Two years ago, my friend Frances and I decided to learn about opera.
We thought we could buy tickets for concerts, read up on it beforehand and improve our knowledge of an art form we knew nothing about. We began with Faust, moved on to La Boheme, Salome and most recently La Traviata. We read what we can ahead of the show, and then just enjoy the experience of the singers and the orchestra and the drama.
We’re still very much opera beginners, but we’re becoming more comfortable saying things like, “I preferred the costumes in La Boheme, but the choreography in Salome was spectacular”.
However, Frances and I have noticed that something quite dramatic happens in real life, on opera night. When we were at La Boheme in November, Dublin experienced some quite enormous riots. And when we went to La Traviata, I fainted.
I had given blood earlier in the afternoon and it was one for the first things I told Frances about over dinner, before the performance. I was so excited that the Irish Blood Transfusion service had updated their criteria for giving blood, so that migrants like me, who previously couldn’t donate, now could give blood a couple of times a year. She was thrilled for me, and we spoke about other things too, like our families and work, and our gardens.
As Frances was telling me a little about her plans for a summer holiday in France, I suddenly felt unusual. I remembered the nurse had told me to drink plenty of fluids after giving blood, so I poured myself a second glass of water.
But then I felt very strange indeed.
I tried to say to Frances, “I feel like I’m floating away to the clouds just now” but all I could sound out was, “aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh mmmmmm oooooo”.
I knew that I needed to be close to the ground, so I stood up and moved away from the table and put my back up against the wall, near the window. I let myself sink right down to the ground, but it was there I realised I needed to be lower still. I let myself fall over to my left, until my face’s left cheek was also connected to the floor. It looked as if I was trying to listen to what the floorboards were telling me.
Frances asked if everything was alright and I said, “aaaahhhhhhaaaa, mmmmmmmmmm, ooooooooooo”.
Some other diners, who were also getting ready to go to the opera, looked away from me and I could hear one of them saying, “I preferred the costumes in La Boheme, but the choreography in Salome was magnificent”.
In a moment, a lovely waitress came down to the floor to speak with me, and she said very loudly, “I think you might be more comfortable downstairs, in the bathrooms”. I agreed with her completely and said, “ahhhhhh, mmmmmmm, oooooooooooo” one more time.
She helped me up, and took me downstairs to the bathrooms, where she suggested I put some water on my face and perhaps lie down on the lovely tiles there.
Oh, the bathroom tiles were glorious.
They were so cool, and even, and smooth. I stayed on the gentle tiles until the seasickness disappeared, and until my face didn’t look green anymore, and until I could speak English again. When the feeling passed, I retuned upstairs to Frances, and then we went to see the opera.
La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) is all about a woman called Violetta who has a party to celebrate her recovery from an illness, and a friend of a friend, called Alfredo, comes along. They fall in love, and move to the countryside, but Alfredo’s dad pops around because he’s annoyed that Violetta is bringing disrepute to the family.
Violetta leaves Alfredo, and there’s some gambling, some business with horses and some more parties in Paris. But then Violetta faints to the floor because she has TB, and of course when Alfredo finds out, he’s miserable about it. He rushes off to see here, and they do a quick duet, and then she dies in his arms.
It’s one of the most beautiful things you will ever see, and it’s extraordinarily touching and tender and endearing. The performance had me in tears several times and I just feel like opera is one of those things, that the more you experience it, the more you enjoy it. It’s funny how invested in the characters you can be, and how much you simply enjoy the singing and the orchestra and the costumes and the setting. I enjoy it most when I’m not really thinking about it too much, but just letting it wash all over me, from head to foot. The thrill of the acoustics and the lighting and the wonder of the performers. The extreme pleasure of the professional opera singers doing what they do every night – signing, performing, fainting, living.
Maybe one day, AI will compose opera for 3D printed singers to perform, and Frances and I will be replaced by hybrid humans.
But until then, we enjoy.
Shorter than me 