I was living in Boston with my boyfriend Duncan, who was a student at the Conservatory of Music. It was he who suggested that we go. Duncan was, by my calculation, a Scottish tenor and nothing was more luxurious than when he sang, and I happened to be his only audience. Sometimes he rehearsed in the house, and no one else was home. I was aware that the neighbors could hear, and always wondered if they felt remarkably blessed to be so close to the experience of his voice. I was transformed during those times when he performed in front of an audience of which I was part. I was part of those who received.
We took but we also gave and could feel those currents pass back and forth. Singer and audience were aware how an engagement transformed an event. I learned to discern immeasurable qualities that the human voice is capable of conveying. Sometimes I could heard those things free of everything except my adoration for him. I never achieved that level of objectivity; I was in love.
We went to Symphony Hall in Boston, a small boxy, building of classic design and perfect acoustics. The excitement to attend the great Pavarotti was palpable. We were thirty-ish, handsome and smitten with life. We dressed carefully. We discussed everything non-stop, what we wore, how it looked, what our day had been, the who, what, when, where of our lovely lives as we prepared. We descended the hill where we lived to wait for the trolley. The world would have observed two young men who would not have stopped sharing the evident and intimate pleasure they took in each other’s company. The ride to the hall would not have been long.
We joined the crowds, still taking as we passed through the ticket taking, our senses heightened. Duncan was from California, and in my universe his aura was as brilliant as vermillion Cineraria against the backdrop of a well-worn, old brick city. His smile told you he was at ease with his senses. He was delighted to lead me to his domain of performance, theater and song. When he discussed the mysterious chemistry of an audience I was offered insight into the discipline of rehearsal strips away everything. Duncan loved the search for a core of life where the performer stood alone on a stage and opened their mouth and released the essence of sound.
Our seats were upstairs, on the left side of the hall. We sat, anticipating and observing everything and everyone in the room. He was more focused and more at ease because his was his element. He took great pleasure in my enthusiasm partly because I was a clean slate. I liked what I like, and brought appreciation but not much understanding or knowledge that I could articulate. I was like a sponge.
The moment came when the great man appeared on the stage. The audience gave head to its appreciation their applause freeing releasing the collective energy that must be dissipated in readiness to receive. We were there to bathe in the universe the great singer created. And so he sang. As I sat there, I freed myself from all specific attachment and merged with a bigger unit, an audience, but it was also just me. Duncan knew why he was there, he was trained at the Conservatory in Vienna, and again at Boston. I was being offered a unique opportunity to listen to a great voice. I acknowledged that I was being allowed something unparalleled.
I worked at listening. “Become your ears,” I told myself as I gave up any tension in my body/ I unblocked everything I was aware of in order to focus more and more on listening. I saw that the more I surrendered without analyzing, the more I heard. I drifted, floated, became at one with what the man standing alone on the stage evoked with simplicity and natural elegance.
He sound took shape in an atmosphere of perfect acoustics. He shaped those sounds with evident love, that he also wanted us to feel. I listened. “This voice,” I told myself, “is the standard against which to measure all others.” Sometimes the voice issued deep resonance, other times the resonance was high. To identify the voice exactly eluded me, I only recognized that it was always pure. “This is a tenor,” I thought, but if I tried to hold onto to what I heard, I realized the core was surrounded by a broad range of sound. I kept surrendering, trying not to analyze but just to hear until the breakthrough came and I understood that he sang in all registers at once. Inseparable from it, was his great pleasure to share that gift in performance. Once the door to hearing was opened, my life was never the same. I saw how sound played a key part in other moving events that became measures in my life.
Pavarotti died yesterday, and in the mess that is an on-going onslaught of news blurbs, it was just another. However, as the day wore on, the significance of this man’s life, and of his death, slowly overtook me. I had to stop, to sit, to write, to honor, to be grateful. I listen to him sing now. Alone, I wish him adieu.
