The Write Thing

In 1968, the world of entertainment became mesmerized with a skinny young girl with a prominent nose who sang her way through the bittersweet life of theater and film actress Fanny Brice in the box office hit (both in theater and film) Funny Girl.

My admiration for Ms. Streisand goes back in time numerous years, to those darker moments of my youth when English was becoming a language of fate and a permanent shelter, without my knowing it. In the movie, there is a climactic scene where she rushes to catch a tugboat at the New York harbor, shortly after finding love in the arms of bon vivant Nicky Arnstein (played by Omar Sharif). Much as I would like to linger in my praise of Barbra as a consummate actress and singer, injecting pathos and passion in a character that to some extent ended up reflecting her quite a lot at some stages in her life, I will refrain from doing so.

The tugboat scene unfolds with the backdrop of a hurried Miss Brice trying to convince her entourage that her decision to live life beyond her success as a comedienne with the Ziegfeld Follies is final. She does this with a song, while everybody begs her to reconsider. However, she is adamant and will follow Nick to write the first act of a love whose epilogue will be a dark naked stage where La Streisand will render perhaps the best version of My Man ever recorded. But right now, if you can hold your breath enough to accompany the singer through the end of a belted note that grows above a mid-size orchestra, there is still a world to hope for.

The tugboat slides on a foamy sea, leaving a trail leading back to the harbor of departure. From a distance, it seems as if she could choose to go back and put such a preposterous idea of love well behind her. Curiously, the novelty here is that in the wildest act of love in the movie, the heroine does not sing of love, but of possibility….and perhaps that is what love is all about.

I’m gonna live and live NOW!
Get what I want, I know how!
One roll for the whole shebang!
One throw that bell will go clang,
Eye on the target and wham,
One shot, one gun shot and bam!
Hey, Mr. Arnstein, here I am …

I’ll march my band out, I will beat my drum,
And if I’m fanned out, your turn at bat, sir,
At least I didn’t fake it, hat, sir,
I guess I didn’t make it
Get ready for me love, ’cause I’m a “comer”
I simply gotta march, my heart’s a drummer
Nobody, no, nobody, is gonna rain on my parade!

Houston builds its own American routine in me. Wake up early in the morning to have breakfast at the hotel that “feels like home”, grab a portion of eggs (only twice a week, their impact on cholesterol levels was never clear to me), a standard cup of coffee with half-and-half milk, some orange juice, bread or bagel depending on appetite, and off you go.

Westheimer tends to be busy at all times, and I cannot quite tell what the rush hour really is here. Probably seven, as that was the only time when I was greeted with a terrible traffic jam on my way from the airport.
8.15 am – Just before the Derek hotel, left down the sideroad that runs parallel to the I-610, right on San Felipe road and again left on Briar Oaks lane where the posh St. Regis hotel stands out as a landmark. My rental car — a Ford Fusion that is larger than my needs which, mind you, are large as well — roars to the sound of Elena Roger recreating Mina’s famous hits. The CD is a gift from two dear friends of mine, E and her significant other, given to me in presentia before I left for this business trip to Obamaland.

I decided to take only that CD with me this time, innocently imagining that I would choose my rental car this time and it would come with a suitable aux plug-in for my Ipod. It turns out to be that Ford is automatic in everything, so it does not need any more holes, which means I am stuck with the radio — which I tried repeatedly, and almost cried at when Casey Cason’s Top 10 review blasted to me from the loudspeakers one cloudy morning — or a 6-slot CD player. Ironically, I only have one CD. Elena knows this, and she seems to redouble her efforts to please me as I slowly play the Mina Che Cosa Sei performance in 10-minute segments every day, relentlessly. If you are a music lover, or not, you may concur with me on this — there is always one song that you will want to replay over and over again in almost every album. In this one, it is Mi Sei Scoppiato, which I sing along although my vocal chords are gradually being taken over by an upsetting flu. The lyrics are cheesy, but I like this song, it has become a classic, and in a way a wish. Who would not want somebody to burst out inside us, or who has not ever experienced that?

Mi sei scoppiato
dentro al cuore all’improvviso
all’improvviso non so perché
non lo so perché all’improvviso
all’improvviso
sarà perché mi hai guardato
come nessuno mi ha guardato mai
mi sento viva
all’improvviso per te

7.30 pm – I leave the car inside the hotel’s parking lot, organize my schedule for the next day, answer T’s e-mail, attached to which is a magnificent picture of Lake Tahoe, where she is skying before we meet in two days, and then I get ready for dinner time. As I sift through emails and decide on how busy I want or can afford my next morning to be, I think about how some things happen. She intrigues me. She came to me just like that… perhaps…it may be all’improvviso, but I am just finding out.

I have a thing for French opera. I always have, since I saw my first performance of Gounod’s Faust at the Colón many years ago. My expectations were not really high, as I was more used to the Italian drama that a Puccini or a Verdi would ooze. However, as the curtain was lifted on the first act, a new world opened before my eyes. The melodic lines, the finesse of the singing, the words, the dramatic tempo all melted in a magical feast for the senses. It was all there, subtle and enriching, like a three-course meal in a cozy French restaurant. Everything in its right measure, the perfect marriage of music and words, providing that the artists could accomplish their task correctly. That night they did.

And so it was that I developed a strong liking for French opera. I was not disappointed when I switched from Gounod to Massenet afterwards. First, there was Manon and, a few years later, Thaïs (which I have never been able to see live yet). Now, these past few weeks I found myself listening to the two works again after quite some time. Curiously enough, the excerpts I listened to were Act III of Manon, and Act II of Thaïs. In both these acts, the protagonists sing about youth and the aging process, albeit from a different perspective. There is young Manon urging her friends to enjoy youth, and to love, laugh and sing non-stop, because they will not be twenty years old forever and youth fades away only too soon, like love itself. Then, there is Thaïs bringing a different shade to the whole issue. She feels the emptiness of beauty with no purpose, and in fear asks her mirror to tell her she will be beautiful for good. (Dis-moi…que) rien ne flétrira les roses de mes lèvres, rien ne ternira l’or pur de mes cheveux, she sings as if she could seal a pact with the devil and never grow old. But her mirror is only too cruel and replies Thaïs, tu vieilliras!

So my reflection upon listening to this was…is youth an operatic obsession for the French? I could argue that, if that is the case, so are mirrors (Thaïs talks to hers and Gounod’s Marguerite does the same in Faust). However, I prefer to think that, more than an obsession — in fact, being forever young is an impossible aspiration for all cultures these days — youth for the French is a way of life. In this light, the prevailing idea would be to enjoy and use up your youth (and your life) while it lasts instead of regretting its passing in advance. In short, it is awareness of pleasure…enjoy what you have knowing that it will go away at some point.

This is my own interpretation of French wisdom, I must confess, but if I elaborate a little further, I can actually say I have seen the French really apply this rule. For example, a woman I once met in Paris told me: “we may not have a lot of money, but we do have lovely cars”. I would say that it is not only that. France has also made a very rich contribution to the realm of opera, with works that even today defy the passage of time, in characters that despite their fear or their knowledge have remained forever young.