My connection with Italy
My love of Italy is associated primarily by my love of opera and my intention to sing opera as a YA professionally. That is why I took lessons in Italian Language.
I was offered Italian language as an additional GCSE during our lunch breaks during my A level years at Ipswich School but I was unable to continue due to my choral commitments so the first proper Italian course I had was with Emmanuelle Morris at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London from 1997-1998.
After that, when I studied opera again at the German Conservatoire Cologne Conservatoire Wuppertal Campus I took 2 years Italian lessons with a representative of the Institute of Italian language and culture in Cologne Leo Belardo. That’s where I progressed to false beginner level and could introduce myself and have a basic conversation. My Italian is probably A1-2. Strangely enough I learned all my Italian out of my second language German which was the language of instruction. My Italian lessons were primarily to understand the operatic language we were singing in and many of the classes were associated with that as well as general language, such as translating Nessun Dorma. That all took place form 2002-2004.
I’ve taken a couple of Italian courses since one in Cologne adn the other in Colchester at the old Grey Friars College, but didn’t take them that seriously due to pressure of time. Despite that it’s a lovely Romantic language to learn and understand. Italians are very witty.
One of the most common jokes in Italian language is learning the difference between happy new year and having a nice arse. Bel anno means Happy New Year and Bel ano is nice arse with the long A!
In Italiano
Bon Giorno! Mi chiamo Hugh Waldock. Sono Inglese de Colchester in Essex vicino London. Sono abito in Germania a 2001 di 2010. In questo tempo, sono studiato al Conservatorio di Wuppertal in Germania, sono cantato, e suonato il piano, studiato la storia della musica classica e la teoria della musica classica. Il mio professore di italiano Leo Belardo a fatta il corso non in inglese sono fatto tutti gli esercizi in tedesco e sono tradotto tutti le frase a italiano in tedesco osso non in Inglese. Sono studiato italiano a lingua straniera per due anni e parlo italiano cosi cosi.
Family Trips to Italy
Merano 1992
Travelling down to Italy by car on the biggest and final road trip father and I ever did we went over the Gotthard Pass into Northern Italy into an area known as the South Tirol in German. Dad wanted to take me for my first spaghetti in Italy before he died, we got as far as Merano where we camped for a couple of nights before retreating north.
I begged him to take me to Venice but he couldn’t do it he was too ill.
Taormina and Sicily 2005
In 2005 mum and I decided to take a trip down to Taormina in Sicily with Last Minute Dot Com to stay in a Hotel in Sicily at an ancient town called Taormina on Sicily’s northern coast.
There was a Roman amphitheatre there and many historic buildings and Taormina becomes a day trip for many cruise liners moored in the bay. We dined in restaurants in the centre and at the hotel.
We took a trip to the Aeolian Islands Lipari and Vulcano and bathed in some volcanic springs and mud. Then we took a trip to the amazing church of Monroyale and Sicily’s capital Palermo a 4 hr ride away in the south. We visited the cities catacombs as well and saw the famous opera house.
Taormina is right on the periphery of Mt Etna and you can see the active volcano from there it creates a sulphurous haze every where you look. On the last day we took a trip further on up the hill from Taormina to a pretty Sicilian village called Castelmilo and then returned to England via the plane from Catania.
A waiter at the hotel taught me a very special phrase in Italian ‘Una bottiagla de l’aqua minerale con due bicheri di plastica, per favore’ which is useful that far south it means; ‘One bottle of mineral water with two plastic beakers, please!’.
