Gotham Diary:
Triviato
19 May 2014
On Saturday night, the lemon soufflé fell, in the oven. I think there was too much lemon juice. Otherwise, the dinner was a compleat success, proceeding exactly as planned, and without a single unruffled moment. “You’re very organized,” said one of the guests. Actually, what bothered me much more than the soufflé (which tasted like a very hot pudding, and very lemony beneath the chilled raspberry sauce) was the fact that, having sat down at five past eight, at five past nine we were done. The pace was a bit brisk — Here’s your hat &c. We managed to chat through two more hours.
Seated next to me at dinner, Ray Soleil tried to persuade me to pay a visit to New Orleans. I’ve never been; it has always been my impression, developed in Houston and clinched by Key West, that I should dislike it. Ray’s campaign amounted to a persecution. It meant nothing to him that I’ve decided not to leave New York for any American destination unless it is to see my grandson. Nor did he seem to hear that all of the wonderful things that he trumpeted about New Orleans — the great food, the friendly people, the charm of the various neighborhoods, and the great food — aren’t the sorts of things that tempt me to travel. I pointed out that New Orleans is missing something that I look for in cities — not so much a literary as a literate vibe. What I want out of a city is to prowl the streets of Bloomsbury or the canals of the Centrum, preferably under grey, menacing skies, on my way to browse the shelves at the London Review Bookshop or to struggle with Het Parool at the Café Luxembourg. I remembered being surprised, years ago, when, in college, Megan told me that Prague had reminded her of me: everybody looked at least mildly distressed. What finally put a stop to Ray’s siege was an appeal to Kathleen, who, I observed, has never suggested a trip there. Unlike me, she has actually been, several times. “I don’t think it’s his sort of place,” she said to Ray (she was sitting on his other side). I’ve never been to Prague, but it sounds much more my cup of tea.
Speaking of which, I had a cup of tea yesterday afternoon. Several mugs of it, actually. And, because I knew that the tea in the pot would be tepid by the time I got to the last of it (and I wouldn’t be pouring it into my stovetop kettle, recently retired from the kitchen), I decided to see if tea cozies really work. In all these years, and despite having a couple of tea cozies patterned after Bermuda cottages, I had never actually used one for its intended purpose. And I was surprised — why? — to discover that, yes, a tea cozy will keep a pot of tea nice and warm for well over an hour. I could tell just by gripping the handle — most surprising!
***
I must have been tired yesterday, because as I was reading about Die Meistersinger, in Peter Conrad’s book about Verdi and/or Wagner, the transformation of the Prize Song came to mind, and my eyes were overwhelmed by sudden tears. In the first part of the long third act (which could be cut in two, did not an extra intermission unduly prolong the evening), Walther sings his song, and Hans Sachs writes it down. At the end of the act, Walther stands up among the good people of Nürnberg and sings it again — but only up to a point. At that point, there is a tremendous turn in the harmony, a muscular list-off that transfigures the song. Never has soaring inspiration been so powerfully suggested. The glory of it pierced my heart, even though I couldn’t actually hear it.
It took me a long time to warm to Verdi. For some reason, I got to know, and to like, Rigoletto while I was still an undergraduate. Un ballo in maschera became a favorite during my radio days. I bought a recording of Aida on my way to law school. Everything else waited for me in New York. I was never inspired to like a Verdi opera by a performance. (I shall always consider it one of the few strokes of bad fortune in my life to have lived during a time of religiously unmusical performance practice in the opera world, and in a town cursed by the acoustic inadequacy of the Metropolitan Opera House —about which, to be honest, I seem to be the only person to complain.) I learned everything that I know about opera from studio recordings. I have five or six of Don Carlo alone, two in French. I still haven’t warmed to La forza del destino, but that is the exception.
For some reason, the only opera that appeals to me these days is by Verdi, by Mozart (in collaboration with da Ponte), or by Bellini (I puritani). I do love many other operas, especially all the ones for which Richard Strauss is famous — but not right now. Now I think of it, I’ve also got an occasional weakness for Manon Lescaut and La Bohème: it would appear that I want my opera in Italian.
I’m on a Macbeth kick at the moment. I’m even reading the play. I may be a philistine, but I believe that Otello is a huge improvement upon Othello. It is more thrilling and terrifying than a spoken play could ever be. I haven’t read Shakespeare’s Macbeth since I got to know Verdi’s opera — his first masterpiece — but, as with Othello, there’s a good deal of cutting. Macbeth and his Lady feature in all but two scenes of the opera — Banquo’s failed escape and the chorus of Scottish exiles. Poor Lady Macduff and her porter do not appear, either — don’t you remember how the porter’s monologue was taught to us as an example of “comic relief” (and also of “dramatic irony”)?
Whenever I listen to Falstaff, I start weeping when Nanetta and Fenton exchange their radiant love-motifs. It’s amazing, what some people can do on the eve of their eightieth birthday. Well, one person.