Although it was a community production, the soprano was terrific and Romano was even better. He not only has a beautiful voice but a ton of on-stage charisma, and his acting in these buffo roles is perfetto--funny without being heavy-handed, and very supportive of the other singers. His beautiful duet with the soprano was the high point of the evening.

The next day, before getting on the train back to Fidenza, we stopped in at Museo Lia, which shows off the art collection of a local worthy. I love places like this. For one thing, these private museums are usually small enough so that you can look at everything without being overwhelmed or exhausted. For another, they generally offer a quirky mix of things, and a range of quality, which is much more interesting than seeing nothing but world-historic masterpieces.

The Lia more than lived up to expectations. Evidently its most significant holdings are the 13th-, 14th- and 15th-century panels of religious images, but I was most intrigued by the roomful of little carvings, many of them in ivory, and by the dozens of elaborate illuminated manuscripts. But my favorites were the more recent paintings, because I'm always a sucker for portraits.

These two fellows were hung side by side, both painted at about the same time, in the mid-1700s. The differences speak volumes about the state of the world then, and now.

Pietro Longhii, Portrait of a Young Gentleman

Giacomo Cerruti, "Portrait of a Wayfarer"

Here's another great portrait, from--incredibly enough--about two hundred years earlier. This lady looks ready to take on the world. 

Giovan Battista Moroni, "Portrait of a Lady"

Two more that I particularly liked were this anonymous artist's "Memento Mori," whose protagonist looks like he's not really minding Death's caresses all that much...

...and this odd little picture from the early 1500s. It is titled "Madonna of Perpetual Help" (Madonna del Soccorso), but it looks more like an allegory about how sparing the rod spoils the child. The combination of the Madonna's upraised club and her beatific expression makes her come off as something of a psychopath.

Ansano di Michele Ciampanti, "Madonna del Soccorso"

Afterwards we stopped into the little ethnographic museum down the street, a one-room exhibit of textiles, handicrafts, cookwear, costumes, toys, and other items from the area's rural past. Definitely worth a visit, we thought.

We also enjoyed just wandering around the town, stopping for a coffee here, some gelato there. As in our own Fidenza, even in areas that aren't particularly picturesque or historic, there is something so delightfully Italian about everything. I don't know why, but laundry hanging off balconies seems as Italian to me as a Donizetti aria. Though not quite as pretty.