I’m always dreaming about going to Italy, and so my ears prick up when I hear the language. I don’t speak Italian but, in my dreams, that is no barrier. I chat easily with people on the street, make jokes with shop people, eavesdrop on public transportation, just as I do in English. I have a recurring dream of a sophisticated party on a terrace over a nighttime city; I am speaking fluent Italian, or perhaps a kind of pan-European language with a little bit of everything included. Buon giorno, mes amis! In any event, I am understood, and we are all laughing.
The reality is different. On a long-ago trip to Venice with my son, I carried a phrasebook (from Rick Steves, I think) and embarrassed him at every meal by remarking, perkily, to various bemused waiters “Niente con gli occhi”, which means “nothing with eyeballs.” For picnics, I would point at the food and call out an authoritative “per oggi” to the counter man… “for today!”
I love opera and have made good, if unorthodox, use of the supertitles. They let me follow the plots (simultaneously simplistic and horrific, as opera often is) and I have learned to understand simple phrases in Italian, at least when the language is sung.
However, this may not help with my future wanderings through Italy. I can recognize these things, and even say them, but that is not, decidedly not, going to make me a conversationalist.
From La Traviata:
“Libiamo!” Let’s drink!
“Andiamo!” Let’s go!
“Dio mio!” Oh, God!
“Va instante!” Go right away!
“Corragio!” Courage!
(Why are there so many exclamation points?!)
And, in a darker tone:
“Oh, mio rimorso!” I’ll have my revenge!
“Ah, sì, piuttosto morir!” I would rather die, much rather die.
“Addio del passato…” So closes my sad story.
It is hard to imagine a conversation which these phrases might be used. To be understood, I might need to employ a few impassioned operatic gestures, and be ready with a graceful fall onto a handy fainting couch. Perhaps immediately following “Ah, si, piuttosto morir!” Or immediately before “Addio del passato…”.
My small stock of phrases is slightly expanded by Pagliacci, which will allow me to call out (“full-voiced to the breaking point”, says the score) “Ridi! Ridi!” “Laugh! Laugh!” And, perhaps more usefully for a day of sightseeing “Vesti la guibba!” “Put on the costume.” I’m thinking sunglasses, a hat and comfortable shoes.
Best tuck the phrasebook into my daybag. I see that the new edition will let me say “Me faccia felice.” “Make me happy.”
I already know that I will be.
***
Photo from the author’s thrift store copy of A Treasury of Grand Opera, 1946, edited by Henry W. Simon. (La Traviata illustration by Rafaello Busoni.)
Thanks to the recent fine production of Pagliacci from the Minnesota Opera.
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