A Night at the Opera

Many years ago, I was pleased to be a regular panelist judge of high school musicals in friendly competition for Tony-type awards each spring in Pittsburgh. In fairness, the various productions were compared only to others in their budget class; well-funded musicals in wealthy suburban districts enjoyed distinct advantages in hiring professional directors, students often took private singing, dancing. and acting lessons, and stage facilities were held to much higher standards than many small professional companies made do with. In fact, I preferred judging the lowest budget category productions, which relied most heavily on creative solutions to technical issues and could turn on the talents of a single gifted performer.

I was excited to see a local production of Puccini's Turandot last night at the 50-year-old Rubén Darío National Theatre in Managua. Not only was it my first opportunity to hear live classical music in the eight months since I moved here, it was my first visit to the national theatre and a chance to gauge the local appetite for such fare. I did not expect a lavish production, and I found plenty to appreciate.

It surely helps the survival odds of live opera here that the son of President Ortega is a well-trained tenor with a growing repertoire who has trained at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. For this production, Laureano Ortega was cast in the male lead as the mysterious prince who comes to Peking to woo the cold-hearted princess. The role of Turandot, daughter of the emperor, was also  played by a Nicaraguan artist, Elisa Picado, in a pairing reminiscent of Dame Joan Sutherland and her slender swains in "Daughter of the Regiment." Mr. Ortega cuts a fine, if diminutive figure on stage, where he was apparently given little direction beyond striding slowly and purposefully to his next mark.

Laureano Ortega as Prince Calaf (Photos by Noel Carcache)


Was there ever a sillier premise for an opera than an ice princess who demands the solving of three riddles to win her hand, and death to those who fail? Why would the prince want such a vexatious beldam in the first place?  A trio of "ministers," Ping, Pang, and Pong, in Puccini's politically very incorrect times, have some of the best vocal material, and all three were portrayed by Italian opera veterans. A slave girl, Liu, was also portrayed by an Italian soprano, and was just sensational.


L-R Tiziano Barontini, tenor; Elizabetto Zizzo, soprano; Raffaele Raffio, baritone; and Ugo Tarquini, tenor.


Mr. Ortega is not blessed with a brilliant tenor, but rather a warm expressive tone, and the conductor should have held back the orchestra, which too often overwhelmed. The gorgeous "Nessun Dorma," Turandot's most famous aria, was nicely realized, and received the biggest ovation of the evening for Ortega. Ms. Picado has a vibrato we used to say, "you could drive a truck through," and wobbles about the correct tonality at times. Neither of the romantic leads displayed much acting ability, but this is opera, and the music is everything. The chorus was fine, if zombie-like, and the orchestra was wonderful, with many pristine solos. I was thrilled to hear Puccini's last work, which, like Madama Butterfly, is heavily influenced by Eastern musical scales and themes. So beautiful.

Laureano Ortega as Prince Calaf and Elisa Picado as Turandot

Odd Juxtapositions

Here are a pair of post-scripta that deserve to be included and may be filed under "odd juxtapositions."

Yesterday, we lost our electricity for most of the day. Before we lost power, I had noticed a couple of plump ticks attached to Brynn, and as she is highly distrustful of my efforts to sneak up and pull them off, I dosed her with a teaspoon of children's benedryl. I  planned to do a load of laundry in the morning and hoped she would doze off at some point. No power equals no washing machine, so I settled myself in the hammock with my Nexus to continue the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel (This Side of Paradise) I'd started the night before, only to find that my Nexus was itself out of energy. Great, I grumbled. I'll have to get a real book.

I did manage to cart a few boxes of old faves and classics to Nicaragua, and, why, if it wasn't old Homer calling out to me! I opened The Odyssey, to find that I had inadvertently filched a high school debate team gift to my son from his team advisor (and wonderful English teacher), Mrs. Bowman. I happily cracked its spine, perused the forward, and launched myself into the absolutely worst trip home ever.

Just as Telemachus was setting sail for Pylos in search of word of his father's whereabouts, I noticed that Brynn was sleeping deeply nearby on the porch. I quietly attached a leash to her collar JUST IN CASE and then chickened out and asked Salvador, our cuidador, to try and remove the ticks, one of which was attached to HER EYE! Of course she woke up and struggled to get away and showed her teeth and growled, but Salvador has a way with dogs. He calmed her and deftly pulled out the tick from the eye. Which immediately began dripping blood -- the eye, not the tick. I raced for wet paper towels and Brynn actually allowed me to put some pressure on her eye, and all was solved. She even let Salvador to remove the other tick without complaint.  And unlike Odysseus, I did not anger Poseidon for shoving a hot poker into the eye of Polyphemus. Just mopped up a little blood and all was well.

Today, I did yesterday's laundry, put it on the line, and grabbed a bus to Diriamba to pick up a few necessities. When I settled my self and my shopping bags into a seat for the return trip, I opened my now-charged Nexus and rejoined the aforementioned F. Scott Fitzgerald. As the bus filled up -- it has a slot at the Diriamba mercado, and does not leave for La Boquita until the bus is full-- somebody in the rear had a rooster in a covered basket, and an evangelist got up in the front to begin his cant, as they do. A group of children giggled when the rooster crowed, and I do not think anyone was actually listening to the man with his Bible, but after about ten minutes, he finished his lecture, and thanked everybody for their attention. There was a moment of silence, and then the rooster crowed very loudly, and the whole bus laughed. The motor started and we began the trip home. It was not easy getting back to daiquiris and foxtrots, I promise you.

February Blows

The month is half-gone and I have yet to post a damned word. I find nothing of sufficient interest to merit my own notice, let alone yours.

It has been a very windy, dirty two weeks. Actual dunelets of windborne dust appear daily on the floors, along with leaves, dead insects, bougainvillea blossoms. Several times a day, I shake out my bed coverlet and sweep the bedroom floor. The dust is prodigious! The wind continues through the night, which finds me nose-deep in polvo when I wake up. The wind keeps both the heat and the mosquitoes at bay, so there is an upside to all the grit and dust that blankets everything.

Some of my time has been occupied with sorting out tax forms and retirement savings. I spent a whole morning in Diriamba walking from one "Fax Available" storefront to the next, only to find not one functioning machine.

Reading remains my salvation. The four Neapolitan novels of  Elena Ferrante are packed with the denizens of a single neighborhood; their entanglements with good and ill fortune and each other are absorbing and shocking in equal measure. Now I am halfway through "The Door," by Magda Szabo, which has apparently become a Helen Mirren film. Yum.

This Sunday, I have a ticket to see "Turandot" in the Ruben Dario National Theatre in Managua. I think it is a local production with lead singers imported from Italy. Report to follow.

Word from Pennsylvania regarding my house sale is depressing beyond belief. Not only does no one want to buy it, but someone has helped himself to the copper piping. This definitely was not part of the plan. I begin to understand why so many houses fall into neglect. People work rather diligently to forget they ever existed.