Operaville
by Michael J. Vaughn
One
I am on the Flanagan deck,
where Colin and I are conducting a war with Mother Nature. With mid-June temps
edging into the 80s, Colin has decreed that not one ounce of stain strike that
deck in direct sunlight. This means a day-long dance in which I hopscotch from
one surface to the next, following the squares of shade meted out by house and
tree.
I am utterly behind schedule. The
clock edges past six and I am still on the upper deck, applying a second coat
that simply has to be finished today.
And Maddalena Hart calls to me. I foxtrot our thousand-bristle brush across the
final foot of plank, unscrew it from the broomstick and drop it into a bucket
of water. Then I race downstairs to my car, grab my evening clothes and retreat
to the back of the house, where the hillside offers some visual shelter.
That’s
the thing about working in the mountains: you can get away with stuff you
wouldn’t dream of doing in the city.
I remove every stitch, grab a hose, brace for the shock, and crank the spigot.
I give myself a thorough soaking, then I use my work shirt as a towel, drying
off as much as possible before I start in on the evening wear.
I am trousered, shirted and
ready to go when I pass by a large black pipe and hear the sound of descending
liquid. Uh-oh. This is the sound of a toilet flush. Looking up, I see a small
window with a light on.
I run up the steps to the
driveway, toss my work clothes in the back seat, and am just pulling out when I
see Mrs. Flanagan’s silver LeMans in the garage. I discover our 82-year-old
client at the kitchen window, and give her a friendly wave. She waves back,
wearing a smile that is equal parts flustered and amused.
A half hour later I am
NASCARring along the sweet swath of Interstate 280, the fog drifting over
Crystal Springs Reservoir like an army of cotton balls. My refrigerator-level
AC has finally deactivated my pores, so I drop in at the Burlingame rest stop
to assemble my dress shoes and tie. I pull into the Civic Center garage with
minutes to spare, sprint up the urine-smelling exit and circumnavigate City
Hall, the frigid municipal wind blow-drying my deck-hair. I arrive at the side
entrance of the War Memorial Opera House and give a wave to the spry,
ginger-haired gentleman who serves as my gatekeeper.
“Billy! Hi.”
“Mister Siskel. Go on through.
Delores is hosting tonight.”
Four of my favorite words.
With her cutesy black-Irish features, youthful figure and actual personality,
Delores forces me to keep an eye on my dirty-old-man alarm system. I cross the
south hallway to find her in the press room, talking to the usual vaguely
European assholes.
“Oh! I went to the Los
Angeles premiere last autumn. They have a new artistic director. Dennis
McClintock. Used to be with Glimmerglass?”
I have never heard one of
these industry whores actually talk about an opera. They chatter like a squad of thirteen-year-old girls in a
cafeteria. Delores has spotted me and is giving me one of her profoundly
genuine-seeming smiles.
“Mickey! Let me find your
ticket.” She shuffles her envelopes, poker-style, and hands one to me. “Oh, and
the info sheets are tucked into the programs.”
“Fantastic. Thanks.”
I head for the coffee and
add a ridiculous amount of cream to bring down the temperature. I know it’s
Mozart, and staying awake is not a problem, but I want Maddalena’s voice to
stream along my synapses on wide-open channels.
Delores leans over my
shoulder. “By the way, Mickey, you know you could have a second ticket, right?
It’s been five years – you’ve definitely passed the test!”
“To be honest, Delores, I am
surrounded by people all week. If I can go on pretending that those tightwads at San Francisco Opera just
won’t give me a second ticket, I may continue to use this as my personal
retreat.”
She swats me with her
envelopes. “No, Mister Siskel! You may not
have a second ticket, and please stop asking!”
“Thank you. I mean, curse you, you miserly press relations…
person!”
Her eyes light up, then she
looks closer and develops a concerned expression.
“Oh, um… You might want to
check your forehead.”
I head for the mirror over
the refreshment table and discover a slash of golden stain over my left temple.
