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The Opera Companion C O S I F A N T U T T E Qual prova avete vol, che ognor costanti Vi sien Ie vostre amanti? In dresses stiffly ribboned as Victorian houses, two women at the edge of a quarrel sublimely trill it into a small concerto. At the blonde's muscled throat, a miniature pulses—her lover cavalier against flames: passion's pitched battle, its chill hearth. As though neither can hear the other, they hurl their secrets in sly modulations toward us, fourth wall of their house—whether to change lovers like dresses to match another dazzling Neapolitan day. Painted, the bay's silk ripples around islands anchored firmly as love in a deep bed; the volcano smolders, rouging the horizon. Powdered bosoms swell over full lungs, the ache of harmony's thirds baring an isolation never hinted, pulsing under the score by a man who in 1787 wrote to his father that, of companions, death is the most faithful. CALLAS Ascoltal Up through ranks of lowly marigolds calla lilies push, budding divas in understudy unswaddling ivory throats, preening for dressing­room mirrors in the starched ruffs of Maria Stuarda. Lopped, they crowd a vase next to paints for a face sunned by holidays spent at a score's flyspecks until had by heart amid arching scales and arpeggios. Over the intercom a voice scrambles onstage, ascending stairs of another story: husband taken care of this nuptial night by her own hand, the single petals of Lucia's spotless sleeves bell open. Her light fingers twine spotlit air to a fakir's rope snaking upward into the flies, high mad notes wobbling up the sturdy stalk of a hothouse bloom as she wilts. Fioriture trained to take the knife in character, [107.23.157.16] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:29 GMT) the lilies didn't flinch from the florist whose blade failed to retract. They bowed, professional as the white dress of the girl who faced soldiers, trading fire: arias for sweets to fatten three voices too big for her—a low range, its drops veiled by the mirage of reedy middle tones that flooded the hall without quenching a top note's florescence. On her dressing table, in with other spills, pollen spends its overbright powder. DON GIOVANNI IN FLORIDA Le finestre son queste; ora cantiamo. Wind's base aspirations flutter palmetto fans in the face of a mute chorus, windows gaping at pollen gilding suspended quarrels and snatches of another music, Italian for how many women a man's had. A rake rattles the neighborhood gossip of magnolia leaves, the entanglements of Spanish moss draped in shawls over bared arms of sweet­gum branches. Che bella notte, the famous rakehell sings, for hunting girls, strolling a graveyard. Past the jaws of two plastered lions, under a singer teetering from a second story, women in flowered frocks dot a fraternity lawn, mimicking the white crocus that depends on chillier states to open, plastic cups of flattened beer leaning to toast conquest of anything: a soprano's No, non ti credo brushed aside; the galantuomo, good profligate, making little deaths in the arms of desire do for more gripping darkness, his voice silkily lifting skirted curtains, worming its way in. [107.23.157.16] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:29 GMT) B A R N U M ' S S W E D I S H N I G H T I N G A L E She claims I exhibited her as good as next to Chang and Eng or General Tom Thumb, but what grounds? Europe she'd taken by song, but who'd taken note here? "A dancer?" guessed the conductor of trains I asked. So I made her yours, all but the voice, and that, I loved her to say, borrowed from birds, in her avian accent. What to exhibit? Had she been half a set of Siamese twins who harmonized, or bird­sized, had feathers for that flaxen hair— plumage like the warbler's I can report sang with her till it fell dead at our feet— herding her twittering flock four thousand miles for ninety­three concerts wouldn't have been enough campaign for this old campaigner, nor I still my own best advertisement. But, her mouth shut, what marked her from you, my often vocal public? I applaud the one of you who sold me her portrait in oils, gilt­framed, fifty dollars, knowing what I didn...

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