The Tenor
It is in the heart of Venice that we found ourselves, seated in an intimate chapel-
The strings proceeded to play Vivaldi’s divine Venetian music. I was swept away by
it and could well understand how Vivaldi composed this uplifting music and in such
plentitude, as Venice can only be described as the muse of all muses. Picture the
jade sea-
It was time for the soprano to make her appearance, as she made her way onto the
podium looking very Italianate with her dark features. She had an operatic stature,
flaunting an ample front carriage that promised to produce some sonorous warbling.
She opened her mouth and out it came; a wonderfully warm, rich sound that fell pleasantly
on the ear. She used all her expression to convey the musical message; she was clearly
a good actress too. It was now the turn of the tenor. He approached the podium and
stood looking ahead of him, awaiting his moment of glory. He too looked very Italianate
with his dark bearded face. He looked familiar; if I was told he’d appeared in the
Godfather I would have believed it. Then it started; “Oooooooooombra mai fu”. I listened,
at first not believing my ears as the notes that were coming out were not of the
quality I had been expecting. The phrases ended abruptly as the air inside the tenor
seemed to run out prematurely; the notes themselves were being forced out by such
laborious means that this tenor looked as though he was on his last legs. We noticed
the tenor’s hands were moving spasmodically beside his body which made us come to
the conclusion that Venice is active in offering equal opportunities to physically
and mentally challenged people as this tenor seemed to prove. Well, needless to say
we were not really impressed by this performance, but we became milder in our criticism,
thinking that the man was either mentally or physically challenged in some way. In
the mean time, the quality of the soprano’s arias did not falter. Once again, the
tenor put in an appearance and this time we noticed how his gait seemed unsteady.
He managed to get himself into position again and off he went into a caterwauling
that I had not thought possible from a professional singer. His eyes had trouble
staying open and on focusing when they were. Something was not quite right here.
Then we realized our misjudgment. This was no spastic, mentally or physically challenged
tenor, this was a tenor in the midst of a drunken stupor. It made sense. He swayed
as he stood, attempting to give a concert-