The Hired Girl(96)

I was tremendously excited, but a little bit scared, too. I wasn’t sure I was dressed fine enough for the theater, and I don’t know what Mrs. Rosenbach would say about me going to the opera with her son. And though I knew that Grand Opera must be the very summit of culture and refinement, I was just a little bit scared that I wouldn’t like it. Miss Chandler once saw a Grand Opera called Norma, and it was four hours long and there wasn’t a word of English in it. She said it was very edifying.

The Academy of Music is a very imposing building, red-brick trimmed with sandstone. It has a mansard roof, which is French — David told me there was an architect named Fran?ois Mansart, which is how the roof got its name. David knows so much about everything. He took me inside, and oh, how I wished I’d worn the fancy waist! It was like fairyland, with marble floors and lofty ceilings and two majestic staircases — two carriages could drive up those staircases side by side, that’s how wide they are. There was a crystal chandelier, and velvet draperies, and exquisite paintings of nymphs and muses and little rosy cherubs with wreaths in their hands. David called the cherubs putti, which is Italian for little artistic babies.

Most of the ladies present were better dressed than I was. But there were a few that were in suits, so I didn’t feel too bad. I was so awed by the grandeur around me, I was afraid I was gawking like a country bumpkin. So I lowered my eyes and tried to act nonchalant. I think David read my mind, because he murmured into my ear that the privilege of looking around the theater was included in the price of the ticket. He led me over to the frescoes and started telling me about the Greek gods and Muses and the parts where the flesh tones had been well painted. I blushed a little because some of those nymphs didn’t have too much on. It seemed funny to be looking at them with a man. But Miss Chandler says the ancient Greeks thought the unclothed form was beautiful, and there can be nothing vulgar or unchaste in the world of fine art.

Our seats were close to the stage. David bought me a libretto, a little pamphlet that explained the story and translated the Italian. I read it, and what I caught on to was that Violetta’s giddy pleasures weren’t what I’d thought they were. She wasn’t just frivolous. She was wanton and depraved, like Céline Varens in Jane Eyre. That was how she made her living. I guess she couldn’t be a hired girl because she had consumption.

When the music began, it was soft and mournful, almost as if you were in a sickroom and shouldn’t wake the patient. I found it beautiful, but I was worried the whole opera might be slow and soft like that. I think my tastes in music are unrefined, because I like fast music better than slow music. Of course you can’t have a tragedy with frisky music. But just as I was thinking that, the music became merry and skittish, and the curtain rose.

There were three gentlemen in black frock coats, and two ladies in hoopskirts with ringlets falling over their bare shoulders, and earrings in their ears and fans in their hands. I guess hoopskirts are nonsensical, but I should dearly like to wear one, because they make your waist look small. And oh, the scenery! On one side of the stage there was a little garden, with roses ambling up trellises, and a fountain that spouted real water. But most of the stage was like a ballroom, with sconces and candles, and mirrors and little fragile gilded chairs. There was a long rose-colored couch, which Violetta used when she had to faint. She fainted very gracefully. Her step would falter, and she’d sidle over to the couch. Then her whole body would droop, and she would tumble onto the rose-colored silk. It was awfully effective. I tried fainting onto Mr. Rosenbach’s couch, but I was like a load of bricks being dumped from a wheelbarrow.

When the people first sang, I didn’t know if I liked it or not. The men’s voices were as strong as a team of horses, and the women sang like wrens: shrill and tight and complicated. The acting wasn’t like real people, either; the men pumped their arms up and down, and raised their eyebrows, and the ladies rolled their eyes and fluttered their fans. It took some getting used to.

But then the shortest, stoutest man — he played Alfredo — began to sing a song called “One Day a Rapture”— that’s what it would be in English, but he sang it in Italian, which is better. Violetta was languishing on the sofa after an attack of coughing. He seized her hand and sang about the love that palpitates throughout the whole universe. He sang misterioso, which I knew must mean mysterious. And he said his love was rapture, rapture and torment. The significance of those words — the way the tune explained them — gave me a thrill like nothing I’ve ever known. I understood then that it wasn’t the libretto that told the story of the opera. It was the music, the way it yearned and swelled — the suspense and depth and mystery of those sounds. At that moment, I knew I loved Grand Opera. I felt those notes in the very fibers of my soul.