ROSSINI’S CLAQUE

                        La, la, la, lera!  Largo al factotum della citta!

                        Un segreto d’importanza!  Una voce poco fa!

                        Ah, compose, rehearse, conduct, dash from two-bit theatres

                        To flea-bit lodgings, commissioning librettos,

                        Held under lock and key by lackeys of impresarios,

                        Tossing off overtures before the tournedos;

                        While strident stagehands fling my rehashed score

                        Page by page to copyists copping it below; or

                        They’d throw Gioacchino through the window prestissimo;

                        Or have my catgut for starters.  Castrato, io!

                        Maestro of opera buffa, huh!  Studioso ma stufa!

                        Che fiasco, Signor Cresssscendo!  Sooner

                        Be a consultante de musica or chef de claque,

                        Fabricating not rackets but acoustica dramatica,

                        Orchestrating a clique of claqueurs like

                        Guillaume Tell leading the attack with acclamations,

                        Arpeggios ilarios, audible faints, exclamations istericas.

                        Anche a concatanazione of encores, from siffleurs and bisseurs

                        To the claps and taps of the drumming tapageurs

                        And teary pleureuses a-blubber over smelling-salts.

                        Buffone, no, but to patrons a chatouilleur of rorts,

                        Hosing down riots, tantrums, fervour, feverish barricades,

                        And I’d make a few bob on the side from ‘Bravo!’ tirades,

                        Propping up prima divas like an aficionado, io!

                        Even that stumblebum Nero burned for a claque, not Clio:

                        Five thousand humming like bees, humble bombi.  Che trucco!

                        That dumb cluck, like any bombastic bohemian – come io stesso! -

                        Sought to sweeten his speech with a sheet of lead

                        Weighted ‘pon his chest to clear his bowels to the cloaca grossa

                        By enema and vomits – cleansed and bled.

                        O how I would’ve clicked with a claque at the Argentina,

                        Where I conducted the premiere of Il Barbiere!  Barbaja

                        Trussed me up in his Spanish get-up hazel-hued.

                        Booed, I crossed the stage to whistles, cat-calls and toots

                        Of laughter.  A claqueur’s nightmare, a rieur’s hoot

                        Goldoni and Galuppi would’ve loved to score.

                        Don Basilio sweeps on, trips a trapdoor, audience guffaws,

                        Falls flat on his mush and, flushed as a rose,

                        Strangles his aria through bleeding nose.

                        Basso buffo, bene!  Then a mangy mouser with stage-fright

                        Strays left-stage, scampers off, miaows stage-right,

                        Chased by Rosina isterica and Figaro furioso e frenetico.

                        Next up springs old Bartolo!  Cheers!  Jeers!  O gatto catastrofico!

                        Figaro upstaged, chandeliers shake, un altro fiasco!

                        Mama mia, che commedia musicale!  So much did I fret,

                        I miaowed revenge in my Cat Duet.

                                                           

                                                                                                Michael Small

February 9-March 30, 2003

Revised August 23; December 14-15, 2005