Master Class, Tosca
—for Maria Callas
Her voice and life a “bare, ruined choir,”
so now, the act. A young tenor asks,
“What advice do you have for me?”
He has a voice, knows the notes,
wants answers, but she does not answer.
Instead, she takes him, beyond his clumsy,
boyish wish to be liked, to the church
where his song lives. She puts a brush
in his hand, a canvas before him.
She makes him remember the way
Tosca’s body sang to him all the long
night before, the rousing chorus
of his own flesh . And the music
comes – in his own body and throat.
Awed, silent, but then he asks again,
“What advice do you have for me?”