Saturday Afternoon Opera

A Lifelong Companion

For many, even those who enjoy classical music, opera is a yet to be acquired taste in music. Remember Tony Randall of "The Odd Couple" and way earlier "Mr. Peepers" fame on TV? He was an opera lover of the first order even to being one of the expert panelists during the Opera Quiz intermission feature of the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. He did not discover opera until in his early 20s when my father, his unit buddy in the U.S. Army Air Corps stationed on Guam during World War II, challenged him to put aside his Beethoven and "try some really great stuff"; to join him in listening to a recording of Puccini's La Boheme. The rest is history.

Opera was not a taste I had to acquire over time. Rather, it was in the air I breathed from the very beginning. My first memory of listening to records at home comes from around 1952 when my parents purchased a Magnavox TV console which also included a radio and a turn table. In 1990 my father converted it into a cabinet for his stereo and later his CD player. Two recordings stand out in memory; the cast recording of South Pacific ( Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza) and Lily Pons' 78 rpm recording of the Mad Scene from the opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" with the Bell Song from "Lakme" on the flip side.  Pretty interesting combination, isn't it. My father's tastes were very eclectic.

Early on I was introduced to the very best, not at the opera house but by recordings and the Saturday afternoon Met broadcasts on the radio. Wherever my father was at that time his radio was tuned into WQXR with Milton Cross mellifluously giving a synopsis of each act and offering commentary. Occasionally Saturday afternoon might find me in my uncle's Buick sitting next to my Aunt Millie and begging her to tell the story of what ever Met opera was coming through the car radio. I listened to these opera lovers rate performances and compare singers. Soon I learned what to listen for and who I should be sure to hear.

Each year I check the Met broadcast schedule for the season and try to plan Saturdays based on the days of performances of favorite operas or singers. Yesterday was the regular "Cav/Pag" double header of two short operas, "Cavalleria Rusticana" by Pietro Mascagni and "Il Pagliacci" by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Yesterday I planned my long trip to visit my mother in a Brewster nursing home around the first half of the broadcast. "Cavalleria Rusticana" set in a Sicilian village and sung with a libretto true to the Sicilian dialect with which I am so familiar.

This opera is a small gem. The melodies are moving and soaring communicating beauty in a bucolic countryside, passionate love, religious devotion in Easter morning worship, destruction wrought by jealousy, and prayer of utter despair. The opera also sports a huge chorus which is used to full effect.

I few years ago I discovered a You Tube video of Franco Zefferelli's film production of the opera featuring Domingo, Obraztsova, Bruson and Pretre. It was filmed largely out doors in an Italian village. In this way the way film builds upon what is called the "verismo" quality of the opera which provides for a portrayal of Sicilian culture and customs with great realism. It is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeQBY_ZpejI. The technical quality of the film does leave a great deal to be desired but the music and the singing is great. But what makes it even more special are the visuals of the village and Sicilian customs of the period. This may be a small sip that will begin your process of acquiring a 'taste' for this evocative art form.

Note: Link to a synopsis of "Cavalleria Rusticana" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalleria_rusticana

Remembrance of Things Past - A Night at the Opera

Two tickets for performance of "La Boheme" On February 9, 1944

at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City

Terra cotta frieze from the façade of the old Metropolitan Opera House

mounted in fireplace

 



Since the second week in January I have been living with my father who will be 92 years old on May 25th. My father is many things: husband for almost 70 years, father of two daughters, native of Germany, US Air Corps veteran of WWII, retired professional engineer with credentials both in mechanical and civil engineering, and former member of the governing board of the community where he and my mother have lived in the house he designed since 1968.

But his curriculum vitae would include so much more. I have described him as a Renaissance man: builder of boats and ham radio equipment, lover of history ancient and modern, devotee of the arts especially classical music and opera, patriotic and interested citizen and supporter of the best interests of the country which welcomed him at the age of eight and provided him with the finest of educations at no cost at The City College of New York of CUNY.

My parents' home is filled with collections of material connected with each of my Dad's areas of professional or personal expertise as well as my mother's collections reflecting her interests in needlework, painting and gourmet cooking. Since Mom is living in an assisted living facility receiving care appropriate to her stage of dementia and Dad is receiving my care and the wonderful care of Hospice I am able, at every free moment, to begin the process of going through it all, weeding out, assigning destinations for a great deal and often rewarded by the discovery of a treasure.

 

One of our family stories is attached to the ticket stubs shown here. I found these stubs resting at the bottom of a small drawer in my mother's bedroom desk. On February 9, 1944 my father was on leave from the Army Air Corps before going to places like Meridian, Mississippi with his young wife. He thought to give my mother and her aunt a treat by taking them to the opera. He was to pick them up at their place of work, the fashion house of Nettie Rosenstine on 7th Avenue. Rosenstine was a famous designer for whom my mother worked as one of a number of sketchers in the design department while my aunt worked with a group of accomplished needlewomen who were sample makers, creators of the first sample of a new design. Upon his arrival at the assigned location my father found himself fairly run over by a bevy of scantily clad models. He said it was a surprise but not hard to take.

 

Arriving at the opera house Dad went to the box office to buy three tickets. He was told that tickets for that performance had been set aside by season ticket holders for the exclusive use of GIs. The tickets he received were for the center box in the Diamond Horseshoe (first row of boxes) held by the Astor family. My aunt, an opera lover who had sat in the balcony for many Met performances could not have been more delighted or impressed.

 

Years later, when the Met's old house was being demolished after the company's move to Lincoln Center, my father purchased the frieze which appears above.  The fireplace for their new home would be designed around it. Another treasured item in search of a new home.