63. Suns Set

Natalie Dessay
Le 50e Gala de l'Union des Artistes au cirque Alexis Grüss
le 21 novembre 2011
Photo: Yann Orhan

One day:
one fine day –
“Un bel dì”…
your ankles start to get sore
after just a few hours
in rehearsal;

One day,
the high notes that were once
so easy
stick, become harder to attack
and you must slither, slide
around them
just to get up
there;

One day:
you need one extra layer of make-up
just to hide the
wrinkles,
just to erase the age
that is writ too clearly now;
in telecasts your skin appears
3 shades too light;
yes, tenors half your age
are your lovers once
again –

One day –
the long silences in the hotel
room
don’t seem so luxurious anymore;
you flip the scores
restlessly, the old ones
more so;
knowing you can’t get away with what
you used to,
that it is another that
vanishes from your singable repertoire once
again, the tessitura too high or
low,
too much colouratura,
or just too damn
exhausting;

One day,
you sit in a busy American airport
realizing your two babies
are now teenagers
living in 2 distant countries
and that you haven’t
talked to either in at
least three
months

One day

you glance out at
the audience, but it is
night –
and no one realizes
how painful these stacatti
are becoming and how tired you
are after just the
third night of
mad scenes –

and wonder, as you sing the
Act I aria
if the pensive upward look you
do is
translating through the HD live transmission
the incredible regret you feel
on Thursday,
or your wandering mind on Saturday,
which has never before drifted
to dinner or how your
husband is doing back overseas,
alone

your concentration, your enthusiasm is
dimming;
scandalously stupid Eurotrash
productions, late
colleagues,
visionless directors hail a
frightening, new Era;
your face appears on buses;
audiences take high notes,
colouratura, phrases-in-one-breath
for granted; they do not even
hold it as a contest
anymore –

You are so tired
of trying when there is so much
resistance, so much upheaval.
The flurry of New York city is
frightening, emphasizing your
vulnerability,
enhanced by the increasing
bareness of middle age.

It has been a long time since you
have last been at a
grocery store
you could be buying
plastic-wrapped Atlantic salmon
on a
Friday night like any
petite, dark-haired
housewife.

One day –
as you rise creaking from bed
on a rare silent weekend morning
alone
the instinctive urge to
vocalise is suddenly stilled;
your mouth forms the customary
“oohs” and “aahs” but
nothing emerges.
It is almost as if
the memory of previous conquests,
previous triumphs is best
left to the past, to
memory
to the hallowed seats at the silent
La Scala

There is no way we can compete again
with youth;
when we have sung our songs
and our weary vocal cords
lie unused and stuffed away
under the socks in the
bedroom dresser,
we glance wearily out the
window of our own
home at last,
preparing for anonymity,
bidding farewell
to the Diva
that was.

Natalie Dessay et Charles Castronovo
La Traviata de Giuseppe Verdi
Festival d'Aix en Provence, 9 juillet 2011
Photo: Pascal Victor / Artcom Art