Carl and Gerlinde (XXXVI)
”This music is extra-terrestrial – you absolutely have to fall down on your knees!”, Gerlinde was so enthusiastic about the music all she could do was stammer while she carefully made her way through the last row of benches towards the exit behind Carl, since ’Don Giovanni’ was now taking a break! From all over the place, Carl noticed nothing but approval for Mozart’s music and the excellent singing by its interpreters. Marvellous! Fantastic! Overwhelming!
Dissolving in enthusiasm, Hannelore, too, glided towards Gerlinde in the foyer, embraced her emphatically and leaned into Carl like Don Giovanni had been leaning into the fidgety Zerlina!
Even the normally bone-dry Kurt nodded his approval, although, naturally, this production by Christof Loy could not hold a candle to the wonderfully processed orchestration at the Salzburg Festival; in those days, the eyes, too, had something to feast on, was his meaningful comment. Carl nodded his approval, but refrained from mentioning that he had nodded off twice while all this terrible fuss was made about Don Giovanni’s three women.
Well, now all those Mozart-enthusiastic opera people surged towards the spacy lounge in the best of moods: determinedly, they all headed in the direction of the tables they had booked, where an abundance of salmon snacks, Quiche Lorraines and Salty Pretzels were squeezed in between even more wine, water, beer and champagne.
Carl would have been more or less happy surrounded by his friends if not suddenly this unknown red-head of ’table number twelve’ had looked at their circle of eight in such a provocative way. In fact, this not unattractive, buxom lady in her mid-forties even had protectively swung her arm around another chair she had already pushed tightly towards herself as a precaution.
”Excuse me, Madam, but I wonder if you made a mistake about this table?” Carl asked with muted charm after the lady and he himself had been inspecting each other silently for quite a while.
”What gave you the idea?”, the strange lady robustly replied.
”Well, because my circle of friends here has made a reservation for exactly this table for the interval!“
”What do you mean ’we made a reservation’? Who do you think you are? Are you telling me you want to send me on my way like a disobedient child?“
”Actually, can’t you see that our order is sitting right here on the table and that the table has been laid for us?“
”You know, this is quite brazen: I am sitting behind a vacant table minding my own business and keeping a chair for my press partner, and you come along and foul-mouth me!“
”I am not foul-mouthing you. All I am doing is telling you that this table has been reserved for us and that now not all of us will be able to sit because you are occupying two seats. And it seems to me that you have no right to do so, because I cannot see an order of yours on the table!“
”Who do you think you are? Do you think just because I am a woman you can treat me in this manner? Where are you from?”, the lady was now yelling quite loudly at the circle of friends around Carl.
”If you vacate the chair next to yours and let me sit down, I will gladly tell you where I am from! Now is that an offer?“
”This is outrageous! You are getting more and more intolerable!”. Carl nodded his agreement and said: “yes – that is exactly why I am going to take the vacant chair next to you and sit on it, since it is mine, anyway.…“
”Where are you coming from? This is definitely not something you can do, this chair has to remain free for the press!“ – “But nobody from the press is here, or am I blind?”. Jovially, Carl tried to let himself sink down on the vacant chair…
”No! No! No – you cannot do this – leave this place!”, the lady now again used a voice which would have done justice to any solo soprano.
”Of course, I can do this and you will be surprised at the speed with which I can do it … “ a grinning Carl replied while again making a new attempt at sitting down.
”That is out of the question. You cannot take this chair, it is for my partner of the press”, now the lady’s shrill yells filled the entire foyer, making the people sitting around the neighbouring tables frown. Simultaneously, she jerkily took hold of the vacant seat and embraced its back in such a way that Carl seriously feared she might squeeze her mysterious press partner to death on said chair during the short remainder of the interval – provided said partner was going to turn up at all!
In the meantime, Hannelore had taken hold of the person in charge of reservations. He, too, tried to tell the tough lady that she had no right to occupy those two seats, since she could neither show her reservation, nor was she consuming anything. No, she was correct – was what the brave read-head still kept insisting on! A lady behind the counter had clearly shown her to this table. Besides, she could not understand why all the world was treating her as the enemy, just because she wanted a moment to sit down and relax during the interval of this wonderful opera! For her, this was an unspeakable thing to happen – such as had never happened in her life.…
Totally unexpectedly, an inconspicuous middle-aged gentleman suddenly appeared. He signalled the intensely argumentative read-head, whose entire face had now turned purple:
”Ilse, what are you, again, doing here, having an argument with strangers! Don’t you know we have ’table number eight’? – It is always the same with you. You are a truly impossible cow!”, the gentleman hissed. Unfortunately, that was the moment when the first bell sounded, which announced the approaching end of the interval. Carl regretted this, because the absolutely fitting characterization of the lady got a little lost in the sudden hustle.
Ilse, however, had understood the clear announcement. She jumped from her chair and gave Carl a deathly glance: “Well, I hope it makes you happy to know that you and your nice friends here forced me to remain at this unspeakable table during the entire interval because of your bad manners? This is absolutely outrageous. Tell me: where are you from? I never knew such ruthlessness shown to a lady! It is absolutely unbelievable what riffraff even the opera attracts these days!”. With these last words, she pushed Gerlinde, who had become a little outraged herself, out of her way and hurried to meet her annoyed press partner – who immediately continued abusing her…
Carl, on the other hand, hardly had time left to drink his beer! However, he was in quite a good mood when he also consumed Gerlinde’s salmon snack: after all, this tough, read-headed nightmare suddenly gave the opera evening a rather spectacularly exciting turn! Even Mozart himself with his love-sick Donna Elvira and crazy Dona Anna could not have shown more clearly how far from logical rationality all females kept upsetting the world! Incidentally, this was a fact which he, Carl, had been preaching year in year out, but Gerlinde never agreed! Even now, all she did was mutely shake her head, before she angrily ran towards her seat with Hannelore. Hopefully, said seat was still vacant, and not occupied by the read-headed monster? If so – Carl would certainly not have gone to sleep during the second act.…
KH
(Translated by EG)
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