A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

If classical music is to have a future, it will not be in the parochial rituals of the symphony concert, but in the one branch of classical performance that has not yet become suffocated and fossilized. I speak here of opera, as the opera house has not yet managed to stifle the opera crazies—grown men who swoon over divas and who throw flowers at the stage.

Before the villainous Gustav Mahler suppressed the practice, concert audiences applauded after each of a symphony's movements. But opera crazies still regularly applaud before the end of an act or scene, and if they are so moved, spontaneous applause will often break out while the orchestra is still playing. In brief, opera is the sole branch of classical music which has not yet become dominated by repressed puritans.

A case in point is one of my fondest opera memories. It's of a performance in my town by the touring Metropolitan Opera Company of New York, who were presenting of one of my favorites, Dick Wagner's Tannhäuser, and for this festive spectacle of redemption I was arrayed in sartorial splendor.

History has neglected to record the fact, but I was the first one in modern times to start wearing a white suit. Mine was actually a cream color and made of a velvet fabric that had a subtle sheen. The old German who ran the local dry cleaners would run his fingers over the fabric and whisper, "Vaht taste!" In beginning the trend of white suits, I was years ahead of Tom Wolfe, but when John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever made them popular, I hung my white velvet up and never wore it again.

Under my velvet suit I wore a simple T-shirt emblazoned with the gothic design of the Blue Oyster Cult. (I was also ten years ahead of John Donson in the collarless-shirt-with-an-expensive-suit fad of the '80s, and I'll also boast that I was the first to wear jeans with a sport coat. It's true!) My hair had not yet deserted my scalp, and I had let it grow down to the middle of my back, though I hadn't yet begun my later experiments with color. My girlfriend at the time was a beauty, and she was wearing a glamorous amount of make up and a somewhat revealing dress in honor of the Venusberg music.

We certainly turned a great many heads that night, but imagine my consternation when, after having taken our seats in the front row of the balcony, the couple seated next to us arrived in even more lavish attire! They were in their early thirties, and the haughty blonde was wearing a glittering backless evening gown that screamed how expensive it was. Her husband lacked my natural poise and sangfroid (that some mistake for arrogance), but he was dressed in a white tie and tails—tails!—and he carried a high top hat! I cared nothing for the white tie or starched shirtfront, but the tails and top hat clearly trumped my mere suit.

Those were the days before I was fetched by the Demon Rum, but we had ingested some manner of illegal substance so as to enhance our experience. Seated in the row behind us, however, were some guys who had decided to enjoy the opera in the traditional manner. In those days, one was allowed to bring beverages from the bar back to one's seat, and these guys were roaring drunk. This didn't bother me in the slightest as I prefer the ambiance of rock concerts, and I was glad that someone was as enthusiastic about Tannhäuser as I was. These guys were not exactly the pinnacles of elegance, as they were all wearing what appeared to be their first-communion suits, and it was obvious that it'd been a while since they'd been able to successfully button their jackets.

During the opera's opening scene the drunk guys enjoyed the spectacle of the scantily-clad nymphets scampering about the Venusberg hillside, and they made audible comments such as, "Oh yeaaaah!" and "Look...at...her!" This seemed to enrage the haughty blonde who was sitting next to me. She was in a state of high dudgeon at having to endure the company of drunken revelers behind her and an acid hipster next to her. As her husband sat stiffly upright, perhaps forced by his dickie to maintain such posture, it was obvious that neither of them were opera votaries, much less opera crazies. I suspected that they'd rather be engaged in their usual enjoyable pursuits such as discussing condominium prices and exchanging office gossip.

Things reached a crisis during the opera's magnificent second act. This, of course, features the song contest, but that's preceded by the grand march as the nobles and guests enter, and the huge stage of the Masonic auditorium began filling with the chorus and supernumeraries. We were both peaking on our drugs, but that was nothing compared with the scintillating spectacle of a hundred people in courtly costumes on stage bellowing out "Freudig begrüßen wir die edle Halle!"—perhaps the most glorious music ever written! A thunderstorm was raging outside the auditorium that night, but its power was insignificant as compared to the electricity being generated by Wagner's music.

I feel somewhat ashamed to admit that I failed to react with as much unbridled enthusiasm as the drunk guys did, for at the rousing conclusion of the grand march, with the Aida trumpets blasting out the fanfare, and the chorus howling Hail!, they all leapt to their feat, clinked their glasses together and shouted in whiskey-soaked voices, "LET THE CONTEST BEGIN!"

Unfortunately their toast spilled half of a manhattan down the bare back of the blond woman. I thought that was pretty funny at first but then took a more Christian attitude and used my black silk handkerchief to mop at the woman's back and shoulders. The drunk guys apologized profusely, but she was livid with fury and kept sputtering out epithets: "Stupid...damned...idiots..."

At this, I had a psychedelic inspiration. "Hey now," I told her in a soothing voice, "it's not their fault. The roof is leaking above you."

"What?"

"Yeah! Don't you know it's raining out? Look up there." I pointed up at the old auditorium's ornate ceiling which had many eroded spots which actually did look as though they'd been damaged by a leaking roof.

"See? The rain's coming in right through there."

This was absolute nonsense, as the drunk guys had obviously spilled their drinks on her, but perhaps her rage had turned to hydrophobia, because she looked up with alarm that she would again be assaulted by liquid. I was inwardly gloating that I got her to look at the ceiling at all, and now my goal was to see how long I could keep her peering up, looking for a leak.

"Lookit that spot there! That must be the one that's dripping on you," I said, still pointing up. Soon she realized that I was engaging in the popular form of humor of the day known as a "put on," and her venom was turned on me. "Stewpid...hippie!"

Following that, I paid little attention to my neighbors as my girl and I billed and cooed over Tungsten's haunting song to the Evening Star, and they departed before the end of the act for places where ostentation was less hazardous. But the incident does provide an example of what's so great about opera. I don't know exactly what the couple expected or desired from an operatic performance; chances are they viewed it as a chance to rub elbows with the wealthy, or perhaps they assumed that it would have the formal ambiance of a symphony concert, where everyone is limited to strict decorum.

Classical music can be solemn and formal, but more often classical music expresses joy and a celebration of life. I consider it to be one of the greatest atrocities of all time that the modern ritual of classical music has stifled this joy and muted the celebration. I often wish that I had been born 150 years earlier so that I could have participated in the intense emotions of the music when it was still vibrant and dangerous. What a great time it must have been when the audience would demand that a singer repeat an entire aria, and when people reacted other than sitting stiffly and sullenly.

Thanx to the opera crazies, raw emotion still erupts in the opera house, and I hold this responsible for the fact that, while attendance at the local symphony is down, the area's opera house is showing a profit and does not exist solely on tax subsidies. Opera will live on, but the symphony's so dead that rigor mortis has set in.

There is, I suppose, some merit in respectability, but not at the cost of extinguishing all emotions, and not if it requires concealing all other facets of life.