Venite all’agile barchetta mia, Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia! I can still sing it in the version I learned at the time, without actually understanding the text: I have seldom seen him cry, but this was one of the times he had tears in his eyes. On the first evening I went down to the beach with my mother, and when I returned I sang “Santa Lucia” to my father. When I was seven we spent a month in Naples. As far back as I can remember we always had classical music, mostly opera, filling our home - shellac 78 rpm records playing on a gramophone. He told us he had seen La Traviata twenty-one times, and that he had dined, personally, with Enrico Caruso. He spent a number of years in Italy, mainly Naples, and visited the opera as often as he could. My father Alois was a classical music devotee. My three most powerful musical experiences
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