Old Opera

Sometimes I can still smell the gunpowder and the smoke. No, I wasn’t here when the dark clouds hovered over this town. But, you can feel it; the terror and the intensity of the flames. Brick by brick, stone by stone they rebuilt the presence of this place. Memories of the town are dreary, but there is one area that refuses to die.

Here I sit with my back turned away from the former pain of the outside world. I have a safe, gray seat to my name. Although there are other halls here, I claim this sanctum as my own.

Row upon sacred row of slate-gray chairs fill up the gap between the two mahogany walls. A gentle, somewhat unsettling melody of the darkened past illuminates the room with dim notes. Phantoms of the past play under the spotlight. I see them clearly. I feel history bursting forth into a new age.

As I sit, the dust settles on my tongue. I taste the aged grime. An old flavor with notes of overly ripened cherries and dated polyurethane.

As I watch, my nerves relax to the point of near unconsciousness. The light that brushes my eyes overhead is so gentle that I hardly feel its rays.

The new performers play an upbeat tune. I hear the quick bowing of a violin. It turns to a plucking of the strings. The piano runs through its notes swiftly, never slowing down. Yet, even in the extravagantly paced rhythm, the ancient, longstanding voices of the alto, soprano, and bass singers reverberate off the walls and into my core.

The cold metal of the trumpet pipes is smooth and bright brass behind the raised platform. Etched into the mahogany are geometric shapes. Their edges almost too precise; angled and sharp. They evoke the wrath of an old age beast; the future continuously pushing forward into places where it was once unheard of.

I can sit here in my safe, gray seat for hours. With every breath I breathe, the familiar sent of wood fills my nostrils as I wait for my everything and everyone else’s normal Saturday night.

My fingers run over the plain, understated arms on either side of my chair. Everyone leaves. Even the contemporary performers make their way through the thick, mahogany and velvet-lined ingress, no doubt going to find the refreshments. But, still I sit. I’m too far wedged inside my own mind and soul; this building’s mind and soul.

Here is a part of my identity; history and music marry and hold me in their hands. Here is a part of my sanity; a piece of my mind given with every applaud. Here is a part of my home; the age-old opera house where old compositions are repurposed and reborn.