What's left
The first thing they tell me when I arrive at the hotel is not to use the central staircase. “Vecchia e a pezzi,” explains the receptionist. Old and in pieces. I have to take a side staircase to my suite: newly built and completely out of place in this building whose beautiful shapes seem to have been carved by time itself. Apparently, the great central staircase I used to ascend is now so carved out that there is too little left of it. Fitting , I think, for this eternal city built and rebuilt on ruins, in which something is always crumbling somewhere. Always has been. My breath gets caught somewhere between my chest and throat as I enter the well-known room; it always does. For the few times I have been back now as a tourist, it always takes me some hours after arriving to remember that the nervousness and excitement are nothing but a memory. I am a spectator now, not a performer. It’s the Rigoletto tonight. I know almost all lines by heart, even the ones I never sang, bu...
