scena

[calimac]

Someone else will have to tell me if this is a normal sight.

Never mind why I was there, but yesterday afternoon I was walking down Maiden Lane in San Francisco, an alleyway famous for being lined with high-end clothing stores, most of which were closed on a Sunday. I don't get to that part of the City very often.

As I reached the end of the block, I could see, and hear, across Grant Avenue, a woman standing in the middle of the street at the start of the next block of Maiden Lane, not where I'd expect to see a busker. She was wearing a red-and-white stage dress, and she was singing something that I'd never heard a busker perform, an opera aria. It was Puccini's "O mio babbino caro." She may have been accompanied by a boombox, but if so it was inaudible across the street, whereas she was not. I stopped to listen. After going through it what seemed like 3 or 4 times (it's a short aria), she stopped. Applause from across the street.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, I should like to have heard that.

The closest I came was when my daughter was attending her exclusive arts school up in the woods at Idylwild. We were wa;ling back to her dorm on parents' day, and about 100 yard ahead of us, three boys, pants sagging around their knees, chains swinging at their belts, abruptly turned off the path and headed into the trees on a shortcut to another dorm--and one suddenly tipped back his head and let loose with a few lines from Verdi. His tenor echoed between the trees and my knees actually wobbled.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I work not far from there at all, though I'm not usually there on the weekends. I've never seen (heard) this particular performer. But that kind of thing is reasonably common in Our Fair City.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

More of them might consider being among those out when symphony audiences are filing back to the BART station. Of course, that is usually rather late in the evening.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I am the last person in the world who can judge the quality of a singing voice, but there's an African-American man who sings bass, who sings opera in the Montgomery Street BART some afternoons when I'm leaving work. I love his voice and always give him a dollar.

(The buskers in the Montgomery Street BART clearly have some kind of agreement; there are maybe 5-8 morning ones and somewhat fewer evening ones, but they clearly take turns and don't trespass on each other's hours. One morning group is a teenage (or maybe college-age) string quartet.)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Whilst we were in Genoa, the local opera house, which has a sort of colonade cum walk through with rather nice acoustics, was resounding to one of the cast members out for a break from rehearsal and giving the Queen of the Night's aria in that public area simply for the fun of it! :o)

[onyxlynx.blogspot.nl (from livejournal.com)]

When Britex was open on Sundays, I would sometimes run across her singing at Grant Ave. and Maiden Lane. She made me smile. ;-)