La Traviata

Yesterday was opera day in this arts week. We saw La Traviata at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown.

The perfect juxtaposition: Before going to the opera we spent the morning in Cooperstown spotting ball players and broadcasters as it was also Hall of Fame Induction Day. I’m a baseball fanatic and powerfully moved by the game but also by the people and books and history and the idea of baseball so it was such a pleasure to be pushed and shoved along the sidewalks crammed with dealers and fans and autograph hounds and collectors and scalpers and old, old ball players of whom passers by whispered, “Who is he?” and “Is he anybody?”

But then the opera. Famous and well known music, sung beautifully. It’s a heartbreaking story: A “Courtesan” or Traviata—wayward woman, struggling woman. She gives up one life for another only to sacrifice that new life for family values and a father’s peace. She is dying, she sings, he laments and they embrace and then she dies. Yes, it’s an opera: she dies singing beautifully.

I have been at many death beds and though I have not witnessed dying people singing I have seen and heard stranger things so opera works for me.