|
Observations of An Ex-Cop in La La Land |
 ANDY MURCIA |
|
How a famous opera star turned a stressed-out Chicago cop into an opera nut--and the world's most unlikely Puccini fan. |
 Andy poses with the statue of Puccini in Italy. Could they wear each other's clothes? |
Birgit pointed the way;
Puccini's music did the rest
of TheColumnists.com
Back in the 1970s, when I was a Chicago Police officer, many of us found ourselves assigned to “combat” zones in high crime areas where we daily had to look at the most heinous expressions of man's inhumanity. Seeing, for example, what a deranged mind could do with a razor blade to a little girl was such a horror that I didn’t even try to go to sleep when I got home after a midnight to 8 a.m. shift.
I didn't have a name for it then, but after years of this I was beginning to have symptoms of what we now know as post traumatic stress syndrome. We officers couldn’t feel the trauma sinking into us, but we knew something was sending us looking for outlets to try and lose the stress after a busy shift.
I felt “something” building up in me and I had to find a way to get rid of it. Others turned to alcohol or drugs, but I just wanted to see people being nice to each other for a change, to see the “other side” of the rock, not just what was under it. So, I took a second job as “security director” for the Ambassador East, a high class hotel on Chicago’s north side.
I found my relief from the stress there almost by accident. One day the general manager called me into his office to tell me about a lady singer the Chicago Lyric Opera had brought into town. She was being followed from city to city by a female fan who would check into the same hotel and somehow obtain personal items--like a scarf or some garment--from the singer’s suite. The fan then would wear the item to the singer's performance, sitting in the center of the front row to make sure the singer saw it. This had occurred throughout the singer's U.S. tour, so she was understandably scared.
The hotel wanted me to guard the soprano and her suite to prevent the same thing from happening in Chicago. I was introduced to the singer, a soprano named Birgit Nilsson. As famous as she was to opera fans, I’d never heard of her. She was a sturdily built woman, seemed pleasant enough, had a pretty face and a warm smile. I was in my early 30s and I'm guessing she was much older, but very well preserved.
I waited in her suite while
she went to sing each evening. When Ms. Nilsson would return,
I’d let her in and dismiss her driver. She always asked
me to walk her through the large suite to show her there was
nobody hiding there. She had me check the closet, the bathroom
and even under the beds. Then she'd invite me to have tea with
her, and we’d chat.
She played some opera tapes, told me funny stories about naughty
conductors, cheap opera house managers and male tenors with bad
breath! Her sense of humor was keen and I liked her good-natured
manner. I felt very comfortable around her. I had no idea that
I was in the presence of a legendary opera star. We were just
“Birgit” and “Andy” and we’d shoot the
bull until she got sleepy. Then I’d let myself out.
Most of the opera I heard with Birgit's glorious voice fell on my ignorant, deaf ears. She did, however, play one that I liked a lot. It was Birgit singing the role of “Princess Turandot.” Birgit translated the lyrics for me. Man, when it got to the part when the tenor, “Calaf,” had solved the Princess' riddles and she started to view his name to be “love,” wow!
I asked Birgit who the composer was. She told me his name was Maestro Giacomo Puccini.
I was hooked. I wanted more of this guy's music. I started listening to his 12 operas and I loved every one of them! This man wrote the “hits” in opera! In time, I discovered more of why I loved his music so much. In short, I think it’s because of the drama contained in the music, as well as the beauty. If I closed my eyes, blocked everything else out, and listened very intently, emotions would just take me over.
As I became more knowledgeable about his operas, I discovered that certain parts made tears just roll down my face. I was so into the opera by then, I didn’t even know my face was wet until after the music stopped. I first noticed this while listening to the Love Duet “Bimba Bimba, non plangere” from 'Madame Butterfly.' It’s so beautiful and romantic.
Tom Hanks, the actor, and I know each other socially. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn he crafted his character's appreciation for opera in “Philadelphia” after peeking at me, somewhere, listening to Puccini. The music would take me so far away from being a flat foot. I was exclusively “there” in each of the characters' story lines. I’d hear their passion, pain, hate, and above all, the love, in their great voices. It went to the core of me.
Apparently this music had a way of extracting the sadness, stress, and tension from me, without my even realizing it. Because so many of Puccini’s operas dealt with tragic story lines, filled with “love to die for” type characters, I seemed able to discard the real tragic scenes that had wormed their way into my life and swap them for the fantasy ones in his operas. After listening, I’d dry my face, and I’d feel relaxed and renewed. His music was like therapy. It allowed me to escape, to empty my mind of the scum that gathered there during each tour of duty.
Like an element of Puccini’s last opera, “Turandot,” I had a love-hate relationship with being a cop. Most of my family were cops, including my father, my idol. I loved saving the good people and putting the bad guys away. I loved my partners and the humor we all utilized to keep from crying.
But I hated what it did to me personally. I hated it for showing me all those years of bloody scenery. I hated it for trying to take my belief and trust in people from me. I look back now, many years later, and I think I was a “garbage man,” not a policeman. I hauled “human garbage” to jail each shift while the real garbage men just collected their trash. Both kinds of garbage came with a bad odor, but the difference was one kind just stunk you up some while the other kind could kill you.
I credit Puccini, among others, for saving my quality of life.
