An Illusion of Grandeur in Santo Stefano, This Afternoon

I've been working on a post on the disputed property of Teatro Marinoni on Lido, but I'm afraid I won't be able to finish that post and have it up until tomorrow. In the meantime, here's an image taken this afternoon inside Santo Stefano, with its famous ship's keel ceiling, and the original fifteenth-century painted decoration over the gothic arches of its nave, which the architectural historian Deborah Howard describes as "a design of flickering foliage not unlike the crockets on the roofline of San Marco" upon diaper-patterned brickwork that resembles the upper walls of the Palazzo Ducale's facade (in The Architectural History of Venice, Yale Univ Press).  

Howard also notes, much to my surprise, that the plan of the church contracts as it progresses toward its main altar in its eastern end to create the illusion that the space is larger than it actually is. That is, that in the case of this church, the usual perspectival illusion that two parallel walls extending away from us actually draw closer together the further they extend is more than just an illusion: the walls really aren't parallel. The next time I'm in the church I must remember to pace out the width of the church near its entrance and then near its altar to confirm this.

But, in any case, it really is a grand church, with one of the most pleasant interiors in Venice. And though it's located in a heavily-traveled area of town not far from the Accademia Bridge, I've never stopped in to find it with more than, at most, three or four people inside, which also makes it a handy refuge.

MOSE and the Meadows of Venice

A pastoral paradise within sight of the campanili of San Giorgio Maggiore and San Marco

For more than 10 years the federal money that once would have gone to the city of Venice to fund the extraordinary maintenance required to keep this most extraordinary of cities afloat (so to speak) has been directed instead to the system of underwater floodgates at the portals between the lagoon and the Adriatic known as MOSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico). Built by a private consortium of companies who were handed a no-bid contract not only to build it but to maintain it when (or if) it is finished (which means a guaranteed annual income of many millions of euros in perpetuity) this project is responsible for the fact that the 592 million euros the city received in 2002 has been reduced for the last decade to a small fraction of that amount: only 20 million euros in 2005, according to Ana Somers Cocks's recent piece in the New York Review of Books entitled "The Coming Death of Venice?" (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/20/coming-death-venice/?pagination=false Moreover, Somers Cocks (former chairperson of Venice in Peril) writes that "the 40 million euro allocated to it in 2011 only arrived from Rome this April." That is, two years behind schedule.

(An excellent book on MOSE and the problem of rising tides is John Keahey's Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged. Though published in 2002, the glacial rate at which change happens in Italy means that it still reads as if were published last year.)

The diversion of all these funds to this private monopoly--to which, as Keahey writes, the EU had very strong objections--means that the city budget is a shambles: school children must, for example, bring their own toilet paper to school, and this summer the few public lawns of Venice are being left to grow wild for longer periods of time than I've seen before, as there's no money to pay the city giardinieri. The grass in Sant' Elena reached such a height at the beginning of this summer that Jen remarked you could easily lose a child in it. I believe she was understating it: in truth, it was quite high enough to swallow up a good many of their grandparents, too.

But it's not been all bad, as I hope the photo above suggests. There's never been a better summer in the three years we've lived here to appreciate the wild flowers.

Glorious Sounds in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari

In the above photo the Cabrillo Touring Chorus of Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, performs last Saturday night in the Frari under the direction of Cheryl Anderson.

I have the bad habit of forgetting about the fine concerts that are put on in this wonderful space--for example, one by Vinicio Capossela a couple of years back--but I wasn't about to miss this one, as the chorus not only hails not far from my hometown, but includes one of my cousins, a talented contralto.

Pretty much everybody comes to Venice looking to find beauty; this group, in a concert that ranged from Monteverdi (buried a few yards from where they stood) to an African-American spiritual, provided an abundance of its own.

10 Views of the Festa di San Pietro di Castello (or San Piero de Casteo)

Panorama of a Friday night: 28 June 2013 (click for larger view)

Cooler-than-normal temperatures made life a little easier for the chefs this year

Takeaway

Beneath one of the dining tents

Max and the Seventh Sound playing disco classics from the '70s on Friday night

Arlecchino and Braghella in Saturday's performance by Teatrale l'Attimo

Rising tension

Shock, dismay, surprise, catcalls

Up close with Arlecchino and mini-Arlecchino

The view from the bridge (over Canale di San Pietro)

Tango Sant' Elena, Tonight

Tango under the stars--or trees--has become a weekly event here in Sant' Elena, and is a welcome addition to the neighborhood. I can hear the music through my open window as I type these words, vintage songs from the era of Carlos Gardel: a perfect accompaniment for a summer night.

Sights of a summer night, 9:30 pm: tango in foreground, kids playing soccer in the background; if we were in Buenos Aires, both the kids and the dancers would still be at it at 3 am

A "Gabbiotto" of Dance: Biennale Danza Opens Today

Iris Erez performs Atleta Donna on Viale Garibaldi in Castello

The "gabbiotto"--that is, the tacky ticket booth/gift shop--that was appended to the base of the campanile in Piazza San Marco has been removed, but you can't blame those Venetians who were perturbed by the sight of a few new large white-framed glass boxes being erected in various campi around town yesterday and today. These structures, however, in Campo Santo Stefano, Campo Sant'Angelo, and at one end of Viale Garibaldi (in photos), will serve as the sites of one of the pieces in this weekend's Biennale Danza.

I caught part the performance this evening on Viale Garibaldi by the dancer Iris Erez. Entitled Atleta Donna, it's a three hour piece, in which the dancer in her glass room is, paradoxically, isolated in public. The essential drama in the piece is generated by the transparent walls, and by the way apparent boundaries between the dancer and her audience--as much psychological as physical--are explored and altered, reinforced or transgressed.

If you happen to be in Venice this weekend you can see this piece, and many others; a full listing of events may be found at:

http://labiennale.org

It's a fascinating piece and merits much more attention, but there's a lot going on this weekend and right now I have to head out to the Festa di San Pietro di Castello (or San Piero de Casteo, in Venetian). 

Erez leaps up to toss a marker to a toddler--her own--on the other side of the glass

 

As you can see above, the dancer is free to invite a volunteer from the audience to join her in her glass room

A Still Point, Piazza San Marco

As always, photo re-sized for page; please click on it for full resolution

After having avoided Piazza San Marco during busy hours for as long as we've lived here, I suddenly find myself with the perverse urge to go there at exactly those times when it will be overrun and unbearable. I don't recommend this to others, and I know this phase will pass, but in the mean time here's one more photo--the last, I promise.

I don't know how much these white-coated waiters are paid, but after watching them for a little while I suspect that they deserve more.