"Throughout the world sounds one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me the chance to do my very best."
-Isak Denesen, "Babette's Feast"
Whenever we go on tour, the opera gives us a lovely allowance with which we are meant to sustain ourselves while out of town. How this is spent is entirely up to the recipient. There are those among us who ration their money carefully - full of the knowledge that an artist never knows when the next engagement will come his way. Others pool their resources: They stay 4 to a room and devise artful meals from a can of tuna.
I, on the other hand, have just checked in for a three night stay at the Kingfisher Spa and Resort. I am writing you from my ocean-view room, clad in a terry-cloth robe and fuzzy slippers. I am drinking Perrier from room service, and recently returned from a calming head and neck massage. As Birgit (or was it Ingrid?) kneaded my tired muscles, I could hear the contrapuntal interplay of seagulls and the crashing surf. Afterward, spent, I repaired to the dining room for an anise-poached pair and a glass of late harvest Riesling. I have never known such peace.
As an ardent student of the method, I view it as my responsibility to inhabit my characters. As I am currently playing the part of a prince, I think it is incumbent upon me to see how a Prince would live. This is how I rationalize my sojourn here.
And what have I realized? That true nobility, if there is such a thing, comes from within. A prince is not a prince by virtue of his birth, but by virtue of his deeds and how he treats others. Would I have realized this great truth if I had not been swaddled in 500 thread count sheets and sated with grilled scallops? Probably not.
Is that not perhaps the greater truth?
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