O mio Luciano caro!

It was the 6th of September, 2007. I wore black to work. Having gone through the first three of the Kübler-Ross Stages of Grief, I was at present wallowing in the fourth: depression. I sure as hell wasn’t going to move on to Number Five: Acceptance.

I cry. I mourn. I beat my chest. Why, Luciano, why did you leave us?

Would there ever be a tenor like him again? Sorry Placido, good-looking as you are (were), you can’t cut it and let’s not even mention the ‘other guy’. And Juan Diego Florez: you are really, really cute, but you need to get a beard first…and a voice and the girth of Pavarotti.

My family cannot appreciate the music. It usually sends them running from the room, hands over their ears. (Nota bene: mothers who want peace). They agree with Peter Boyle when he remarked, “Opera? Just what the world needs: more fat women screaming”.

They cannot understand my infatuation with opera either. She’ll get over it, they console each other. Remember the other phases she went through? Watching baseball: an addiction that cost my family their dinner every night. Scrap-booking: they called Michaels to stop sending me their 40% off coupons. The Vegetable Garden: which didn’t last long, because my husband said it was hard for him to digest tomatoes that cost five dollars each. Eating edamame: I ate them day and night, in addition to adding them to every dish... till my daughter found them in the khitchdee and cried: Enough is enough!! (It then evolved into a caramelized-onion obsession, but putting it in desi khana was something even I could not bring myself to do).

I cannot explain this love, this addiction, this obsession I have. Just before chocolate and just after Jeopardy. The passion for opera may run in an Italian’s blood as sure as spaghetti sauce, but we Indians prefer Bollywood and Bhangra ...(as sure as haldi in our blood). But there it is: all the CDs in my car…Pavarotti to the power of six.

People say the Art of Opera=The Art of Dying. Sometimes macabre, always melodramatic, almost all of them end in murder or suicide, and if the audience is lucky – both. La Traviata. Aida. Tosca. Carmen. Romeo and Juliet. Rigoletto. La Bohème. Il Trovatore. Otello. And of course the peerless maudlin masterpiece: Pagliacci. The list is longer than the governments of Italy (about 60 since 1946?).

It is emotionally draining, which is why you don’t see a lot of people clamoring to get tickets to La Scala or the Met. Today they want to emerge from an evening’s entertainment with a feeling that they just spent a day at Disneyland, not Auschwitz. Of course, if I went to see something like Clueless or Zoolander or Dumb and Dumber, I would make sure to order cyanide instead of popcorn at the concession stand. I could include Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but that is my kids’ favorite movie, which just goes to show that I didn’t raise them right.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe people don’t go to the opera, because it is not cheap. Cheaper than an iPad perhaps, but can Aida download apps??

“Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive”, said Molière. What was he talking about in 17th century? Why didn’t he try going today? Turandot cost me one month’s mortgage and I would’ve gone to Tosca, except I chose to feed my family for the next year instead. So I do the next best thing. I watch the performances on the wide screen. Met Live screens simultaneous podcasts. And near enough to my house and cheap enough for my wallet: five miles and twenty bucks. Can’t beat that. You do have to beat the Senior Citizen army that gets there two hours in advance to save seats, and maneuver your way past the wheelchairs and walkers that line the gangway. Nary a brown face in sight, but I do see a lot a lot of wrinkles and gray hair. Aah! I am with my people.

In keeping with the theatric side of this genre (and my personality), I have chosen what songs to play at my funeral, starting appropriately with Pavarotti’s “Mamma”. Only an Italian could sing with such emotion and dedicate a song to his mother. Did Puccini have his in mind with Senza Mamma? Both these will be followed by Che Farò Senza Euridice. Vesti la Giubba. And lastly Lasciatemi Morire- a bit ironic, considering I should be dead already. (It means ‘Let me die’). There better not be one dry eye during my wake. None of that eating and drinking stuff, nor that uthamna-ish sitting-in-silence. I’ll give them something to remember me by.

I regret not catching the opera-virus earlier and going to listen to Pavarotti live. Never mind. The power technology: DVDs, You Tube and TV to the rescue. The local public station airs his special on a regular basis, and I can watch and weep…with him when he sings Una Furtive Lagrima, soar with hope at the end of Nessun Dorma (Vincerò! I shout in unison) or giggle with the braggadocio of his conquests as Don Giovanni. Radames or Rodolfo, Edgardo or Otello, Calaf or Cavaradossi – Pavarotti, you are The Man.

My next trip to Italy will include a visit to Modena. To offer a wreath and lay a white handkerchief for my King. The King of the high Cs.

Requiescat in Pace, mi caro Luciano.

I want to reach as many people as possible with the message of music, of wonderful opera.

Luciano Pavarotti

Glossary:

khitchdee: rice and lentil dish

haldi: turmeric

desi khana: Indian food

uthamna: Indian mourning ceremony