‘Curtain Up’ at the Berg-Theatre, Solingen
(Cosi fan Tutti – March 2010)
As for this berg-werk, there is always the possibility of uncovering certain genuine fragments, or that is what we are continually being told by Uncle Wally, these days almost our constant companion, or so it seems, like one those haunting dreams, which is impossible to shake off after waking.
Not that we would want to see him go, No, of course not, only. What, Only, no, it is nothing really.
And so there is the possibility of us revealing. And she – Let us give her real name, Marina Columbina. And the city she comes from, Naples. And certain other facts please, She talks incessantly which sometimes is irritating, cooks perfect pasta as one might expect, and enjoys ‘uncomplicated screwing’ on a regular basis.
That is indeed what my friend has told me, and, yes, perhaps it is the perfect relationship, he says, as it were, under interrogation. Only their visits home once a year at Easter, in order to see Marina’s family of course, about whom one is encouraged not to ask questions, he says, I would rather not know, and all together devoutly attend the festivals of their cathedral church in Naples.
One needs to be supple, I say, as we settle back in our red plush ‘small opera’ chairs to enjoy the show which is about to begin. Uncle Wally is quick to agree of course:
“Here Alfonso de Liguori was born, the saint who made the practice of the Catholic Church supple enough to accommodate the trade of the swindler and the whore, in order to control it with more or less rigorous penances in the confessional, for which he wrote a three-volume compendium. Confession alone, not the police, is a match for the self-administration of the criminal world, the camorra.”
(Naples. SW, Vol 2:1, P 414)