The last time we went to a contemporary opera, we struggled a bit to keep the distance between atonal harmonics and noise. Non c’è un problema in this case.

Or else, when it was, the opera offered lots more to sustain us. Like the video, starting in the open air before closing in on a hill town, projected on a screen.

A house is seen. Lights, projected on the scrim, let us peek inside. It is evening. It is quiet. A mother and her daughter prepare for bed. Nature, off stage, sings.

This commissioned work is dedicated to the inhabitants of Valnerina, the nearby valley where two earthquakes hit on each side of our Spoleto visit in 2016.

Yet the idea comes from the sound of bells, an instrument “strongly linked to the territory and to the most intimate parts of us,” explains the musical composer.

Plus it’s connected (by the kindly provided synopsis) to an Emily Dickinson poem. Not to mention there’s dialogue also screened if you can decipher it.

Last but not least: the plot. After the first night, the Event. The veiled screen falls. The routine of the characters is repeated (indeed, reversed) and changed.

Lontano da Qui, when Google speaks, means “away from here.” For us, two years ago, that signified we were safe. It also affirms the effort to start over.

On our first pass, stopping to marvel at each detail of the collage, Rebecca happened to notice Fabiola standing beside her fellow artists, chatting away in Italian.

On our return, just as I surreptitiously snapped an iPhone keepsake, the artist arrived to talk thru our obviously abiding interest in her wonderful composition.

Typical art talk (for a collage), at first: la media, i vincoli della mostra (the constraints of the exhibit), l’orario dei treni (train schedule), e ponte ferroviario.

But unhearable by you, all our chat was being conducted in molto rapido Italian, as befits a celebration of Arte Moda e Gusto, a bike trek from Spoleto to Norcia.

So where the chat went from there is a bit hard to say, precisely because we were having no problem adding “Si, si” from time to time, as Fabiola raced on.

Still the best part, so far as we were concerned, is that without any chance of understanding each and every word we felt, all along, as if we were in the flow.

Now that, for an answer on a foreign language exam, is what U might judge to be totally unacceptable. Yet for us the morning passed in a deep shade of glory.