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This was the fourth year for the Rossini Festival in Knoxville.  And, except for the operas (well, duh!), Saturday's Italian Street Fair is the biggest event by far.  (Okay, it is the biggest event of the Rossini Festival, crowd-wise.  You don't have to be an opera lover to love good food, spirits, and company.)  The crowd for the 2005 street fair on the absolutely beautiful day of April 9th, was estimated as high as 40,000!  Hundreds of vendors (from teddy bears to touristy stuff to beautiful hand-crafted, hand-finished wooden boxes for your loved one's cremation urn--no kidding!) lined Gay Street in downtown Knoxville from Crutch Park to well past the courthouse to ply their wares. 

But perhaps the biggest draw--other than watching Don Townsend run crowd interference for a Scottish pipe band parade--was the many fine local restaurants that set up shop on the street to satisfy even the most discriminating palettes with their fare.  Even if you didn't sample everything from the ubiquitous corn dog to chicken cacciatore, your nose went home happy, as the melange of smells from the food booths filled the air.  Yummy!  Their were plenty of spirits to wash said fine cuisine down, too.  Domestic and imported beer (yes, not strictly an Italian biggie, but this festival is in East Tennessee, after all) and great table wines were available in quantity to quench a festival-goer's thirst.  And with afternoon temperatures near 80, there were lots of thirsty people.  The tee-totalers among the crowd also had their choice of the usual soft drinks, bottled water, or ice tea... the latter being sold in some places--really!--in one quart cups!

"Corn dogs? Beer?  Teddy bears? That doesn't sound Italian!" one might be heard to say.  Ah!  But one forgets that for centuries Italy has served as a crossroads for all kinds of cultures, so Italian cities are very cosmopolitan!  And so it was for the street fair:  from the Middle East (-Tennessee?), there were belly dancers; several local civil war reenactors pitched their tents downtown; the British were coming in the form of a revolutionary war history group; the aforementioned Scottish pipe bands (from Knoxville and Chattanooga); and to the melodies of the East Tennessee Jazz Orchestra (who have of recent made quite a name for themselves across the country), swing dancers flowed across a stage.  Were one's tastes to run more toward the so-called classical arts, there were ballet dancers, symphony string, brass, and woodwind ensembles, and a certain rag-tag group of opera choristers singing in the streets.  One could even hear snatches of Shakespeare and earlier poets bandied about by the local Society for Creative Anachronism.

And let us not forget the immensely talented students of UT's opera program performing two operas at the historic Bijou Theater both Saturday afternoon and evening.  Two short operas were presented:  the festival's namesake, Rossini's La Cambiale di Matrimonio, and, for those into 20th-century opera, Robert Ward's Roman Fever, directed by the composer himself.  (How many college opera programs in the country get to work with Pulitzer-prize winning composers?!)  This author was, unfortunately, unable to attend any of the performances due to prior commitments, but from the accolades heard from fair-goers coming from the Saturday afternoon show and those that eventually saw the show on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday nights, the double-bill was an absolute smash hit.

And bookending the Italian Street Fair on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the KOC presented Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment.  Soprano Jane Redding absolutely wowed 'em at the Tennesee Theater in the title role!  Many commented that it had been quite a while since the KOC had seen such an immense talent.  But one wouldn't be surprised that, after Jane, the loudest applause of the night belonged to Knoxville's own bass, Kevin Burdette.  Kevin grew up in the Knoxville area, went to UT, then to Julliard, and since then has had quite a career in opera houses around the world.  (And get this:  he's currently doing it while going to Columbia Law School!)  The cheers were not just because Kevin was a local-boy-makes-good, but were based primarily on his wonderful singing, "commanding" stage presence, and sense of comedic timing.  (Quoth one viewer, "That was the funniest bad French accent I've ever heard.")  The rest of the cast, as well as the famous (or would that be infamous?) KOC chorus, put on a show that is still being talked about.

Who'da thunk that in four years Knoxville Opera's Rossini Festival could have grown from a "regional attraction" to bring in folks from all over the country?  Here's looking forward to the 2006 Rossini Festival!