I dip a napkin into my coffee and manage to scrub it away. The chimes go off in
the hallway, so I head out, whispering a thanks to Delores.
There is not a square inch
of the War Memorial that I do not adore. The gilded florets that look down on
the cavernous lobby. The red-carpeted steps that lead to the auditorium; the
scroungy standing-room-onlys shuffling for position behind the back row. The
Olympic-sized gold bricks that cover the north and south walls. The spiky
gardenia of chandelier that shuts off in a dazzling spiral.
My ticket says row L,
fantastically close. I wait next to my aisle seat until my row fills up, then
sit down and applaud the conductor, Patrick Summers, he of the silver mane and
ruddy complexion, who should probably be astride a horse in an Eastwood movie.
The burgundy curtain rises to the heavens.
Cosi fan tutte is the ultimate romantic farce. Rascally bachelor Don Alfonso scoffs
at his youngers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, as they brag on the beauty and
fidelity of their fiancées. He then concocts the juiciest of wagers: the two
will pretend to leave the country, then return in disguise to test the
faithfulness of the other guy’s
chick. Make this a mid-century American film, and the women are tempted but not
won; the assembled cast laughs and smiles for the final scene as someone plays
Cole Porter. In the hands of Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, things are
never that comfortable.
The folks at SFO have gone for a modernized
production. The purists hate these kind of things, but then I hate the purists.
The sneaky fiancés traditionally come back as Albanians, all facial hair and
Middle Eastern robes, but here they’re long-haired ‘70s-era rockers. The baritone
wears skin-tight leather pants, a copper-colored duster and no shirt, revealing
an impressive set of abs and an eagle tattooed across his chest. The supertitle
translator is in on the joke, as well. When one of the sopranos catches sight
of their weird-looking suitors, she asks, “Where are these guys from?
Haight-Ashbury?”
Speaking of sopranos, I have
found myself in a kind of sonic heaven. They have paired Maddalena with a
Dorabella whose mezzo is forceful and vibrant, a perfect match. Equipped with
Mozart’s harmonic magic – long passages of girl-on-girl singing – the two are
sending out chill after chill to give my spine the beat-down.
And then there’s Maddalena,
and since I do go on about her, perhaps I should give you a summary of her
talents. Her voice is huge, and powerful, but never forced. She manages to
maintain the buoyancy of the category known as lyric, showing a gymnastic agility that should be impossible for
someone with such a broad, buttery tone. Her delivery comes with impossible
ease, her tone spinning into the audience like a million tiny Frisbees. And her
top notes are absolutely secure, the dynamics of her phrasing always
thoughtfully dramatic. She also has that rare ability to appear as if she’s
simply talking – as if we should all
go around singing our conversations – when in fact she is launching pyrotechnic
displays of sound that mere mortals may only dream of.
What’s serving to intensify
my obsession is the present-day clothing. They have dressed her all in white –
befitting Fiordiligi’s chaste attitude – a flowing pantsuit with a long jacket
that flits here and there with her movements, revealing contours that one might
not expect from an opera singer. The generous knockers, yes, the stout ribcage
(an occupational hazard) – but the ass on this girl! Medium to generous, as
befits a diva, but possessed of a round shape and firmness that would give your
average construction worker hours of material. Throw in those oversized emerald
eyes, a head full of blonde Monroe ringlets, and those inflatable, flexible
lips that they emphasize for every album cover. By the time she arrives at the
big second-act aria, I’m already a mess, my heart on a platter, waiting to be
frappéd by her performance. But more on that later.
At the end of three hours, I
head downstairs for my pre-drive restroom stop, stopping at a portrait of
Renata Tebaldi from 1968 (in Andrea
Chenier) to run my thumb across her name plate. Maddalena has been compared
with her, and don’t go thinking that I disagree.
