Night after night I went to work in the pit, a place where opera’s most common theme — love gone wrong — constantly unfolded onstage. Leonora chooses poison over a forced marriage. Madama Butterfly chooses seppuku over spousal humiliation. Senta throws herself into the sea as her Flying Dutchman departs.
The stories didn’t help, but the music did.
One of the operas in our rotation was “Der Rosenkavalier.” Near the end of the opera, the Marschallin and the two young lovers come together to sing about aging, love and loss. Their voices weave together and overlap; the inner lines, struggling to be heard, break through and cross one another. Their bodies resonate together.
In the trio’s final moments — when their voices are soaring, each stretching to reach higher than the others’ — there is so much resistance and conflict between them that we ache for resolution. When the music finally resolves, so do the relationships, and the older woman, with quiet dignity, steps aside.
Over time, grief, like music, modulates. A divorced couple is lucky if each person finds a separate peace. Harmony, though, requires two voices.
In the early years after our divorce, my ex and I still talked every day. We couldn’t let go of that connection. It was a habit, a comfort; we needed each other’s voice. During the opera’s intermissions, I would climb the stairs from the basement to find a private place to call him, leaving the sounds of the opera behind. Cellphone to my ear, my ex and I would discuss music, maestros, colleagues.
A few years later, we talked about Al and Tipper Gore, who had just announced their separation. “It’s sad,” I said. “They were married 40 years. But I guess it’s sadder to stay married and be unhappy.”