The last week has been one of the most socially eventful I've had in a while. In fact, I think I'll remember this one for quite a while. But that's not what this is about. This is about my Saturday night at Ravinia and some things I've been noticing lately.
Saturday night, I went with some friends to Ravinia to hear a concert version of Tosca. I absolutely love Puccini, and I was in Tosca in 199something--I'd have to check. Ok, I just checked for the fun of it since Lyric has production records online. It was 1993. But what is even cooler is that I just realized the director was Frank Galati, who I (much) later had as a professor at NU. Life is cool like that.
Anyway, I have come to realize that when I experience opera as an adult (as opposed to being in them as a kiddo), it is so much more to me than a concert or a show. It's like returning to my childhood home. So on Saturday, I sat down with my program and started to read. I immediately realized I had been in another lyric production with one of the performers, and it lit me up even more. Then I played a precarious game with my fellow concert-goers. Have you seen "Midnight in Paris" yet? Well, there's this perfect stock know-it-all character in it. And a couple of the people I was with had never been to an opera before. I instinctively wanted to share with them what I could about the plot, the composer, the performers, etc. But it was a struggle to keep myself from saying, "I know him!" "You know what else is great about Puccini?" "When I did this production..." I did my best, but inside, I was my usual over-excited opera goer. You know, it's not even opera in general. It's operas I was in. That's what it is. Something takes over me and mixes with excitement, relaxation, and sense memory, and I am home.
I don't know about you, but I don't have a large library of clear memories of when I was 9. But my body does. There's musical memory, where I can still finish a line of music, even though I've only heard it a few times since '93. That year, I heard it probably 50 times. But when the kids weren't onstage, we were upstairs playing games and talking. So my body absorbed and committed to memory what was background music heard on a monitor.
Then there's sense memory. Without thinking it through even, I turned to Han at one point and said, "Oh. This is when the kids line up backstage." And a few minutes later, "Here comes the cue..." Just like that. And I love that sense memory can be so complex. A sound can cue a memory, or a sound can cue an emotion.
I had fun singing along, remembering, enjoying the tour of sense memories, and experiencing a beautiful work with some beautiful performances. And the funniest part, perhaps, was the blaring chorus of cicadas hopefully not present in any opera house production. : )
As happens a lot in my life, this event came at a time when I've been thinking a lot about sense memory, and more, how much more telling our bodies can be than our brains. Think about these physical reactions:
Has anyone ever tried to engage you in conversation, but you got such a bad case of the creeps, you excused yourself as quickly as possible?
What about that guy you never really thought was your type? There was that day he brushed against you accidentally, and something like lightening surged through you, sparking a new curiosity.
And what about when someone reminds you of someone else, not because there's any resemblance, but just because of... something?
These examples I've talked about with one person or another lately. The complete list of examples is huge, but it seems like we humans have a lot of them in common.
You know, we're so quick to claim that we as humans are unique because we can reason through things. But I wonder what would happen if we just felt? Are our bodies designed to sense things that our human over-thinking stomps to a pulp? I don't have much more to say on the subject. I've just always been so aware of sense memory, and I've always been an over-thinker. And I try to remember sometimes that we're really just animals. And the more I'm not sure which way to go, the more I'm wondering if I should just follow my own lead and see if I end up somewhere amazing...
So maybe I'll wonder, or maybe I'll wander one direction or another...