[Track 1]
On the drive home, I pop
Maddalena’s rendering of Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” into the cassette player
(it’s an old car), and then I cleanse my palate with some AC/DC. I picture the
modernized Ferrando and Guglielmo onstage with Angus and Malcolm Young, as
young opera fans flash their tits at the stage.
The drive is long but not
difficult. Mozart to me is like crystal meth, and also I have my nightscapes.
My favorite arrives at Stanford, between the satellite dish and the linear
accelerator. The surrounding land is a green vale, dotted here and there by
live oaks and cows, painted silver by three quarters of a moon.
Twenty miles later, I’m
approaching the evergreen mountains behind Saratoga, speckled with the lights
of houses belonging to the rich – who spend most of their daylight hours
denying that they’re rich at all. But this is a previous lifetime, and I’m just
passing through, into the long ascending stretches of Highway 9. The deer
population keeps me alert, chewing on the roadside grasses perilously close to
the asphalt.
The final directions are a
little complicated. Half mile past the fire station, first Ped Xing sign to
your right, through the gate with the combination lock. After that it’s a full
mile of downhill dirt and gravel, the rain channels beating up the suspension,
and finally the much-anticipated left-hand sweep that signals home base,
ancient orchards to the right, cabin of Trey the Fish to the left. I park
between two redwood trees, take a moment to breathe the mountain air, check out
the moonlight sliding through the trees in dull metallic streaks, then reach
back in for my program and make my way to the steps.
“Ahwuff!”
“Jesus!”
It’s Katie. She’s on all
fours in the entryway, and, yes, as my eyes adjust to the dark I see that she
is wearing a dog suit: floppy black ears, big round nose-cap, and a furry white
beagle onesie with built-in paws and a springy spike of tail.
“Pretty cute, Katie. Could
you maybe call next time so I don’t have a freakin’ heart attack?”
“Hawroof!” She shuffles
forward and leaps on me. I pat her on the head and she pants her approval, then
adopts a cartoony growl-voice. “Mrrickey bring bone? Katie want bone!”
“No Katie, I didn’t bring
you a bone. Now let’s get inside and…”
She snarls (as menacingly as
a four-foot-ten blonde can) then pads her way down to my crotch and snuffles
around like she’s hunting for kibble.
“Urrh! Bone!”
“Oh! Okay. I getcha.” I drop
my program on a filing cabinet, undo my belt and drop trou to reveal that yes,
the dog has given the man a bone. She gives my dick a few exploratory licks and
then engulfs it with a messy, dog-like blow job. I grab her floppy ears and
endeavor to get into the spirit of things.
“Katie, you sexy bitch!”
“Haroomph!”
After a minute she pulls
away, circles around and raises her tail into the air. “Rrowf!” she says, what
sounds like a canine command.
Ah,
thinks I. I believe she wants to do it
doggie-style. Access is a bit of a puzzle, until my initial butt-squeeze
reveals a pair of large buttons. I quickly undo them and pull up the panel,
revealing Katie’s round, plump cheeks. I dip a hand between them to find that
she is well-lubricated, then I insert a finger, enjoying the vision of her bare
pussy in the moonlight. My cock is about ready to launch itself right off my
pelvis, so I take it in hand and guide myself home. It’s a grand feeling, but
her tail keeps whacking me in the face.
An hour later, we’re back to
human form, entwined beneath a couch blanket as we enjoy a small summer fire. I
cannot usually tolerate such lengthy stretches of personal-space invasion, but
Katie fits into the curve of my frame as if she were designed for the purpose.
She also has this natural taste and smell that I never tire of, augmented by
spearmint gum, vanilla shampoo, milk-white skin, bubble-gum nipples and labia –
she is my candy girl. Too bad she’s so fucked up, but it’s really not her
fault.
“How was the drop-off?” I
ask.
