My father’s idea of real entertainment runs along the lines of mud wrestling, mud buggy racing, and falling asleep watching a football game on TV. He can barely handle musical theatre, and grumbles about how, just as he sort of figures out what’s going on, somebody has to start singing again, fer cryin’ out loud. As for opera, where everything is sung (often in a foreign language), and there is absolutely no mud involved, well, he would rather have a root canal. He would rather stick a sharp object in his eye. And if the female members of the family drag him to something cultural, he falls asleep in his seat, like Jabba the Hutt, and has to have a pillow shoved over his face to dampen the snoring.
Since my father had come all the way to Rome to see me in two operas, however, I was on a mission to help him not only stay awake but actually enjoy them. But first, a little preparation was in order.
“OK, Dad, let’s start with some basics. The Marriage of Figaro is in four acts, so even if it looks like the show is over, even if everybody’s applauding and the orchestra quits playing, it’s not over yet.”
“Well, I hope they applaud quietly, because they’ll disturb my nap.”
“Dad! Come on! Now, are you writing this down? There’s going to be a quiz. OK, there’s the Count and Countess. They’re pretty easy to spot—very fancy costumes. And there’s young Susanna, the chamber maid. The Count has the hots for her, and that’s basically what the whole story is about.”
He rolls his eyes. “They’re going to be singing about that for two hours?”
“Three and a half, actually. Now pay attention. Cherubino is a pageboy, only he’s played by a woman. It’s a pants role. So when Susanna dresses him up as a woman—to disguise him and play a trick on the Count—it’s really a woman playing a man playing a woman. Got it?”
“Huh?”
“Good. Cherubino hides in the closet, but then jumps out the window and Susanna takes his place. Later that night, out in the garden, Susanna and the Countess switch clothes to fool the Count. Do you have a question?” He had raised his hand.
“Will there be popcorn?”
“No! OK, now you have to have lots of mistaken identities and people playing tricks on each other or it’s just not a good opera … Let me have that!” I snatched the TV remote out of his hand, just as he was about to flip on Big ‘n Sweaty Wrestling.
He sighed. “OK, so the Count jumps out the window, but he’s dressed as a woman. But how do I tell who’s really a man or a woman?”
“Easy, the men are wearing tights and frilly blouses. Susanna’s fiancé, Figaro, is supposed to marry Marcellina, because he owes her money, but she turns out to be his long-lost mother. They sing about this for about 30 pages. It’s great. Dad, are you listening?”
“Zzzzzzzzz …”
I could see that getting my dad to stay awake through the whole thing was going to take some creative special effects. I arrived early at the theater, which was actually the large open courtyard of a truly magnificent church called St. Ivo’s, near the Piazza Navona in the heart of the historic center of Rome. The open-air setting would be perfect for my plans.
In the changing room, I got into my multi-layered costume, complete with bum-roll (or bustle). One of the costumers helped me with the gigantic floppy bow clipped and pinned to my hair, and I mentioned that I had told my dad and stepmother to arrive early so they could get a seat in the front.
“Oh, that might not be the best place,” said the costumer. “That’s right in front of the orchestra, and the acoustics might be better a little further back.”
“You don’t understand,” I replied. “The whole point is to keep my dad awake through the whole opera, so he needs to be where it’s loudest.”
“Oh! So he’s not really familiar with opera, then?” she asked.
“You could say that. Actually, he doesn’t know the difference between an aria and …“
“And a recitative?”
“No, a green pepper.”
“Oh. I guess he’d better sit right up front then.”
The opera began at 9 p.m., as the night sky began its descent over the city and created an indigo-blue roof over the courtyard, studded with stars (and the occasional airplane). Most birds find roosts and sleep through the night, but for some reason Roman seagulls don’t—they start wheeling overhead around 10 p.m., cackling and screeching to each other like some kind of auxiliary aerial chorus. Their bizarre cawings punctuated the music as Figaro and Susanna started the performance.
The stage itself was a series of raised platforms about five feet high. There were no walls or curtains, so when it was time for an entrance, we had to duck down and waddle along, in our bustles, below the audience’s sightline, behind the stage. Then we entered up the stairs at center stage.
The chorus (a group of townspeople) appears during the first act, and we crowded and shuffled into place backstage like a herd of well-dressed hunchbacks. About 20 of us had to come zooming up the steps and spread out across the platforms, tiptoeing so we didn’t sound like a herd of buffalo, and keeping our eyes on the conductor’s baton so we didn’t fall behind tempo.
My long skirt, a voluminous creation of floral material, was held in place by a flimsy length of elastic and a cloth tie. It was supposed to be tied over the bustle and on the hips, so there was a lot of loose material hanging around the waist. Unfortunately, as we crowded, bent over, around the base of the stairs, waiting for our entrance, it was easy for the hems of the skirt to get stepped on as we all surged forward on cue. As I tried to hurry up the steps among the chorus members, my body went forward—but the back of my skirt remained behind, and I could feel a sudden draft of air where there was supposed to be none.
I still got into place by the time we started singing, however, with a fatuous grin on my face and one hand carefully holding up the back of my skirt. Thank heaven it hadn’t quite fallen off the bustle, or I would have been flashing the audience when I exited the stage.
Meanwhile, I clicked a small, secret device hidden in the vest of my costume. I had taken the precaution of stationing a specially trained seagull on the roof of the church, a seagull that had a tiny radio transmitter attached to its leg. Upon command, the seagull left its perch, flew across the audience—and dropped a bird-bomb on my dad’s unsuspecting bald head. (It was a good thing, too, because he was just starting to nod off.)
Offstage once again, I had help retying my skirt so it wouldn’t fall off. Peering out from the wings I could see my dad still upright in his chair (a good sign), now holding his program on top of his head. Halfway through the second act I activated a different signal on my secret device, and the seagull flew out from its perch again, pulling a tiny rain cloud behind it. Once the cloud was directly over my dad, it released a miniature, three-second rain shower.
In the fourth act, I had to carry a small lantern onstage as part of the chorus, and as I tiptoed, hunched over, among the crowd backstage, I fiddled with the electric candle inside, trying vainly to turn it on. Unfortunately, the whole device came apart in my hands, and the glass bulb fell and shattered on the ground, the crash of breaking glass echoing across the courtyard. This, of course, was not planned, but I thought I saw my dad’s head jerk and come upright again, so that was a good thing. (I think there were a few other dads in the audience who had a similar response.)
At about half past midnight the finale found the entire cast onstage, the happy couples reunited, the mistaken identities resolved, the Count forgiven and the audience roaring its approval at the curtain call. It had been a wonderful performance, and as soon as I could, I ran out to find my dad and stepmother in the audience.
“Well?” I asked breathlessly. “How was it?”
Dad pondered this for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “Well, there was a lot of singing and the costumes were cool. But this open-air thing leaves a lot to be desired. You’ll never believe what happened to me during the performance. This seagull …”
At least he’d stayed awake, thank heavens. Who knows—for the next opera, we could start working on the difference between an aria and a garden vegetable.
