Venice. Venezia. The Bride of the Sea. Mary Shelley once wrote “There is something so different in Venice from any other place in the world, that you leave at once all accustomed habits and everyday sights to enter an enchanted garden”.

Venice is indeed, as Mary Shelley quite rightly points out, an enchanted garden, albeit a garden with a Chelsea Flower Show crushing water feature. Nowhere comes close to Venice on pretty much any level: beauty, architecture, history, music, art, food (the food!!) wine…. top of the class, in every class, in any year, in any school, anywhere.

In November 2016 we stayed for 5 nights in the exceptional Hotel L’Orologio on the banks of the Canal Grande. Morning and evening rehearsals with Robert Dean culminating in two performance in two diametrically different venues : the stunning and intimate church of San Giacomo dall’Orio and possibly the greatest Basilica in the world, St. Mark’s.