A Night at the Opera

Our first winter in Calgary was coming to a close. We were starting to see part of our yard that we had not seen since the first snow in the previous September. Where snow had been waist deep along our drive, from the snow blower, was now only a few inches high. Even though the temperature had dropped to thirty five below a time or two it still was not as cold as a temperature of zero with the wind blowing forty miles per hour as in Western Kansas. We had always thought in terms of a white Christmas but the winter of 1972 for us, was white all winter long.

We changed several aspects of our life, but the one thing we could not change was our accent. We were reminded many times we had what some Canadians called a Yankee accent, which it definitely was not, a southern accent maybe or some called it a Texas drawl whatever that is.

All of our neighbors made a real effort to make us feel welcome. Especially the Gerwins. Chuck had a law practice in Calgary and Rita taught French in the Calgary school system. The Gerwins had three daughters and a son who was the youngest. Rita loved to talk to Ruby about the things teenage girls were thinking and doing.

Chuck was an opera buff. He was President of the local Opera Guild and he lived and breathed opera. He loved to sing along with the records he played and the neighborhood had the benefit of his singing. He sang in a local church and often sang solo parts. He was raised on a farm in Saskatchewan and to relieve the thoughts of the cold weather he would sing to the cows he was milking. He believed this relieved their tension about the cold weather and improved their production of milk.

I was on the other end of the musical spectrum. I was raised on country and western and bluegrass music. Chuck knew this and I think he was trying to convert me. I never did show any enthusiasm for Opera, but Chuck thought I should be exposed to the real thing and invited Ruby and I to attend an Opera with him and Rita.

What really surprised me was the enthusiasm of the audience. I always thought of music in terms of dancing and you could not dance to this music and the singing was in a foreign language which I do not sure anyone understood. However, the audience was very enthusiastic about what was taking place on stage. After each leading character sung a solo the audience would give the singer a standing ovation and shout BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO. I joined in the standing ovation and applauded but I was not one of those shouting BRAVO. It was not my kind of music. My kind of Opera was in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium called the Grand Old Opry performed by a group of people from the Smokey Mountains in Eastern Tennessee.

After the program was over and the cast had taken their bows Chuck mentioned that we had been invited to the home of one of the guild members to meet the cast. I wasn’t excited about meeting what I thought would be a group of stuffed shirts. To my surprise they were just ordinary people. No stuffed shirts in the group. They were cordial friendly people. That part of the evening was better than the Opera.

Chuck never stopped trying to convert me to becoming an Opera fan but I was too much of a hard core country and western music fan.

-L.D. Todd

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