It is Saturday and I picked up a book of poetry, as
I do most weekends. My dog knows the routine, so he found his spot next to my
painting easel and let go of a gentle sigh.
I did not read poetry in July. It was a difficult
month and my mood was to melancholy. I was glad when August announced itself
and the desert welcomed me back. So it was appropriate for me to reread for the
nth time the classic poem by Arthur Rimbaud “Une Saison en Enfer” (A Season in Hell).
But somehow, the famous lines of Habanera from Bizet’s
Carmen drove me away from the poem. I started whistling and the lines kept
repeating in my head:
L'amour est un oiseau
rebelle
Que nul ne peut apprivoiser
…
L'amour est enfant de bohème
Il n'a jamais, jamais, connu de loi
(Love is a rebellious
bird
That no one can tame
…
Love is a bohemian child
He never, ever knew any law)
Hmm.
I searched for the B&W, 1964 video of Maria Callas singing Habanera. My favorite interpretations
of that operatic passage from Carmen are by Callas and Elina Garanča. But
today, the extraordinary coloratura voice of Callas was not what I desired.
Rather it was Garanča’s mezzo-soprano timbre and her range of emotional
interpretation that I was craving.
When I started
playing Garanča’s Habanera as she portrayed the teasing and playful Carmen at
the Metropolitan Opera in 2009 (my favorite of all her other interpretations
over the years), I knew I had gotten over July. Even my dog opened his eyes and
was happy to see me enjoying the moment. Then, he went back to sleep.
As the 6 or so
minutes of the video were ending, I recalled another moment from a few years
ago. I was reading poetry when I heard a loud hit on my window glass. I looked
out and a hummingbird had misjudged its space and hit the glass in flight. I
went out and picked up the bird, which to my delight, was alive but seemed in
shock after the accident. I immediately took a picture with my phone hoping
that it will “come to its senses“and fly away soon.
Which he did.
….I did not read
Rimbaud today. But the memory of that moment when the hummingbird left my open
palm reminded me of Habanera’s message.
August 2, 2025
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025
