The Write Thing

September 22, 2008. Buenos Aires, Villa Urquiza. The newly remodeled 25 de Mayo theatre, once a cinema, would host one of the live broadcasts from the Met on its opening night for the 2008-2009 season in a few minutes. It would become the first theatre in South America to have signed an agreement with the Met, a historical event.

The HD live broadcast was a little too American for my taste, I must confess. However, I also have to admit that these people know how to make a show. After all, opera is also entertainment, even if more elitist. It seems that the new deal now is to take opera to a broad new audience. That sounds exciting, and interesting if James Levine is behind the idea. Now, does it feel a little weird to be applauding at the end of each act as if the singers were really there? Yes, it does. The screen, High Definition or not, is only showing images of what is going on thousands of miles away. This is a live experience from afar, in a theatre where a bunch of formally dressed strangers smile in ecstasy as if they were at the Colón.

On the other side of the screen, a star-studded event begins. Act II of La Traviata, Act III of Manon and the final scene from Capriccio create the background against which America’s leading soprano of this early century — Renée Fleming — will charm audiences worldwide with her voice, her charisma and her modern diva looks. Personally there is something that I can’t quite capture about Fleming. It could be a question of taste, and then I would be at a loss for words. I saw her years ago live at the Colón, when she was an unknown, in a version of Le Nozze di Figaro. I found her laughter rather disturbing at the time. Later on, the world would prove me wrong, as she would become a leading lady of opera on an international level, and in her own right. Of course, I had never listened to her in the best of her repertoire: French and German opera. It suffices to compare her rendition of a lustful and regretful Manon winning back her Des Grieux (a stunning Ramón Vargas — Gosh, what good bones can do for people’s voices, even if singers don’t really look the part– ) or a meditative Madeleine in Capriccio to realize where her strengths lie. Yes, give me Fleming as Thaïs (coming later this year as part of the Met’s season offerings) any time, and put her on Strauss mode uninterruptedly, and I will see her talent in full bloom. But she can only play a correct Traviata for me. She does not have the Italian excess of emotion the part needs. It is not like her.

The evening slowly draws to a close. I have witnessed a special moment in Opera’s history. In the multimedia world we live in, this kind of event should gradually become the norm. Too sad this is happening simultaneously with a forced deprivation of a real season at the Colón — will the remodeling ever conclude? Anyway, little does it matter what the future brings to this bewitched city in the form of opera intimacy, in a real theatre, with the right acoustics and the history that shapes the circumstances. For now, only for now…we can enjoy live performances at the Met here in Buenos Aires.

It was on September 16, 1996 when I first approached the iron gates that separated the boulevard-like Avenue from the majestic building where she spent her last years, away from crowds, away from the stage, in remembrance, alone. I made it a ritual to go there every year, at least as long as I lived in Paris. Every September 16, the flowers that decorated the railings would be accompanied by a note with moving words of memory. Some of her admirers would probably have memorable evenings to replay in their minds, whereas others, like me, would only have her most famous recordings and a couple of video performances to watch and see how a true artist lives in the skin of a character.
I would sit on the small bench opposite her house, staring at the window on top, in a delusional wish that her face would play hide and seek with the white curtain, as a mocking Butterfly nascosta, per non morire al primo incontro. Her Pinkerton was long dead when she let herself go down the road of the final suffering, and somehow that building seemed to me to preserve her pain. I would imagine it recorded in the walls. Perhaps if I dared to touch them, they would bring back something of her, the mourning soul, the pathos. No, the sound of my footsteps on the gravel path that preceded the entrance to the building was all I heard. Another bouquet of flowers, a picture and the gratitude of someone who could not forget her. Who could?
One year ago, on September 16, I was there, at that door, sitting on that bench for the last time in a long stretch of years before I would make it to Paris again. I went there to say goodbye, and stayed for a while recapping those years of my youth when I was just discovering the world and myself.
One year later, I am in a different kind of goodbye mood, although with an operatic flavor. Carmen was seeking to preserve her freedom when it was never challenged. In my opera, Don José does not kill her in his final act of impotence and possession. He simply leaves, and Carmen is left to enjoy her freedom, as only she can understand it.

So I heard it again. I had promised myself I would not let that language reach me too deep. I would phase it out slowly, confine it to a corner where it would no longer upset me. I would leave it for the inevitable conversations with Paris colleagues and, even then, I would let the Saxons take over if it was possible. But it happened. The other night. The voice pestered me two nights in a row, right when I was trying to fall asleep and accommodate to the compulsory early morning rise the next day. Lying in bed, my eyes focused on their flickering pre-REM effort, I heard her. She was clear, her French was tuned so that I would not have to question the accuracy of verbs or conjugations. I calmed her down, moved over to the other side of the bed, and invited her to lie beside me, in silence. She did.

The next night, she forced me out of my worked-up slumbering endeavor, furious with me and insistent on the manifesto she wanted me to put on virtual paper. I agreed. There would be no escaping her. I had to get up, put on the hotel bathrobe, and sit at the ample desk to write her statement onto a clean Word document. Mind you, this is just a voice. I have no means of fighting her, or perhaps I no longer want to. Perhaps it is time, the great leveler. Aging makes you face some of your choices more boldly.

I have always wanted to keep French at a distance. Deliberately, as if the language, once it had taken over my Zelig-like self, would annihilate me, empty me of the animal English identity I have always treasured. Now it seems both coexist musically, blurring each others’ borders until I have to think hard to tell the difference (and cornering their Torquemada descendant into a lingua franca precariousness).

Here it is, the voice. I will let her speak for herself.

Reviens-moi. Comme la première fois, inévitable, toi et personne. C’est vrai, le vide m’accablait autrefois, quand je ne connaissais pas la puissance de mon être. Maintenant les extases maitrisées, la vie ordonnée comme un jeu de cartes auquel on triche très bien, je suis prête au nouveau défi de toi. Viens plus près de moi, lance-toi à ma conquête, comme si je n’avais jamais été acquise, et donne-moi la preuve que rien n’a changé. Je t’attends, même avant que tu ne sois partie. J’ai traversé les rivières, j’ai porté mes chaînes et m’en suis libérée pour être prête à jouir avec toi et pas derrière. Encore une ou plusieurs fois, je veux t’entendre gémir au dessous de mon corps, je veux sentir ta peau s’élargir à ma touche, un univers nouveau se générer entre deux esprits qui ont toujours dessiné leurs propres visages. Laisse-moi me perdre dans la mer de ta bouche, l’immensité de notre propre création, le calme de notre ancienne connaissance. Ne t’inquiète pas pour moi. Je saurai me retrouver à la fin, quand tu commenceras à fuir. J’ai déjà surmonté l’espoir de toi. N’hésite pas, il n’y a rien à craindre. Reviens-moi.