Café Einstein, Kurfűrstenstraße, Monday, 2:15 PM

At the end of the day, you just have to decide what’s important to you. Do you want to take subsidized public transport to the opera, or do you want a big screen TV? Do you want to sing in “interesting productions of new works” or do you just want to be in La Bohème and wear a pretty costume?

…Big screen TV, right?

…Pretty costume?

HELLO!

Honey, wanting a comfortable couch and a car and personal space doesn’t make you a big sloppy American. Well actually it does, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I can completely understand: I would give my left arm for someone to be superficially friendly RIGHT NOW. Enough with direct and honest! What purpose has honesty ever served? The main reason I became an opera singer was to live in a world of illusion 24/7. God…that waiter looks like he wishes we were dead…ok…inside voice.

Oh, yes… two clubhouse sandwiches and two Diet Cokes.

I know we shouldn’t order Diet Coke, so unseemly in this lovely old place, but I swear the chemicals do wonders for your voice. You brought Diet Coke from home because it’s not the same here? Okay…definitely don’t move to Germany. You are beyond hope. You don’t want to end up like Cristina Onassis…no…not DEAD! She was addicted to Diet Coke – used to send her private jet to the states every WEEK to load up on the stuff. Apparently the cost worked out to $1000 a can.

Yeah, I agree. Berlin is sort of the Bronx of Europe, well at least this part is.

Of course it looks like the Czech Republic – we’re an hour away from Poland. I know, once you’ve lived in San Francisco you’re spoiled for life, but the only people who can afford to live in San Francisco anymore are oligarchs and all those smart hippies who bought property in the 70’s. Now, all of bohemia has decamped to Berlin and I fear it may be the last stand of the independent artistic spirit….

Oh, you know how I am…Glass not only half empty but chipped and dirty; nothing the same as it was; oceans rising, mountains falling. The world is teeming with angry people who want a shot at something, but I don’t blame them: I blame us for being complacent, for expecting this post-war party to last forever.

What would it have been like to have grown up in an optimistic time? I have friends who are optimists. I admire them greatly. They think we are one scientific breakthrough away from eternal life; tell me we should all work together to create a better world, erase borders, erase countries, live side by side…chacun a son gout…

But I know deep in my heart, when it comes down to it, you can’t trust anyone…

When I was a kid I always got the sense that when the knock on the door came, we would know what to do. These things are inherited, not learned. I knew that my mother would go to her room without a word, take the diamond rings and sew them into her dress. I would get a loaf of bread and a family photo and we would wait to be taken away. I used to look around the house and think “if they do come, it will only take me 5 minutes to hide the menorah, the Kiddush cup…” I had it all planned: I knew we could never relax because we had to be prepared for the knock on the door.

Of course, we were not in any danger, but it was the memory of being hunted, the deep knowledge that the worst could happen at anytime that made me feel on guard. So I find it hard to be an optimist, to be direct and honest. I fear this is the truth I will blurt out.

And then I will not be able to stop what I have started, which scares me a great deal, for what is the end of such a trajectory?

No, I would recommend you stay home. Come here from time to time and have a coffee with me…get nice seats at the opera, taste the goodness of the bread, but stay home, close to those you love, and wear a pretty costume.

As for myself, I must stay, for every time I go on the stage in this place, I take back a little of what was stolen from me.

Publish Post

This is the most powerful thing I can do.… The only way I can learn to become an optimist.

Or am I just full of shit? Sometimes I just want a big screen TV too.

Okay! Let’s go to KaDeWe and buy things! I’m so glad you decided to go with Erno Laszlo – the gold standard of skin products. If I were down to my last cent I would buy face cream, because once the skin goes….