Dr Fenella Kirkham, reader in paediatric neurology at the Institute of Child Health, London, said that childhood stroke had been linked to episodes of chickenpox, although this had not been the case with Jacob.

BBC: NEWS | Health | 'My son had a stroke aged three'

Emma Dante, the director, perhaps wisely made no attempt to put Vesuvius on stage, instead having her Fenella the Italian actress Elena Borgogni run up a flight of stairs and assume the attitude of a martyr in an icon.

NEWYORKER: Opera on the Barricades

He dropped his fledgling career as a cabinetmaker years ago, a symptom of moving to New York and leaving his shop behind, his dexterity now devoted to chainsawing on weekends at the gothic-revival cottage near Newburgh that he shares with his wife Fenella, a physician.

WSJ: American Idyll