I turned to the guy behind me in the ticket line and
said: “We learned about this opera in sixth grade.” He replied that he was impressed that I went
to an elementary school where the kids learned about operas.
I had fully expected him to say, “Then why did you wait
58 years to see it?”
The opera was Aida, and the ticket I bought was for a
Metropolitan Opera HD simulcast. Because
I had waited 58 years to see Aida, I wanted to see it in a special venue. I crossed the Mississippi River to a little town with the oldest college in the state of Illinois. Charles Dickens had visited this little town,
and the town looks like it hasn’t changed much since his visit.
My main memories of learning about Aida 58 years ago:
trumpets, slave girls, and how to translate “Giuseppe Verdi” into English.
I settled into my seat in Illinois, and the conductor in
New York lifted his baton. The violins
started playing the overture. My mind
immediately thought that this was all wrong.
Our sixth-grade music teacher did not play us violin music, she played
us trumpet music.
Act two came to my rescue --- there was plenty of trumpet
music.
But I was uncomfortable with the casting. Aida was a slave girl in ancient Egypt. In my mind, she should look emaciated and
haggard. The woman singing the role of
Aida was well-fed and robust. I know that
you hire opera singers because of their voices, but surely, a woman with a
double chin should not be singing the role of a slave girl.
Back in sixth grade, our music teacher, looking for a
hook to get us interested in opera, told us that “Giuseppe Verdi” translates to
“Joe Green”.
I was a volunteer in the school library at the time. So was Steve Salorio. One afternoon, Steve ran over to me and
triumphantly announced that he had discovered someone checking out books using
a false name. A fifth-grader was using
the name “Joe Green”.
To Steve and me, because we had just come from music class, it was obvious that the fifth-grader wasn't using his
real name; instead he was playing off of Giuseppe Verdi’s fame. Steve felt like he had unmasked an impostor.
The Metropolitan Opera HD simulcast lasted four
hours.
I got to hear trumpets. I got to listen to a well-fed slave girl sing. And I was reminded of the time when a fifth-grader
was suspected of usurping the name of a famous Italian opera composer in order
to check out books from an elementary school library.
- . - .- . - . - .
NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath. Price = $11. You can purchase a copy at http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com
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