The Write Thing

I write for a living, and I write for pleasure…and I can tell the difference. Does that make me less of a whore?

Perhaps it is that I am at odds with myself sometimes, so I can accommodate better to the quirky irrationality of being 80% of my time operating in a language that is not my own, but in a country that is my own and whose language alienates me…so to speak.

Perhaps that is why I am trying to incorporate yet another, one of those that fall in the “least interesting” category, so I can avoid facing the fact that I am a foreigner at home…yet, again, does that make me less of a whore?

Maybe it won’t. So I’ll walk the streets of a city that has not welcomed me since I got back and fight my odds. I’m off to Guanajuato in only a few days, and you are welcome there. Let us look for adventure, let us be somewhere.

An erotic proposition, when it brings uneven numbers into the question, is always a tricky one and therefore more exciting. Two young European girls arrive in Buenos Aires and decide they want to open their relationship to another player. They reply to her ad.

A few days later, they meet the potential candidate. First, there is dinner in Puerto Madero, and casual talk over a well-done lamb and three varieties of potatoes as a side dish. Wine is of course the obvious companion. Then there is the decision of going somewhere else for a drink, perhaps a disco, or maybe just a bar. There happens to be one nearby, a straight and cool lounge where they continue to talk…this time about the juicy stuff, sex, clubs, erotica and all the rest. They define their candidate as queer, and they seem to like the coolness with which she talks and expresses her mind. The night unfolds, and they are all a little drunk by now; tired, but not as much as they were before, when the conversation was much less spicy.

Looking at the young couple, it is obvious that their connection has all the elements of lesbianhood. They are totally out, as one of them prides herself in saying while she caresses her companion’s hand and plants her a soft kiss on the lips in front of an admiring crowd. They are kind of hot together, each keeping the boundaries a little open as they play their butch and femme versions of themselves. One of them leads, and this transpires in the long time it takes them to decide what food to order, or where to go. The leader will always have the last word. She later will voice her convictions about the gay community, with her militant past and her vast reading on gay-related issues as a banner of authority. Her partner will remain cool, her eyes betraying a certain admiration for her lover, which immediately precludes any counter-argument on her side (although she does have it). Meanwhile, their incidental guest is amused by the husband and wife scene, and she cannot help thinking that the subject will be a suitable platform for angry sex later on, a perfect remedy to efface the violence of the discussion and set the counter back to zero. In any case, it is already 4.30 am, and the three are too tired to solve the plights of the gay world in one night.

The game remains open for a next time, although some of the cards may have already been played. The potential candidate gets into her taxi and heads home, pondering on the power of classification as a form of security, the eternal dichotomy of men vs. women, gay vs straight, butch vs femme. A little disappointed, she sighs and right there vows that, even if it is a mammoth task, she will still be looking for that soul capable of escaping labels, that woman who will refuse to go by accommodating titles, the human being that will want to evolve beyond the typecast role of Blanche DuBois or Lara Croft. Il faudra continuer à chercher la femme, my dear, a voice seems to say…and a new day begins.

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.