I recall a lesson from a writing conference. One session suggested joining, for a limited time, a group of enthusiasts with whom I wouldn’t normally associate. Like people who collect garbage for art. You need a gatekeeper, inside connections, the instructor said. Jaime is one of those gatekeepers.
I enter the Blank Center for the Performing Arts accompanied by Jaime Reyes, owner of Montebello Bed & Breakfast, site of my current writing workshop. Jaime is several years my senior, retired from a life as a DOT civil engineer. Opera is his hobby. He built the local guild from nothing. Last night we attended La Comte Ory, the skill of Bel Canto, the trills like champagne. “It’s farcical, ‘opera de bouffe,’ of buffoons,” Jaime said. Then convinced me to return for the deeper message in Verdi. La Traviata is Violetta’s opera, he explained, about a fallen woman. Not to be missed.
In the summers, growing up, I attended Indianola’s National Balloon Classic, after opera season. Oliver Darling, a couple grades ahead of me, made All State Vocal Chorus. He studied opera here, at Simpson College. I chose St Olaf near Minneapolis. Opera was not my forte.
“Are you in love with words?” Jaime asks, offering a glass of zin.
“Not words. Expression,” I say. “If I was a painter, I’d love painting, not the paints.”
“That’s how I approach opera,” he says, then remarks about a woman with a yellow ribbon in her white hair. “An entertainer in Europe during the war,” he says, “for the soldiers.”
I try to imagine the European librettists and composers as we enter the studio, sit in the front row. “Never sit in the back, life chooses the ones in front,” Jaime says.
I wonder if I’m the youngest here.
The moderator acknowledges the audience this Fourth of July weekend. True fans. Groupies. While my sister sloshes beers at Des Moines’ 80/35 rock fest, I refrain from more wine, until after the performance.
“It’s amazing,” Jaime says. “They open their mouths and out flows this sound, so effortless.”
“Not effortless,” I say, “years of practice.” Then turn to the singer behind me, thank her for last night’s solo. As a teaching artist, I get the road life, living out of a suitcase. To survive financially, opera artists need a couple gigs each season, book in Palm Beach, or wherever, thrive on adoration and accolades, scrub floors to make ends meet. And when they finally make it, are criticized for wearing gaudy earrings.
The rehearsal starts. White figures float across the stage as the national anthem plays. Throughout the performance, the tenor is weak. Given Violetta’s death, he should be more gut wrenching. Afterall, it was the 1800s. TB and infectious death were rampant.
I’m enchanted, but can’t help wondering, is opera any more relevant in this culture than poetry?
After the performance, sipping another glass of zin, Jaime says, “Shadow me, as a summer project. Witness the training of the stars of tomorrow.” He tells me about an opera singer friend, a vocal therapist, known for her role in Tosca, suggests I take lessons.
“I’m in,” I tell him, swigging my last swirl of zin. Then commit to attending this season’s Des Moines Metro Opera productions, one of America’s premier summer festivals, eager to take a Moleskin to the beach.
–
Laura Sweeney facilitates Writers for Life in Iowa and Illinois. She represented the Iowa Arts Council at the First International Teaching Artist’s Conference in Oslo, Norway. Her poems and prose appear in sixty plus journals and thirteen anthologies in the States, Canada, Britain, Indonesia, and China. She is a Ph.D. candidate, English Studies/Creative Writing, at Illinois State University.