The Write Thing

That was the campaign launched in 1930 to publicize Garbo’s first talkie. It is of public knowledge that the advent of sound in movies could either boost a career or destroy it. Sunset Boulevard, starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden, is a fictional example of the latter. However, in Garbo’s case, her glory was even enhanced by the dark, husky and deep manly voice that filled the theaters worldwide…including the one in Buenos Aires where a young Borges nervously awaited until the first magical words “Give me a viskey” were pronounced. He sighed with relief. The diva he admired the most had made it.

When I learned this anecdote, retold in a documentary I recently translated, I could not help but thinking that, had I lived in those days, I would have shared Borges’s stress over Garbo’s voice. I would have been seduced by the glacial woman as I have been since I first saw her. The difference would have been in our timing. It would have taken place as her career progressed, not after it no longer existed. For me, today, to think of another voice but the one I have always heard is impossible. Borges, on the contrary, was able to imagine what she would sound like. A possibility for him was just a belated impossibility for me.

If we think that an actor’s voice could mean the end of a career back in Garbo’s time, today the situation is totally different. Jennifer (or is it Meg) Tilly’s high-pitched nasal tone would have been received thumbs down — Woody Allen did some justice in that sense with one of the sisters in Bullets over Broadway, but still voices do not matter as much today. The world changes, it is true. However, some magical creatures remain as enchanting, vibrant, and avant-garde as they have always been. Garbo is an example of this. She defies time and conventions — and would have Mercedes De Acosta pay for it. Her (wo)manly essence made both men and women fall under her feet, and set the foundations for Mylène Farmer’s career (another member of the family? I wonder). Today, the magic lives on.
Djupa andetag…Garbo talks!

Buenos Aires, Saturday afternoon, 6.00 pm:
La Giralda. Came downtown for a good walking exercise and a tour of bookshops along Corrientes Avenue. Nothing to die for, so far. Got hold of a copy of Bergman’s The Seventh Seal on DVD as a debt I had with the Swedish master. Stopped here, for a quick “cortado” at a cafe that seems to be one of the few traditional things still standing in this city where progress equals monumental tower buildings and sterilized glass-clad coffee shops. La Giralda is still one of the few places in town where you’ll pay five pesos for a sizable cup of white coffee…yes, perhaps I should have gone for the submarino con churros, a classic here.

There are quite a few people at the bar. A threesome at the table next to mine are engaged in passionate platitudes, and make a raucous scene once every five minutes, startling my pen off the lined pages of my Moleskine…I can even smell the salami of the sandwich the bulky boy next to my chair is having. But that’s part of the deal in this place, so I find it somewhat charming.
The book tour so far is proving hard. I walked similar streets to those I prowled over ten years ago. Zivals is now a tango store as well, and the classical jewels I used to marvel about in the old nineties are now dusty leftovers of those days, when you could choose between at least two different versions of Wagner’s Der Ring. Unknown singers now beckon from their dim-lit racks, offering exciting — and challenging — renderings of Schumann’s lieder.
I crave for rarity. Where is that book that will bring me a glimpse of the odd, magical city where you could find the weirdest things, like a postcard of Patty Duke’s 1960 TV show? Where is the city in which Bolshevik-oriented youngsters would flock to see Streisand’s On a Clear Day instead of a Fassbinder’s retrospective that played in the next room? Where is the all-encompassing Buenos Aires, apocalyptic but shining with the charm of rare movies? Where is the unexpected pleasure, the purpose of the quest? It seems I belong now to the small group of outcasts left to ponder and waltz around our own thirst for more.

One more hour is left to my wanderlust to see a hopeful outcome. I have the hunger inside. The hunt will go on.

I have always thought that music other than classical or opera sounds better in studio recordings. In fact, it has often been incredibly annoying to me to be forced to witness a totally different version of a song — where sharp Cs suddenly go flat or lower. It is the closest experience to fraud. Another factor that goes against live sessions in pop or rock music, for example, is that singers’ voices tend to be a disappointment. Phil Collins’ voice is one case that comes to mind. The velvet-like substance of his sound in studio albums of the 1990s or later cannot compare at all with the scratchy, sometimes flat metallic ring that he has when he’s performing live.
As a matter of fact, very few people can boast a really good and rich voice when they go live, and avoid undermining their own studio reputations. Paul McCartney is an example of those who can in the world of male singers, and Barbra Streisand is his counterpart among women.
However, in the realm of opera, the live-studio conundrum can only be resolved in favor of the live performance. Live is where the passion is. Opera is one of the most complete forms of artistic expression. Music, acting and dancing converge in a unique synthesis of perfection — when it is done well, of course. Live in opera might mean Callas singing the E flat to close the Triumphal scene at the end of the second act of Aida in the Mexico 1951 version (yes, a magnificent moment of ecstasy for the ear, soul and mind), or Caballé extending her pianissimo beyond the humanly possible at the end of “Signore ascolta”. It can mean standing ovations that would beat the delirious paroxysm of the hooligans in a regular World Cup Final. These are but a few of the examples of why opera should, above all, be live…Centuries later, it breathes as much passion in as it lets out.