CHILD OF PARADISE

7 5 R C H I L D O F P A R A D I S E M A T T H E W S P E L L B E R G A distinct scene unfolds on the front steps of the great European opera houses on the day of a performance. On the front lip of the façade, dangling from the steps, a congregation of the faithful begins to assemble. In Paris, at the Opéra Bastille, they are firmly encamped in a semi-protected area to the right of the grand staircase .Theyholdnumberedslipsoftornpaperintheirhandstomark the order in which they’ve arrived. They sit reading on a curved bench of concrete or on top of a broad railing or, farther down, on the floor, with their backs against the great glass windows of the foyer. Every now and then an anemic man or, on some days, a cabal of prim middle-aged women comes by to inspect the size of the assembly, making certain that the numbered slips of paper correspond to the order in which the people are standing. Across the city, at the Opéra Garnier, the line, usually administered without numbers , begins inside and winds its way around the gift shop and out onto the front steps. Everyone sits on the cold marble floor; the lucky ones can lean their backs against the base of a column; the stragglers outside are regularly accosted by scalpers and the bleating megaphones of Japanese tour guides. In Munich there is no line, but rather a loose haze of persons hanging over the great 7 6 S P E L L B E R G Y portico of the Staatsoper, a penumbra which gradually thickens into a fog as the hour approaches, ninety minutes before the curtain , when the box o≈ce opens. The loiterers eye one another nervously and engage in furtive exchanges of businesslike conversation ; one or two scalpers in leather jackets who are there every night lean against the columns, knowing that anyone in need of their services already knows to ask. At the summer festival at Aixen -Provence, a chatty knot of tourists gathers around the little ticket kiosk set up in the place de l’Archevêché, directly in front of the doors to the open-air theater, a ship of fools at anchor in a tidal rush of tony festivalgoers in white linen and silver lamé. And at Bayreuth, that Jerusalem of operagoing, a weary short line of pilgrims , many of whom have spent the night on the lawn in deckchairs or sleeping bags, watch the second-tier peacocks of German high society parade up and down the flower-strewn gardens that spill away down the hill from the theater. These are what the French call mélomanes, the su√ering devotees of opera, with an appropriately dionysian etymology from the Greek melos, ‘‘lyric poem,’’ and mania, ‘‘madness,’’ ‘‘possession .’’ They assemble at opera houses across the European continent in the hours before a performance, wearing a patchwork of faded sports coats, leather chaps, neon-colored windbreakers, and white shirts stained with sweat, to purchase or fight for tickets. At Bastille, they wait for the seventy-two standing-room tickets available starting ninety minutes before the curtain for five euros apiece from two automated machines which take credit cards or coins but no bills. There is a strict limit of two tickets per person, enforced by the thin, fastidious usher in a rumpled tuxedo and rimless glasses who keeps order in the lobby. Line cutters are punished by immediate banishment – an old homeless man who claims to be a mutilé de guerre sometimes throws himself into the fray, demanding priority. At least once a scuΔe with him has made the straitlaced usher bleed. At other houses, the hopeful wait for a greater but less certain prize: the limited number of returned tickets, some outrageously expensive, others dirt cheap, that are sold to first takers in the five minutes before the lights go down. These customers have, more often than not, already seen the production, either in its current run or previously, or perhaps even in another city. They know C H I...