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<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nWe have a friend who sings at the opera.<\/p>\n
Whenever we can, we go to see him sing, so a few weeks ago we were in snowbound Besan\u00e7on, to see Puccini\u2019s Tosca.<\/p>\n
You know the end of the story. Tosca, after stabbing Scarpia, and wrenching Cavaradossi\u2019s safe-conduct from his dead fist, rejoins her lover on the ramparts of Castel Sant\u2019Angelo. Begging a moment\u2019s intimacy from the firing squad, she outlines her plan. The execution will be a sham she explains, the executioners will have blanks, but he must fall convincingly, so all think he is dead, and they can flee together when the executioners have gone. Yes, he says dutifully, I will fall like a man shot dead. But convincingly, says Tosca, I know how, with my singing and theatre, I know drama, I could fall very well, but you\u2019re a painter, so you must apply yourself. Yes, he says, I promise you I will apply myself, I will do my best.
\nBut of course Scarpia has his vengeance, the bullets are real, Cavaradossi is dead when Tosca runs to him whispering you fell perfectly, everyone was fooled, get up now, we must be across he border by nightfall, of course he does not get up. The clamour of the approaching guards, who have found Scarpia\u2019s body, mounts from the streets below. Tosca throws herself from the ramparts.
\nThe end is terrifying, and happens so quick as to nearly suffocate you. Though you\u2019ve seen it coming for ages, it\u2019s no less a shock when it happens.<\/p>\n
Going to the opera is even worse for me than the movies, I can hardly remember my name afterwards (needless to say, the late drive home through a snowstorm only enhanced the irreality of the experience.)
\nI know nothing about music, but happily, working where I do, with a soprano on the ground floor and a budding traditional Irish musician on the floor above, in a house is full of instruments and sheet music, I have picked up a bit here and there.<\/p>\n
Our friend is baritone, so he played the monstrous and machiavelic Baron Scarpia, not without a certain obvious pleasure. (He also posseses a unique gift for summing up his character in the first three seconds on the stage. I still have the image of the perfect Sancho Panza from Don Quixote, years ago. Trundled onto the stage astride a donkey on wheels, without any lines, ridiculous, loyal, brave, foolish and wise all in the instant he appeared.)<\/p>\n
In many ways, we are total physical opposites – it\u2019s hard to imagine two people more different. His voice is amazing (well, of course) and mine is barely audible. –\u00a0 I am embarassingly introverted, he has a personality that projects all around him. He is the immediate centre of any gathering, I blend well with any wallpaper. His recognition comes in thunderous applause when the curtain falls, by the time my work is published, anything up to a year has gone by since I cleaned the brushes and moved on to the next commission.<\/p>\n
But in other ways\u2026 he tells stories, so do I. He doesn\u2019t intellectualize how he plays, I don\u2019t think when I paint and draw. Sometimes he portrays monsters,\u00a0 and I\u2019ve been known to draw a few\u2026<\/p>\n
Not that dissimilar after all. Just a different set of tools for a similar craft.<\/p>\n
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