San Miguel de Allende has its own symphony orchestra. Do you know what that means?
It is the central gem in our cultural crown.
The city, for its small size, sparkles with opera, chamber music, writers, painters, and poets. (You know the saying, “If you aren’t an artist when you move to San Miguel, you will soon become one.”)
For the longest time, we’ve gotten by on occasional fly-bys from big-city orchestras and the wonderful youth symphony adventures.
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Some invitations are just too irresistible, like this one: Come join us out in the campo as we sterilize about 50 dogs and cats in the little community of San Antonio del Varal.
How could I say no to that?
The invitation came from Donna Lynes-Miller, the lifeforce behind Rosey’s Wish, a mobile veterinarian clinic on the front lines of the effort to reduce the number of abandoned and feral dogs and cats in San Miguel de Allende.
San Antonio Del Varal is a bit more than a half-hour away from, and a pleasant century or two behind, the city of San Miguel de Allende. An easy drive down the highway toward Queretero, and a sharp left onto a hard-packed dusty road that ends at the rancheria.
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It is times like these that you realize what a precious treasure Operisima Mexico is for San Miguel de Allende.
The operatic troupe’s Christmas Concert in the Iglesia San Francisco added rocket fuel to an already soaring holiday spirit.
Nearly a dozen elegantly dressed singers poured heart and soul into a program of popular and sacred seasonal music under the direction of Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco and in conjunction with Casa Europa Mexico.
Here’s a small taste of the evening. It repeats tonight (Sunday, Dec. 14, by the way. You can walk up and get tickets $300 — 600 mxn.
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Every Christmas season, Mercado de San Juan de Dios is turned into a Winter Wonderland.
Well, pretty much minus the Winter part.
Let’s say it transforms into a Christmas Marketplace, without all the messy snow and sub-zero temperatures.
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Behind me, fresh rainwater surged down Calle Terraplen like a full-blown arroyo wash. The rain beats a staccato rhythm on the roofs of curbed cars. I was inside Hotel Hacienda El Santuario’s nearly empty dining room, chilly but dry.
On the small table before me was a hot cup of black coffee and a curious but tasty postre of cornbread topped with ice cream, caramel sauce, and chopped nuts.
Not more than 20 feet away, through the archway into the open-air courtyard, pianist Javier Garcia-Lascurian and cellist Guillermo Sanchez Romero were working their way through a heart-rendering version of Saint-Saëns’s “Le Cygnet” (The Swan). Huddled along the barely sheltered walls of the courtyard sat the hardiest classical music audience I’ve ever seen. Some had umbrellas up to supplement the scant coverage of the eaves.
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If the Christmas season got off to a banging start with the tree lighting and intensive fireworks display on Friday, the holiday was elevated to a serenely beautiful level on Sunday by a concert featuring organ and brass instruments in the Templo de la Tercera.
The concert was under the aegis of Chorale San Miguel and completely underwritten by arts patrons John and Joy Bitner. That’s right, some people give fruit cakes for Christmas, the Bitners throw open the doors to an ancient church and put on a concert of mostly classical music for free.
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The shining tin stars are stretched out above the cobblestone streets. The fairy lights hang from the trees, and the poinsettias fill the garden. Storefronts are decked in holiday apparel.
And tonight, the community Christmas tree was lit amid a splendid fireworks display.
Feliz Navidad, from San Miguel de Allende.
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Revolution Day was on Thursday. As with all things annual and important, San Miguel de Allende celebrated with a parade.
Now, you would think that a parade that celebrates the Revolution of 1910, which finally freed Mexico from the oppressive rule of Porfirio Diaz, would be thick with militarism — squads of soldiers, combatants in arms, cannons, tanks, uniformly dressed squads marching in precision to martial cadences.
But it wasn’t.
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When the Latin America Relief Fund holds a benefit for ABBA House at the Mask Museum (once or twice a year), you come for the good cause and stay for the sunset.
To me, the second-floor balcony offers one of the prettiest views of San Miguel de Allende. Everything seems in scale — the towering church spires, the luscious blooming flowers, the sweeping mountains on the horizon. And the sunsets.
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The elderly man pushed the wheelbarrow full of dogs up the rutted dirt road in the Corralejo community to where Rosey’s Wish Sterilization Clinic was set up for the day. He also had with him a half-dozen puppies crammed into a flour sack.
The dogs were not theirs. Technically.
The street dogs had found their way to the man and his siblings, and their 94-year-old father, and they just couldn’t turn them away. The aging family lives in a cobbled structure that barely stands in good weather, leaks mercilessly in the rainy season — water pools on their bare concrete floor and on their beds — and offers no comfort from wind or cold, nor in hot summer months.
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 