Guest Blog from Ian Elder about an Unusual Night at the Opera

I have struggled since 2016 to find my way back to being a humorist, and to giving my blog readers a laugh, an insight, and a worthwhile read all rolled into one. I hope to get better at that in the coming year. (Is that a New Year’s Resolution? Uh-oh.) I want to end this dreadful year with something fun and different. I have never had a “guest blogger.” My friend Ian, who lives in England, sent me the following account in an email. It’s just too good not to share, so I asked him if I could put it up on the blog and he gave me permission to do it. (You will notice that there are some “Britishisms” in the language.) Without further ado, here is Ian’s description of an unfortunate performance of Tosca that he witnessed in Prague. Enjoy, my friends.

Tosca was an opera I had never seen and I was really looking forward to it, at the National Theatre in Prague. Unfortunately, the director was determined to impress the production with his own stamp of creativity. Would that he had not.

There is a scene in a church where Tosca prays and asks for divine guidance in her predicament. At this point the set included a statue of the Virgin Mary. The problem was that this was not an inanimate marble statue as such, but a very much alive young woman, wearing a white see-through piece of chiffon. This revealed her very perky bosom which, being naked under the shift, instantly distracted everyone’s attention from Tosca - including mine. Worse was to come.

At the conclusion of Tosca’s prayer, the Virgin slowly descended through a trapdoor. Unfortunately the device which provided the powered platform for her disappearance needed badly to be oiled; it therefore shuddered and jerked. As a result, the perky bosom was jiggling up and down for all to admire, the more so as the trapdoor kept getting stuck, then suddenly released. Whatever it was that poor Tosca was singing, it was to nil effect - since everybody was focused on the bouncing bosom as it left the stage, destined for the crypt (and probably a warm pullover).

Following on from this example of the director's wizardry, as the entire audience tried to switch back to Tosca’s plight, a conveyor belt started up, above the stained glass window. What now?

This was a young man of about twenty or twenty one, I would say, who reminded me of Rocky in the Rocky Horror Picture Show - well built, tanned, and good looking. He was wearing a pair of angel wings on his back and a posing pouch in front. 

Of shining golden hue. 

Nothing else. 

Just a posing pouch. 

Of golden hue. 

Glittering.

Riveting indeed.

Now, I might have admired such a view of youthful athleticism had it been in the “Escape Nightclub” of Prague - wings optional - but in Tosca??? Again, the eponymous heroine was sidelined, as all attention (well, at least mine) was now diverted to the hope that the conveyor belt would not judder and make the angel jiggle. Too much, perhaps. His journey from East to West complete, he disappeared from view, leaving me puzzled, perplexed, and bamboozled. What did all this mean? Did it mean anything? What was the angel doing after the show? 

Of course, I felt sorry for Tosca and in my sympathetic imagination, during the interval, recreated the moment she received the letter from the Czech State Opera asking her to take the starring role. At last, her years of training and acting presence would reap rewards. "DIVA! Moi?" For this? I read in the programme that the director was known for his wacky approach. Indeed, he had won an award for it. From South Moravian Television. Enough said.

Act 2 was more orthodox. Tosca was back in church (her being devout is part of the drama). The audience was on tenterhooks as to whether Mary and Gabriel would reappear. They did not. Tosca was getting the attention she deserved. Until ... the angelic conveyor belt started up.

This time, there was a fat lady making her way across the stained glass window, with all the convenience of the transport assistance. At least she was fully clothed - to everyone's relief, as she was a mature matron. But why was she there? What was the symbolism? Was it that “it is not over until the fat lady sings”? No, it could not be that: Tosca still had a ways to go before thwarting an attempted rape by stabbing her seducer to death, as is the frivolous frippery of an opera libretto. Nor did the fat lady sing, scotching that theory.

The dénoument (Christian woman murders rapist in self defence) was eventually reached. But it was all a blur. I confess - I wouldn't recognise a single note of this opera, were I to be tested. All I remember is the wackiness and the facetiousness of props and personages.

That is the story.

 

And Ian is sticking to it. Thank you for this, Ian. For more laughs, I recommend Dave Barry’s year in review roundup of 2020. Here is a link to it at the Boston Globe, but it’s around at other sources. Now there is a master at humor. Happy New Year all.