It’s been eleven years. I went quite mad over Cecilia Bartoli over the course of the hour it took to watch her early publicity video filmed in Venice.
I went to the library and looked up everything I could find about her. I read the New York Times on microfiche in the Berkeley city library. I still have the pictures I took from it for 10 cents apiece. I became addicted to Arie Antiche until I started to be annoyed by the fact that I always knew what came next. My cd player would play them in random order. Wonderful! There was an awesome freshness to her interpretations that I simply could not resist.
I started traveling to Italy and studying Italian art. I went on the Piero della Francesca Trail and looked into buying an apartment in Rome.
Then I found out from watching the live Cecilia how completely non-traditional her technique was. As the years have passed, she has changed and I have become more accustomed to how she sings, but at the time….
Madness took over. I started writing to her. Obsessively. I still do, actually, about twice a week, but I stopped mailing them some years ago. I mailed one a couple of years ago after I had been to a psychic. This psychic is excellent if you ever want her email address. She said there was no hostility.
I am Cecilia’s stalker, I suppose. I see myself as a much too conservative old nerd, but nevertheless, she sees me coming and arranges something. Her eyes flash and her back straightens. She and I are about the same size, but she always seems much taller. No one believes this.
Lately I have decided that perhaps I should try harder to actually say something instead of standing there looking like a fool. So I said “you are my favorite.” Flash! Great. That’s the best I could come up with. I know from reading the forum that other people think of questions to ask her. Not me.
Right now I am regretting that I didn’t go to London to see Turco. Maybe there will be a video.
Eleven years. Now that's funny, because it's been eleven years for me too and I fell for her in the same way - that documentary. Of course I was only nine years old so I was dependent on mio babbino caro (also in love with her) for recordings - and here at the bottom of the world, recordings are all we had to live on. Nothing live. And in the years between 9 and 18 of course I strayed into other musical worlds. But when I came back to opera my first true obsession was Cecilia, she who I had always called my favourite even when I barely listened to her more than a few times a year. I can barely remember life before Cecilia and certainly can't imagine life without her.
ReplyDeleteI read an interview where the interviewee was asked "who is your hero?" and he answered, "Cecilia Bartoli." She's my hero, too.
ReplyDeleteI realize this means that I am mad.
ReplyDelete