The Heirloom by Jessie Rosen

Author:Jessie Rosen [Rosen, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

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Fifteen minutes and two more pastéis de nata later, we arrived at the library. Our hope was to find an archive of opera house performance programs for Madama Butterfly from the fifties through roughly the late eighties, since that’s the show Gianluca thought Bette had performed in most. After that we were looking for the name of a performer with some connection to Bette or Silva, hoping she’d picked a stage name more like Michael Douglas using Michael Keaton, and not Reginald Dwight becoming Elton John. If we could make that connection, and if opera programs were anything like Broadway Playbills, we might learn something about this mystery woman’s hidden life that would point us in the next direction. It was a wing-and-a-prayer plan, which took at least fifteen more minutes to explain to a group of very patient librarians. Luckily they delivered us our first win of the many-step process: we were told the library did have copies of all the Teatro’s programs, which were wheeled out to us in a set of decomposing cardboard boxes on what had to be the oldest library cart in existence.

“Please tell me these are in chronological order,” I said. Graham did not reply; he already knew they were not.

We proceeded to open every single one and examine every single piece of printed theater history until we’d narrowed it down to a group of fifteen performances of Madama Butterfly in twenty-some years. It was technically progress, but I didn’t feel that way. Somewhere around hour two, I ran out for more coffee and pastéis. At hour four, the dust got to Graham so much that he had to wrap the sleeves of my extra cardigan around his face. It would have been hysterical if we weren’t so utterly depleted. Finally, Graham jumped up with a piece of brown-edged paper and shouted, “YES!” Everyone around us jumped too, then shushed him.

On April 2, 1970, a Lisbeth Park had performed the famous “Un Bel Dì, Vedremo” aria from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Alongside her name in that night’s program was a photo of a young woman with fair skin, curly red hair, and kind eyes, just as Gianluca had described.

“That’s got to be her, right?” I said.

“It’s the closest we’re going to get before I die of an asthma attack,” said Graham. Then he read the words under the photo as I Google translated: Lisbeth Park é um meio-soprano que já fez turnê internacional. Lisbeth Park is a mezzo-soprano that has toured internationally. Or in other words, hours of searching for a duh. Graham started a coughing fit. “What is this woman, in witness protection?” Graham said, still choking.

“Please do not suggest things that involve crime,” I begged, a tickle forming in my own throat.

“Wait,” he said, wheels spinning. “This isn’t totally worthless. This program has the names of people who Bette or Lisbeth or whoever she is performed with that night. We can try to find one or some of them to get more information.

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