“Oh God. Same old shit. I
thought I was getting away clean, but then he calls me and says that Sara needs
her Hannah Montana sweatshirt. ‘Just pull up,’ he says. ‘I’ll come to the car
and get it.’ Always trying to get us alone together, like I find him so fucking
irresistible I will me mesmerized by his manly presence and decide not to
divorce him. For seven years I told
that asshole we needed to work on our marriage, for seven years he didn’t do a
goddamn thing, but now, now that I’ve
left his sorry ass – now he
desperately wants me back. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so pissy. But
you shouldn’ta got me going.”
I stroke her hair, the way
she likes me to.
“Y’gotta dump on somebody. It may as well be me.”
She gives me a kiss.
“Thanks, honey.”
“As long as you’re bitching
about other men, I could listen for
hours! It’s just the price of admission. And what a show you put on tonight.”
“I’m a creative little
slut.”
“What do you say to popcorn
and a movie? They’re playing an old Hitchcock.”
She gives me that priceless,
impish smile, eyes the color of a spring sky. “Sounds fab, honey. You’re a great fuck, ya know?”
“Thanks.” I give her lips a
proper chewing and head off to the microwave.
I
have a life-long habit of dating brunettes, so it’s still a surprise to find
this golden-haired creature sitting on the edge of my bed, doing her best to
work out the morning tangles. She is a small sun over my nightstand.
The hour is another thing.
Ungodly. Fifteen minutes later I am re-awakened by a toothpaste kiss, and wet
hair that smells like peaches. I do my best to smile, and then I assemble
enough clothing to ward off hypothermia and walk her out to her car. The
morning is sharp and beautiful, lemon slices of sun cutting through the trees.
A pair of Steller’s jays wing in front of us to carry their squabbling to a
small madrone. I lean Katie against her car and do some more work on those
lips.
“So I was wondering… where
did you get that outfit?”
“Our church did a production
of ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.’”
“I was fucking Snoopy? Good
grief!”
“Yeahbaby.”
“This is Charles Schulz,
spinning in his grave.”
She bites her lip. “I better
go. Air kiss?”
I wrap my arms around her
back, lift her into the air and apply lips liberally, then I spin her a couple
of times so we can look like a scene from a screwball romantic comedy. Or Cosi fan tutte. Then she’s gone, up the
road, down the mountain, off to pick up the kids for church. I must be a good fuck, for all the trouble
she goes to. And I am profoundly impressed at her ability to compartmentalize
between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
I indulge in a couple more
hours of snoozing, but it’s not going to be more - I’ve got too many ideas
circling my bloodstream. My agenda begins with a long sit on the pot as I read
every shred of SFO’s program, including a seriously well-written piece on the
friendship between Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte.
Second is a long soak in my
most excellent clawfoot bathtub. I am a connoisseur of luxury soaps, and this
morning I am breaking in a French-milled Shea butter bar with the deeply sweet
aroma of linden blossoms. Over the next two weeks, this scent will suffuse the
entire cabin. I lather it between my hands, hold the suds to my nose and then
begin with my left foot before the water gets too high.
After that I’m raring to go,
so I keep the breakfast simple: two pieces of toast with butter and strawberry
preserves, followed by fresh-ground Ethopian coffee. I head to my writing
table, positioned before a window view of my twin redwoods, to the right a deep
hollow covered in madrone. To the left is the cabin of Trey the Fish, with yet
another topless woman flouncing on the deck. I make a mental note to thank him.
I position myself before a circle of books – a Mozart biography, Grove’s Book of Operas and the SFO
program (the cast page covered with written-in-the-dark scrawls) – set down a
spiral-bound notebook and pick up a cheap powder-blue stick pen. I don’t play
any music, because already I can hear Maddalena singing.
[Track 2]
If you were a singer in
Mozart’s company, you really couldn’t lose. He would write the role to
accentuate your strengths, and dance artfully around your flaws. Thus was
created one of the scariest roles in the canon: Fiordiligi of Cosi fan tutte, her stunning
rollercoaster vocal lines inspired by the awesome high and low registers of
Adriana Ferrarese.
It’s quite possible,
however, that that’s all she had.
