YUSUF ERADAM
DIGITAL COLORATURA SOPRANO
“Hard, it must be very hard. The end was clear from the very
beginning. She was unique. No one like her will ever be born
again. She is a miracle. She is an idol. I watched her and
listened to her for years. I never missed any of her concerts,
bought all her CDs and records; I collected all the interviews,
everything written or published on and about her. I bought one by
one whatever she sold to the cobbler. My house has turned into a
Semra Can archive. I loved with with a never ending passion, I
adored her. That’s why I visit her every week. She is my past, my
present, who knows maybe my future too. Because I know her best,
they asked me to make a TV program about her, a program titled
“The End of the Digital Coloratura Soprano.” And I resigned from
my position on Channel 9, shouting ‘Go to hell!’. … Addio del
passato. That was my most popular aria, from Verdi’s ‘La
Traviata’. Oh, you haven’t listened to it? It means ‘Farewell to
the past’. If you want I can sing it for you. … Mrs. Can, first _
tell us why they gave you this name ‘Digital Coloratura Soprano’?
Please, tell us why. … Right, OK. Since childhood, I have had
this gift to imitate, to utter every sound I heard. It’s as if
there is a digital computer between my mouth and diaphragm, which
records every sound it hears. Then, I find myself _uttering the
same sound. You know those Japanese miraculous synthesizers, you
say something to the microphone, and the machine records your
voice to a disquette, then on the keyboard you can play any piece
of music with that sound recorded. Just like that. The voice or
sound can belong to a man or a woman, a child, an animal’s or it
may even be the sound of a piece of furniture. It makes no
difference. I can imitate the voice of everyone, the sound of
anything, as long as it has a sound, a voice. It is as if I am
the shadow of anything I hear. Ombra leggiera. Oh, that’s another
beautiful aria. From Giacomo Meyerbeer’s ‘Dinorah’. … Behold,
you can never witness such a case once again in your life. This
is the one and only case that we have had the chance to observe
in our crisis center. I pinch her flesh, she doesn’t react. When
she can imitate every sound that is ‘as if’, that is an artifact,
she has closed herself to reality. She has developed this talent
to be ‘as if’. It’s a sort of defence mechanism of course. Mrs.
Can is the most precious patient we have here at our clinic. Take
good care of her. She can appear in another identity anytime. …
Owing to this talent of yours dearest Semra, you have never been
alone. But you sometimes confuse the setting and time. Well, they
will of course be shocked and scared. Do you remember how you
scared the hell out of that child? And then, the child started to
cry, and you shouted at him, ‘Stop crying you fool, you think
this is fearful, eh? Life will present to you such frightening
experiences that you will miss my fearful voice! You’d better
wake up to reality and kill whatever you have of life inside you.
First, you must kill love. Don’t be late to see the truth and to
sing your own song. Come on, sing your song to me! Sing it!’ Yes,
that’s what you said to the child, and while his parents were
looking at you in awe, you had started to beat the poor
child. … Mrs. Can, what would you like to have become, if you
hadn’t been a soprano? … Oh, I would like to have become a
NAI(*) player. I would like to play the NAI quietly in my haven.
The opera and NAI. What have the two got to do with
each other? Oh please! The NAI sounds heavenly to me. They say its sound is
the closest to human voice, didn’t you know? … I hate you mom!
Was your life so precious, eh? … And, you should see those NAI
players exhaling into the NAI with their heads bent to one side,
that has influenced me so much since my childhood. That’s why I
took NAI lessons. I still play it. … Yes, we know that Mrs.
Can, and you play it well. I’m sure our viewers are dying to hear
you play just a tiny piece. But before that we have the
commercials! Are you still with us? … Please do not give me
these pills. … Why do you calm down only on the visit days Mrs.
Can? I just can’t understand. … When they came in for torture,
would you do the injection to the palestine suspender, eh? She is
screaming but you’re giving me the injection. When watching ‘Fire
Everywhere’ on TV, she puts her ward aflame, and you give me an
injection. Forgive me for saying so doc, but you look like dead
whores in this white uniform. You should put on some color. Then
your small eyes would look bigger. And a pair of blue lenses.
Look, like this! And you put on these artificial eye lashes,
that’s it. Now I have become very special, very different, right?
But you’re always giving me injections. My arms have turned into
a skimmer. Please let me, let me sing my song as I wish to. I
have an interview on TV tonight. Tomorrow morning, the first
thing you should to is to take my hair out to the sun, please do
so. Please stop these injections. Please let me sing my song. I
know you’re tired of my fans, this crowd upsets you but I am
nothing without them. Ugur Mumcu (**), five million TL. … It is
the title of a famous play staged by the Ankara Art Theatre …
What is ‘Infantry Reserved’? … Correct. Mrs. Semra Can, you
have won sixty five million Turkish liras so far. It’s your turn
again. Where do the hands that have murdered millions of people
hide? Ask the land you live on, she will tell you. … Please
comb my hair in the sun. It must shine a bit, tomorrow night is
the gala. I am the dragon in Wagner’s ‘Sigfried’. I can sleep by
myself, please, I don’t need injections any more. … Good
evening ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, we will broadcast again
our live program last week when our well known digital soprano
broke her famous NAI into small pieces. We hope our international
pride Mrs. Semra Can recovers soon. Keep tuned to our channel and
stop zapping! … Contagious diseases, four millions. … It is
the disease that mice lice contaminate human beings, and that has
killed millions in history. … Biiip! … Unfortunately, time is
up! The correct answer was ‘What is plague?’… Please comb my
hair properly. Today is the visitors’ day. You will bring another
NAI for me tomorrow, you will, won’t you? And don’t forget the
hairpins I put on in ‘Madame Butterfly’. … Un bel di _vedremo.
