A Night At the Concert

Last night we went to a concert.  It was billed as "3 tenoret" although instead of three tenors there were four, and two sopranos and a pianist.  But the three tenors were the bulk of the singing portion of the concert.  The three Albanian tenors are Adrian Xhema, Kastriot Tusha, and Armaldo Kllogjri.  The three guests were Katia Ricciarelli, Francesco Zingariello, and Ramona Tullumani.  Pianist was Genc Tukiçi,

The first part of the program consisted of tenor arias.  There was no program, so it's hard to remember now.  It seemed to be mostly Puccini, with a little Verdi and Rossini thrown in, which is not at all bad for tenor arias.  We closed the first part with a piano solo, which was a Theme and Variations on Rondo alla Turca.  It was fairly modern, because there was a jazz variation late in the piece.  I don't know who wrote it, but no doubt Mozart would have been interested.

Then we had a short intermission in situ, during which commercials for the sponsors were shown on the screens -- banks, Vodafone, Stela beer, etc.  An interesting intermission, but it had the wonderful benefit of not having to tolerate scores of stragglers interrupting the first piece of the second half.

Second  half started off with the orchestra playing concert adaptations of movie themes while scenes from the movies were played on screen.  There were four films, Rocky and Titanic being the two I knew.  The first was an old movie where apparently a group of Turkish officials were shot, and the next I just can't really describe.

After the movies we were back to opera, more Puccini:  Nessun Dorma from Turandot, mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi.  Then Katia Ricciarelli and Francesco Zingariello came out and did some duets and solos, all of which I remembered and none of them that I can recall the name.  The evening ended with some Neapolitan songs -- O Sole Mio, Funiculi Funicula, and what sounded like a Greek dancing song to me, but that is not said here, it was an Albanian dancing song, wildly approved by the audience

After the performance we all went to eat a late supper at the Rogner Hotel, just down the block from the concert -- me, Taylor, Cindy, and Chelsi.  The food, the wine and the company  were all quite good.  I had a little lagniappe moment when my food was delivered -- stuck right on top as a garnish was a little spray of sage.  I asked the waiter what it was called in Albanian.  He wrote it down for me.  I asked the waitress where I could buy some -- she didn't know, and wondered why I needed to buy any.  It's medicine.  They don't cook with it.  So now that I'm no longer looking for food, but medicinal weeds, I think I may have some luck.  Saltimboca is almost on the way!