Other than Fiordiligi and a few productions as Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adriana had a pretty lackluster career. This
came from two important shortcomings: she couldn’t act, and she couldn’t do
comedy.
Aha!
you say. (Go ahead – I’ll wait.) So why was Adriana so successful in the
decidedly farcical Cosi? Excellent
question, and here’s your answer: because Fiordiligi is the square peg, holding
firmly to her church-girl principles even as all around her are screwin’
around. This custom-crafted role came about either through good fortune or
because Adriana was sleeping with the librettist, da Ponte. The torridness of
the affair (owing largely to the married status of both participants)
doubtlessly contributed to the libretto’s conflicted views on love and
fidelity.
Regardless, given the way
that Mozart treats Fiordiligi as his own personal yo-yo, any normal soprano
should be forgiven for not being entirely up to the part. Fortunately, we’re
not talking about normal sopranos – we’re talking about Maddalena Hart. Hart’s
easy top notes are the stuff of legend, and her bottom end is not to be
disregarded. For recorded evidence, note the low sobbings at the denouements of
Boito’s “L’altra notte” (Mefistofele)
and Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” (Rusalka)
from Hart’s Favorite Arias album. The
depth of these passages has won the singer much-deserved comparisons to
Tebaldi.
[Track 3]
Naturally, it’s not just having the notes, it’s how the notes are
deployed. Many a singer has come to these clifftop drops and landed on the low
notes with all the tender sensitivity of a professional wrestler. Hart manages
to make the descent more deftly, like a hang glider, dipping her toes to the
precise mid-point of the pitch before catching the next updraft. Not once does
this seem like work, and not once does she lose her supremely intelligent sense
of dynamic flow. Hart often creates the impression that none of this is so
unusual, that these are just everyday conversations that decided to take wing.
Since my rough beginnings, I
have made major strides. I am now able to complete a review in a matter of one
longhand draft, one computer draft and a final read-through. Considering the
fact that I’m not getting paid a cent, this is good. I head for my blog, Operaville, paste in the article, and
then I go to the SFO site to shop for a photo. The images there are sharp, and
beautiful, and provocative. I always feel like I’m cheating, like I’m applying
Chanel No. 5 to a pig. This time I settle on something comic: rocker-dude
Ferrando hauling Fiordiligi over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her
mouth open in a gasp of surprise. Maddalena is so freakin’ gorgeous all the
time that it’s hard to catch her being cute.
I download the image to my desktop, upload it to the blogsite, add the IDs and
photo credit, and press the magic Publish button, committing my words to public
consumption.
I celebrate by preparing my
slow-cook goulash, an olio of red peppers, onions, cabbage and potatoes over a
bacon stock, and spice it with oregano, cayenne pepper and some pomegranate
molasses that I discovered in a high cabinet. While that’s brewing, I sit on my
porch in the twilight treeshade and light up a cigar – a low-priced maduro from
Honduras. I have set my computer to let out a chirp when anyone responds to my
blog, and am pleased, halfway through my smoke, when DD rings in with her first
comment. She’s like clockwork, that girl. I finish the cigar, consume a bowl of
the goulash with a dollop of sour cream, and respond to a text from Katie that
reads, simply, Arf! (I respond with U r 1 fine piece of tail.) Then I mix up
some mango nectar with yogurt (a trick I picked up from an Indian friend) and
park it next to the computer.
DevilDiva: You can’t swing a dead cat without
hitting a modernized opera these days. I take it from your review that this
doesn’t bother you?
Mickey: I always wanted to start a jazz band called
Swing a Dead Cat. But yes! As long as a modernization makes sense, I’m all for
it. Whenever possible, opera should be fun.
DD: But infidelity, illicit sex, the fickle ways of
love -–how can a modern audience possibility relate to these things?
M: Funny!
DD: Thank you for not responding “LOL.” I hate that
shit.
M: OMG!