Let me look. Oh, great. But dear, how many times do I have tell
you to put some more dark color here so that my eyes look bigger,
eh! You know these critics. They are the devils after details.
Anyway, all right that’s enough, enough I said, you can leave.
Now it’s show time. Let’s see if my opera fans have rushed to
watch me on stage instead of watching prime time nonsense on TV.
Una voce poco fa. This is a new voice. … Correct, yes, The
Barber of Seville, Rossini’s famous work. Ladies and gentlemen,
Mrs. Semra Can gave the correct answer to our final question
tonight. Mrs. Can, you have thirty thousand points, that means
thirty million Turkish liras. From this stand of gifts you can
select anything worth thirty million. … Stop, please don’t do
this to me. I will give as many names as you want. … Yes, he
was there at the meeting. … Right, he was there too. … No!
But that’s my husband. No! Yes, he was there too! … What!
Please, no, stop it, he is my one and only son. Stop twisting my
flesh please. Okay, my son was at that illegal meeting too. …
Now, all you have to do is to inhale from your diaphragm and to
keep your breath inside. Your voice will have a stronger volume
and you will be able to sing longer with only one breath. Even if
your voice is weak, you can improve your singing capacity by the
help of these exercises. Of course, the aim is not to shout more,
but to utter the right meaning with the correct stress. One of
the best exercises is this: Stand in front of a wall. Give your
back to the wall. Your whole body from the heels to the head
should touch the wall. Take a deep breath from the diaphragm,
keep it in your tummy. Feel the breath in every cell in your
back, and then exhale it slowly, no, not all of it at once, I
said slowly. Yes, like this, aaaaaaaa! Right, now repeat. Now,
try, eeeeeee! Yes! Exactly, perfect! Now, let’s try the other
vowels. … But sir, this wall is wet. … Mrs. Butterfly, this
is the torture room, you didn’t expect us to provide for you an
air conditioned room, did you? … Some air, I need some fresh
air please, a little sun. My hair is wet all over. I’ll have a
stiff neck, and I won’t be able to sing tonight. … Hey, she has
confessed enough, and we have the names we wanted. That’s enough.
You can let this slut go. Get the next one in. We will make many
sopranos chirpy chirpy cheep in this room! Ha, ha, ha! …
Tomorrow, I’ll sell everything left in the house to the cobbler.
The Human Rights Committee is sending a message to the whole
world. When we’re getting ready for the twenty first century,
these abominable scenes, prove how terrible war is. Our news will
continue. Keep your eyes on us. … Excuse me, you bought this
antique candle from Mrs. Semra Can, didn’t you? Sell it to me, I
can pay however much you want. … Nooo! They can’t have killed
my son, nooo! They had promised. … Ladies and gentlemen,the
last piece our famous soprano will sing for us tonight is from
Puccini’s ‘Gianni Schicchi’. She has changed the famous aria ‘O
mio babbino caro’ a bit. Farewell my dearest baby. ‘O mio bambino
caro’. … We must invite the masses to a republican and secular
line of politics. The party leaders do not seem to have realized
how vital this is. I’m afraid soon we’ll have to say farewell to
democracy, ladies and gentlemen. … My hair, please don’t forget
to take my hair out to the sun tomorrow. Addio del passato. I’m
free. I’ll hide myself, so as not to die in our _first meeting.
I’m free. I’ll call butterflies for you from far away lands. Una
voce poco faaaaaaaaaaaa!
(Translated from Turkish by the author)
______________
(*) NAI is a long wooden flute like musical instrument held
sideways. It has a deep sound with a mystical tone. It is very
difficult to play the Nai, or to get the right sound out of it as
the player must know how to put his lips on the mouth of the
instrument. It is an indispensable _member _of an orchestra
especially in Turkish Classical Music.
(**) UGUR MUMCU was one of the most famous journalists,
columnists, writers of Turkey, who devoted his life to doing
research into state terror, the affairs of the PKK, and of the
mafia. He was assassinated in 1993 by a bomb put in his car. The
assassin is still unknown. Many claim that there are evidences
against the state or the secret service. In the TV program
referred to here, the contestants are given the answers, they
decide about how much money they will win, and then guess the
right question. SAKINCALI PIYADE is the title of Ugur Mumcu’s
most famous play he wrote to criticise the military takeover of
1971.
