We Were Not Amused...Still Aren't

Oh, what the hell.  I just listened on YouTube to Enrico Caruso's famous version of 'Vesti la Giubba,' recorded (can you believe it?) almost exactly 101 years ago.  I'm used to it by now, having over the course of the years heard, variously, Placido Domingo's and Luciano Pavarotti's versions of Pagliacci.  I can't say yet that I exactly like the verismo saga of melodramatic adultery and murder, but it no longer horrifies, disgusts, and appalls...not like it did at first.

My Uncle Ray Yusi (see blog 11/24/07) did what he could on visits to his father-in-law to put distance between himself and my grandfather.  Basically, his strategy, which upstaged and shut out that horrible old man (who, vile pussy-man that he was, really hated, and was unpleasant to, all his sons, sons-in-law, and  grandsons), was to plunge into loud, happy interactions with all the children present, his own and everybody else's, among whom, in gallant Italian fashion, he did not distinguish.  My grandfather, thus thrust into the role, which he could not sustain, of Honorary Pater Familias, would grow silent and withdraw, baffled and unnoticed, while Uncle Ray and the kids took over the living room.  Even though this involved a good deal more tumult and shouting than I was used to, I would join in with a glad heart for two reasons:  (1) I quite as cordially detested my grandfather as he did me, and I was quick to see the point of Uncle Ray's manoeuvre and to approve of it; and (2) I liked and respected my Uncle Ray (We had talked, and he knew that I at least knew the names of Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Bramante, Leonardo, Donatello, Palestrina), and I was willing, up to a point, to go along with anything he thought of for us kids to do.  That point, however, was reached with a television broadcast of Pagliacci.  Ignoring the stifled muttering and faintly accusatory retreating shuffle of Grandfather Noziere, Uncle Ray called all the children into the living room one afternoon--even those that had been playing outside--to watch and listen to a filmed version on television of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.  It was a case of High Culture (Grand Opera) for Kids, which Uncle Ray's bedrock Italian Catholic Humanism and sense of Paternal Obligation required absolutely that his kids (and any other kids who happened to be in the vicinity) Be Exposed To.  He talked all the way through it, explaining the story and action to our various age levels, and giving a most impressive living translation of everything that was said or sung; no question but that we all, according to our lights, understood it.  For my part, though it was my first experience of operatic verismo, I perfectly understood it--and loathed it, and was appalled and horrified by it:  Sordid, hysterical people doing sordid, criminal things to music that perfectly matched their utterly debased characters.  Did every note have to be scooped?  Was there no one among them who could hit a note dead-on?  And what vulgar tunes!  I waited, frozen with disgust, till I was sure that it had run its course, then I thanked Uncle Ray for his translation of it for us, and told him in a few, bitter words what I thought of Pagliacci and, though I didn't know that's what it was, operatic verismo.  We were never again friends.