Last night, I went to see La Traviata at our local opera house. This was only my second opera, and seemed very similar to the production of Aida which I saw at the Prague Opera House in 2000. Both were classical productions, set during the 18th century, with flowery sets (this one having cupids and angels painted onto an upstage scrim) and lavish costumes. And both achieved the same effect: I felt like I was watching a story unfold behind a wall of glass, in which a book opens and cutout characters float above the pages for awhile, gesturing, singing, and then the book closes, and the curtain drops.
Outside, walking home through a heavy wintry mix, an avalanche of snow fell from atop a four-storied building, booming onto the sidewalk ahead of me. Walking into my apartment courtyard, I stopped and listened to the quiet. Tree branches, their undersides like ink lines drawn against the gray sky, were slathered atop with snow. Even the laundry lines were thickly coated. The once-green benches looked like soft white cushions, circled round the lamppost, and the light from the lamp somehow burned more brightly than ever, like a lighthouse overpowering nasty weather, singing out its rescue to anyone lost enough to need it.
The street dogs were quiet all night, gone to wherever they go during such weather. I slept long and hard, and dreamed of a scene from the screenplay I'm writing: late at night, a teenage girl lies on her back in the middle of an ice rink. Trapped by circumstances beyond her control, she describes by telephone to her distant boyfriend what it's like to skate on a cloudless sunny day, that feeling you get as you glide and spin, and the sky seems to go on forever...
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