DD: Smartass. But I’m afraid these progressive ideas
of yours will never do. Opera is nothing but an excuse for fusty 70-year-olds
to impress their friends and obtain valuable tax writeoffs. Fun is utterly out
of the question.
M: Sorry. I had fun, and I make no apologies. And
the thing with the rockers? Hilarious.
DD: Yes, the Haight-Ashbury joke. Audiences love
that stuff. It is a bit unsettling,
though, how often they laugh at the supertitle before you actually get to the
line. I once had a director who brought in students for dress rehearsal and
instructed them to laugh at the funny supertitles right when they appeared on
the screen, just so we could get used to it.
M: Good idea!
DD: But darling! Let’s talk about this segue from
the historical to the musical, from Ferrarese to the way Maddie handles those
intervals. You are a magician, my dear. You are a singer’s dream. If I ever get
a chance to sing Fiordiligi, I’m definitely using that hang-glider visual. Why
are you not writing for Opera News?
M: A late start. I am the Satchel Paige of opera
criticism. And alas! I turned down that scholarship to Julliard.
DD: Okay, I’ll go along with the mythmaking process.
“Siskel left a promising career in professional tennis to write a blog about
opera.”
M: Hey! I’ve got a pretty decent serve.
DD: Okay. But tell me, honestly. Is Signorina Hart really that good? Or are you just buying
into the hype?
M: Sometimes I read the stuff I have written about
her, and I think, Come on! You’re going too far. And then I see her again, I
hear her again, and I realize that I am not exaggerating at all. It’s this
combination of intelligence and vocal power. Intoxicating! I find myself
holding my breath when she’s singing. And you’ve read my other reviews – I’m
really not a gusher.
DD: No. You’re amazingly even-keeled. And fair. So,
did you discover anything new about her?
M: You’re really digging today.
DD: Hey, if you want to be the best, you study the
best.
M: Okay. You know how most opera costumes entirely
obscure the body? Décolletage excepted?
DD: God yes! When I’m doing Mozart, I feel like a
freakin’ parade float.
M: Modern dress, of course, is much more revealing,
much tighter to the silhouette. And this first-act pantsuit… It turns out that
Maddalena Hart, in addition to killer top notes, a beautiful passagio, and a
divine sense of phrasing, has an incredibly fine ass.
I sit there for a couple of minutes, and I’m getting
nothing. This is not unusual. Out here in the boonies, I am a prisoner of
ancient dial-up technology. Perhaps a squirrel is sitting on the wire. I have
half a thought that I got a little too saucy, but DD and I have “gone there”
before, so I can’t imagine she would take offense. I take a break to clean my
dishes. When I return, sure enough, she’s back.
DD: Sorry. Life intercedes. So why no mention of
derrieres in the review?
M: Do you not recall the phrase, “…her bottom end is
not to be disregarded”?
DD: That is so
bad, on so many levels.
M: I save the R-rated stuff just for you, honey.
DD: You do recall that this is a public forum we’re
chatting upon?
M: You kiddin’ me? I’m counting on this stuff to get
me some page-views. In fact, I think I’ll plug in a search tag for “Maddalena
Hart’s ass.”
DD: Yeah, operatic porn is big these days. And what
kind of sleazy readership will that
get you?
Cordell: Somebody call?
M: Cord! Good to hear from you.
DD: Time for Diva to Di-part, hon. But one last
thought: I think you’re in love with Maddalena Hart.
M: Well who isn’t?
C: I’m in love with her, and I’m as queer as a
three-headed monkey.
M: Cordell! Nice bon mot.
C: Thank you. I saw an Oscar Wilde play last night.
DD: Ciao, belli.
M: Buona notte, signorina divina.
C: Not break up this little love-huddle, but rocker
duds? They really did that?
M: You woulda loved the shirtless baritone.
C: Please! I’m strictly about the art. Can I get a
photo?
M: Ha! I’ll smuggle you one from the website.
C: God bless you, young hetero.
Photo by MJV (War Memorial Opera House, SF)
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