Lotfi Mansouri: An Operatic Journey

11. Mother Nature Gives an Encore

• 11 • Mother Nature Gives an Encore Everybody wants to be a critic, including, apparently Mother Nature. And nowhere has she vented her critical spleen more devastatingly than she did twice during opera seasons in that beautiful City by the Bay. In April 1906, the Metropolitan Opera Company took some of its biggest stars on a lavish spring tour across the United States, finally landing at the westernmost point of the route on April 16, where it opened a season of guest performances at the Tivoli Theater in San Francisco. It presented Karl Goldmark’s Die Königin von Saba, featuring some of the top artists of the company’s German wing, including sopranos Edyth Walker and Marie Rappold, along with tenor Andreas Dippel and baritone Anton van Rooy under the musical direction of Alfred Hertz. This was followed by an all-star performance of Carmen the following evening , featuring Olive Fremstad, taking a little holiday from her Wagnerian characterizations in the title role, partnered by Enrico Caruso and Marcel Journet as Don José and Escamillo. The audience response to this performance was tempestuous, but it was nothing to compare with what happened the following morning when, at about a quarter past five, a catastrophic earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, shook the city, destroying one building after another and ultimately sparking a conflagration that consumed everything in its wake, including the sets and costumes for the entire Metropolitan tour repertoire, not to mention the theater in which they were stored, along with the elegant Palace Hotel, where many members of the company were staying. 166 } l o t f i m a n s o u r i The stories of what happened to some of the most famous operatic artists of the day would fill a book, and those singers who wrote memoirs invariably chronicled what they had experienced during this natural disaster . Possibly the best-known story was Caruso’s exit down the fire escape of the Palace as he clutched his most prized treasure, an autographed picture of President Theodore Roosevelt. Once out of the building, Caruso managed to borrow a car and drove to Lafayette Park in Pacific Heights, where soldiers guarding the entrance would not allow him in until they noticed the Roosevelt picture in his hand. After spending the night on the grass, he made his way to the Oakland ferry, then boarded a train east, vowing solemnly never to return to the city, and he never did. Eighty-three years later, the ever cantankerous Mother Nature decided to give an encore. I thought all the man-made challenges I had confronted in this idyllic city had steeled me for any event, but nothing could have prepared me for what happened on October 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake—a 7.1-surface-magnitude monster, the largest since the 1906 disaster—ripped through the Bay Area, collapsing buildings, freeways, and part of the Bay Bridge to Oakland, starting massive fires, killing sixty-three people, and injuring or displacing fifteen thousand. I was in my office at the opera house late that afternoon, interviewing a candidate for the position of director of development—a mature and proper woman—when the quake struck. As the floor began to ripple beneath us and things started flying off the shelves, I yelled for her to run to the doorjamb, while I dove underneath my desk. When the dust settled, I slowly poked my head up to see her standing in the doorway, still the picture of propriety. “Mr. Mansouri,” she intoned, “I was told that my interview with you would be exciting, but I didn’t imagine it would be this exciting.” We evacuated to the open space called the “Ellipse,” joined by everyone else from the opera house, including Karita Mattila, Nancy Gustafson, and Wiesław Ochman, who were scheduled to perform Idomeneo that evening. We were all shaking, and for the first time in years, I actually lit a cigarette. As we wandered around, trying to collect ourselves, two couples nonchalantly strolled up in tuxedos and elegant gowns. It was a Series A evening, and they had arrived early for the performance, blissfully unaware of the magnitude of what had happened and utterly baffled that there would be no opera that night. Mother Nature Gives an Encore { 167 The next day, we began to live out the credo of performers everywhere...