I help distribute food to the needy in Centro on Saturdays. Last week when I went to pick up food, I met a gringo in his car outside the pickup point- he was dropping off sandwiches. 'Kurt' and I got to talking. In his former life he had been a singer: musicals, operas, what have you. I said I'd been singing for the public (choirs and cantoring) since I was in first grade, but not professionally, and I really liked songs from opera and musicals. Anyway, we started singing Nessun Dorma from Puccini's opera Turandot, but shortly we stopped, as it was time to head into Centro with the collected food.
So today I'm handing out food, and I hear someone singing the opening line of the aria. I look around, and see Kurt in a car not 10 feet away, stopped at a red light. Can ya believe it? So we launch into it again, and almost got to the end before the light changed. Just a terrific moment.
There's a joke in Cuenca: it's a big city, but a small town: ya always gonna run inna people ya know. Once again it's true. The odds of randomly meeting Kurt on one Saturday, and seeing him again somewhere else the very next Saturday, it's too convenient. And we sounded great together with no preparation.
We both think the best singer to cover Nessun Dorma is Franco Corelli, an Italian tenor from the 1950s-1970s. Given how many people (including the usual suspects) have recorded the song, what are the odds of both of us liking this now-remote tenor's treatment? Life remains a wonder, and here is one of Corelli's performances, chosen for its subtitles. Like many other romantic songs, it reminds me of courting my wife.
