In 1971 he bought a house in Ravello, high above the Amalfi coast.

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Between June and September, and often in the surrounding months too, the Ravello Festival turns much of the town centre of this hilltop beauty into a stage.

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While much of the Amalfi coast is overbuilt, with homes and hotels terraced into the hillsides on top of one another, the quaint town of Ravello is a peaceful exception.

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Every summer the town hosts one of the highest profile musical events in Europe, the Ravello Festival, also known as the Wagner Festival, featuring two months of orchestral music, chamber music, jazz and especially opera, with open air venues above the Mediterranean.

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The small town has been here for more than 1, 500 years, perched on a dramatic cliff top 1000-feet above the sea, and in the past few centuries has garnered a reputation as a popular escape for creative artists and musicians: Ravello has been a home away from home to Wagner, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Greta Garbo, Graham Greene, Leonard Bernstein and M.

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