Music outdoors

Each 22 June is the Fête de la Musique in France. All over the country, in halls and theatres and most of all outside there is music of all kinds. I was spoilt for choice of photos of this year's offerings in Lunel and in the end chose the South Highland Pipers, a versatile crew who did not only Scottish but Irish numbers with appropriate changes of instrument. Now, as I write, it's the Lunel Jazz Festival with 4 evenings of late concerts under the trees in the park.
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All through the summer in the south of France there are outdoor concerts. When we were in England we went to a few, notably a performance of Don Giovanni in the beautiful gardens of Tissington Manor. Indeed there are opera companies which specialise in outdoor performances - but they have to be prepared for rain. When we went, with our French friend Françoise on her first ever visit to England, we took a picnic (bubbly, smoked salmon etc.) which we ate under umbrellas with 100 or so others in the rain, and Françoise was already amazed; but when the performance started it poured down at least twice and the musicians had to stop and scurry for cover, while we sat in soggy rows, umbrellas deluging water each into 2 neighbours' laps. Then we left, before the opera was finished, and we heard afterwards that they had sung the final arias huddled undeer a little hut which was the only covered part of the set. Judging from the weather reports from the UK this year people will not have had an easier time.
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The French experience is much more reliable, apparently. Thank goodness, because people pay mega-euros to watch grand opera in the Roman theatre in Orange or in the courtyard of the Palais des Papes in Aix-en-Provence (as we did a couple of years ago to hear our all-time-favourite Marriage of Figaro). There is an odd performance cancelled because of a thunderstorm, but usually the rain stays away and the warm late evenings are ideal for sitting and listening. And although the acoustics are variable, and amplification almost essential even for classical music, and although insects sometimes home in on the bright lights to plague audiences and performers, it's preferable to the stuffy interiors of concert halls in a hot summer. A few weeks ago we went to 2 indoor concerts here in Lunel - the Cheltenham Ladies College choir and string orchestra, and the Bucks County Youth Orchestra. They were in the Salle Georges Brassens, an impressively refurbished concert hall, and it was comfortably cool, but the sound of the air conditioning did not add to the enjoyment of the music!
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The only slight blip in our enjoyment of the jazz this week has been the appearance of one of the local policemen ejecting people from the small patches of grass where they were sitting, near the main seating. We had our chairs on the paths, which was fine, but it seemed to be unnecessarily officious. His colleagues strolled by without commenting or intervening, it was just him!
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Now we look forward to the start of the new season of music with rehearsals of our choir Crème Franglaise and then at the end of October the (definitely indoor) Mandoline Festival, almost unique in the world and with music of terrific quality and variety.