Back then, I dreamed that one day, if I ever saved enough dough, I’d go to Italy, find Puccini’s house, shake the guy’s hand and thank him. I soon learned I was a little too late for that plan: The great man had died November 29, 1924. Yet, I still wanted to go over there and learn as much about his life as I could.
 |
what's beyond the gate at Puccini's place. |
Well, my dream didn't come true until after I met another fine singer--Ann Jillian--at the same hotel. Talk about leave the light on for you! She was and still is the very best thing to ever come into my life. We were married three months after we met. And through these past 25 years, she made ALL my dreams come true. But I don’t have space enough here to tell all of that.
Ann and I made several trips to Italy, but I made one goofy trip there without her. With me were my brother, Joe, and my old partner, Truman “Swead” Stromberg. Ann was expecting our son, Andrew, and couldn't travel. But, knowing how much this would mean to me and how restricted out travel might be after the baby's birth, she gifted me with this opportunity to fulfill my Puccini dream.
So, off we went to Rome, looking for traces of Puccini. Over there, we met with my pal Tony Lo Bianco, the actor who played me in "The Ann Jillian Story." Tony showed us his "Roma." And what a treat it was!
We attended a great performance of Turandot outdoors at the Baths, and nearly ate ourselves to death touring most of Italy! I soon learned that we needed to find several small towns--among them Lucca, Viareggio and Torre Del Lago--where Puccini was born, lived, studied, and composed most of his operas. I rented a car and headed for their autostrada. Man, I thought the Ventura Freeway was fast! It’s a school zone compared to the “strada-baby speedway”!! I hit one Mazzarati, and one wino on a motor bike before we even got out of Rome!
Eventually we reached Lucca, Puccini’s birth place, and went to the museum there in the via di Poggio, just off the piazza San Michele, across from the Church where Puccini’s father played organ. We left Lucca, heading north-east to the hills of “Chiatri,” where he lived for a very short time while composing his great Tosca. (What a double cross Tosca and Mario got in that one from a no good, womanizing copper!) We pushed on to Torre Del Lago. Lago means "lake" in Italian, and this one was a beauty.
Puccini’s lovely two story home, with its lakefront location and his ample hunk of property, is where he wrote most of his other hit operas including, Turandot. An outdoor opera house is now located there. There's also a neat garden area with a statue of Puccini and a delicious restaurant on what once was his front lawn. Each of the town's quaint streets are named for either one of his operas or a character from his operas. It’s all really very nice.
They take tours of no more than 10 persons through his home, led by a guide speaking bad English. Photographs are not permitted. I wanted more. I wanted the place to myself. The guide looked "hungry" to me, so, as soon as our tour was over, I pitched him on the possibility of taking my brother and me back into the house, so we could take a few photos. His hand curled up as good as any hotel doorman back in the states. I got the message, so I duked him generously.
“Prago", he said, "You comma wit me."
Joe and I followed quickly as he led us in the house via a very circuitous route. Once inside, he said, “You gotta five’a minutes!” Then he closed the door and stood guard outside.
We had the run of the house! God knows I was excited. Puccini’s possessions were all around me. There was his hunting rifle, his ammo pouch, his overcoat and the fedora I’d seen in so many photos. There were the graves of Puccini, his wife, Elvira, and their son, Tonio. I stopped and said a quick prayer for them.
I read a quote from Puccini that went like this: “I have always carried with me a large bundle of melancholy, I have no reason for it, but so I am made.” As I read this again, I think I understood a bit more about him and myself. I put my hand on the marble and I said, “Thank you. I wish I could have known you. I really do, Pal..."
Then I headed for the study and his piano, where he composed. Joe and I took turns photographing each other touching it. Man, this was the berries! I read notes that some guy named “Tom Edison” had sent Puccini after attending one of his operas. Yes, it was the "light bulb kid" himself. I looked at family photographs and so many of Puccini’s family mementos.
|
family treasures, Andy poses with the composer's very own piano. |
 |
Finally, the guide came in and quietly waved for us to get out: Our five minutes was up 10 minutes ago. I got my money's worth. Once outside again, I had Joe take my picture by the metal statue of Puccini on the lawn. I even put my arm around the metal thing and hugged it! I told ya, I love this guy! The more I learned about him the more I understood why.
My own father had once said about his favorite Spanish guitarist, the great Andres Segovia, “A man with talent like that should NEVER have to die!” That’s exactly how I felt about Giacomo Puccini.
I guess you're wondering by now if that fan ever got into Birgit’s hotel suite to snatch a hanky or something. The answer is "no." She didn’t get anything but a visit from yours truly. I recovered several items from her past thefts that Birgit had described for me. I also showed this Dizzy Babe and all her luggage the sidewalk that runs in front of the hotel. She was given a discreet, but firm admonishment not to return to “my hotel.” It worked: Birgit continued her tour in peace.
Well, that was a long time ago. Meanwhile, I hope all my brother and sister officers will find their own ways to keep the lid on while handling their human garbage removal chores. I hope they investigate some beautiful "something" that will let their minds take a break from the real horror they experience. And I hope that "something" will bring them as much pleasure and comfort as Maestro Puccini has brought to me.
© 2002 by Andy Murcia.
The photos are from the Murcia family collection. All rights
are reserved.
You
can comment on this column or contact Andy Murcia with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |