Every time I Don Juan by Richard Strauss in the orchestra, I’m in shambles. The music always manages to evoke my love affairs, divorce(s) and other miseries of the past thirty years. The more recent the vicissitudes, the more trivial, by the way. Now that the symphonic tone poem is back on the program, I am left with a broken fridge. There is water in the vegetable bin, for the umpteenth time I throw away my carrots and organic green beans. Sin! I’m not going to wait until tomorrow. Before I continue cooking, I call the white goods specialist, there is only one in our village, and leave a message.
During rehearsal the next morning, I surrender to Strauss’ impetuous E major. My viola blushes during the sensual oboe solo because its ascending melody and my accompanying fourths swing erotically around each other. While I also happily syncopated my past, my phone buzzes just as the satisfied Don Juan sneaks away from his sleeping sweetheart. I’m freezing. Happy is the mistress agitator wakes up causing the hero to quickly run away to the loud notes of the wind instruments and save me too, as the telephone ringing in the rousing giocoso disappears. I look shyly at my desk colleague, but the dramatic pace is already driving the technical arpeggios at rush hour and we iron out my embarrassment together.
During the break I check my phone. It was the white goods specialist but he didn’t leave a message. I call and go to his voicemail. Dejectedly, I sit down at a coffee table. There is a discussion about the death blow that Don Pedro inflicts on the hero, but then in musician’s language: sharp as a blade sounding F in the silvery register of the trumpet. When the break ends, the white goods specialist will call you back.
The bell rings on the morning of the concert day. In front of me stands Don Juan. I timidly let him in, romanticize my problem and let the titillating hero touch my fridge. After seventeen suspiciously quiet minutes, he’s done. Then he puts a mobile ATM wordlessly on my counter. He doesn’t look at me. Alone again and one hundred and thirty-two euros poorer, I have become convinced that it is better to play about heroes than to meet them. Better for me and for my wallet.
Ewa Maria Wagner is a violist and writer.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 19, 2021
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