The artsy campy crowd seemed to approve of our relationship. At least we were still included in invitations to parties at David Thompson�s house, excursions to our local favorite bar, �Bear�s Place,� and outings to symphony and opera performances.

Indiana University, as I have mentioned before, has a huge music school. To give you an idea of how big, they had five full student orchestras, ranging from so-so to superb. The school also mounted a full opera season of works not only from the standard repertoire, but also modern works as well. And they didn�t just focus on Baroque to Early Modern. They had a serious Jazz studies program with its own orchestra, an early music ensemble, an electronic music studio, and they premiered a number of works by contemporary composers.

Once Linda, who played the upright bass came back very angry. Her orchestra had been rehearsing a work by some modern composer. She said they all turned the page in one section and the composer�s instructions were something like �improvise.� �That�s cheating! That�s not composing.� Fortunately, that type of stuff has grown out of fashion and there has been a return to melody.

So Linda and I probably went out to see a concert at least once a week. The people in the French House read the daily listing of concerts and student recitals in the student newspaper, and we also went out en masse. Once we all organized an outing to go see the school�s production of Wagner�s �Parsifal.� The school announced that they would break up the five-hour performance with a two-hour intermission and start a bit early. That way, people could watch the first half of the opera, go to dinner, and come back for the conclusion. Our group decided to go to a posh restaurant in Bloomington called Sully�s Oaken Bucket and regale ourselves with a fine meal.

The sets for the opera had been done by a German professor in the school of music or theater. His claim to fame was having done the set for some opera at the Met in New York. He had tried a German Expressionist approach and had used virtually no props, creating an inward-looking mood by using only blue lighting.

What a bore! Someone had once told me that what made Wagner so great was that he had merged music with drama and as director of his own opera house in Bayreuth, he had created a perfect multi-media event. Well for this production they had stripped it down to just three elements-voice, orchestra, and lighting. Part of the charm of opera, for me at least, is the pomp and theatricality and pageantry of it all. Even if one part, say the acting, is bad, you still have the singing, the costumes, the sets, and the music to stimulate you. This production of Parsifal was almost abstract and you were held captive by the hours and hours of sung dramatic text without any melody.

By the time intermission came, we bolted for the door and headed for our restaurant. This was the first time I eaten in a fancy restaurant as an adult with a group of my peers, and I must confess to being a little put off by the prices. Being the child of parents who�d lived through the Great Depression, I was used to always pinching pennies, looking for bargains, scrounging at garage sales and rarely splurging on something so extravagant and ephemeral as a fancy meal. I did manage to find a dish which fell in my price range-a shrimp curry, I believe-which wasn�t spectacular but did the job. I enjoyed the company however, the conversation and maybe even a glass of wine. Oddly enough we didn�t hurry back to the opera and ended up arriving about � hour late for the second part. The meal and the hour both conspired against me and I have to confess to falling asleep.

Fortunately, the school that year also produced Verdi�s Rigoletto and they went all out on the sets and costumes. One scene took place in the Duke�s palace and they had constructed a huge raised dance floor with a grand staircase leading up to it that was painted to look like marble with gold leaf. I think that one of the guys in my dorm, who was majoring in dance or theatre, auditioned and got a part as one of the dancer during the ballroom scene. The singing was superb and the orchestra on top form that night and it met all my criteria for a great production.

Verdi received a commission early in his career, to write an opera for the Fenice theatre in Venice. He had been influenced by tragedies like Hamlet and King Lear but eventually settled on Victor Hugo�s play, Le Roi S�Amuse. Verdi and his librettist had to rework the story several times in order to get past the censors who did not take kindly to the portrayal of Kings as scoundrels or suffers things like curses on stage, which might inflame the clergy. They changed the King to a Duke but left him a cad. The court jester is one Rigoletto, who though he plays the buffoon, seeing the debauchery of the Duke and his court, because he is deformed justifies his own intriguing to pit the different male characters against one another. He has a beautiful daughter named Gilda, whom he keeps sequestered far away from the influence of the Duke.

This opera has several famous arias. In �Questa o Quella� the Duke sings about his amorous adventures and how one girl is just as good as another. Later, he sings the famous, �La Donna e Mobile� in which he describes all women as fickle and only good for one thing. Eventually it turns out that the Duke has managed to seduce Rigoletto�s daughter who plots revenge. By a strange twist of fate, the thugs he sends to murder the Duke accidentally kill his daughter instead, and deliver the body to him in a sack. He opens the bag to find his dying daughter and realize the curse that he has brought on himself.

Verdi wrote this opera in something like 40 days at the age of 37. Though over 140 years old, the base motivations for power and conquest still seem as applicable to our modern world as it was to Verdi�s. In my own case, I have had to fight against by baser instincts all my life, and have often had to question the motives behind my behavior with women. I know now that my ambition and selfishness often made me a less than honorable person.

These are things you sometimes don�t realize till years later. This reminds me of a quote I once heard. �I must have told that story of how I was unjustly accused for stealing apples as a boy over 99 times. Then on the hundredth telling, I remembered that I had in fact stolen the.� Kinda makes you want to go back and fix all those screw ups.

Hmm. Opera as therapy. Who�d have thought. Just don�t ask me to go back and see what �Parsifal� has to say to me.

Verdi Bio

Real Audio sound clip of �La Donna e Mobile

Album

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