on 4/10/03 5:36 AM, Ken Wolman at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> De Reszke must've been fantastic. Then,
> at the aria's conclusion, there was a long rumbling sound in the
> distance--something like the New York subway that hadn't been put into service
> yet. In fact it was applause, actually a roar of approval from the audience
> out
> front. That is where I got the chills. Not only is de Reszke himself long
> gone (he died in 1925) but so is everyone who was in the theater that night.
> Yet on that ratty Mapleson cylinder, they live. Time stops for those few
> moments.
>
> That's the part I've been trying to capture for years: the idea of time not so
> much freezing as living in parallel with another time, of the present breaking
> through the historical past and becoming another version of the present.
Lovely to read this, Ken. One day I will write my little poem about playing
with my dad's album of cigarette packets, including De Reszke, which I'm
sure I remember him smoking in the 1940s. In the 1930s he taught in little
primary schools in backblocks New Zealand, very isolated, and keeping his
old packs with their rapidly dating designs must have helped pass the time.
Can't now visualize the dR pack, but if ever I can map out a poem of time
past living on in parallel with time present, tobacco smells of the long
lost father seem promising triggers...
best wishes from Max Richards in Melbourne
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