Zeynep
Oral's Books:
Leyla
Gencer: A Story of Passion
AT
THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF…
"Please, Guard Hasan, let's go to the edge of the cliff,
the edge of the cliff!"
A little girl with jet-black hair, pitch-black eyes -- she is maybe
four years old, maybe not -- climbed up to Guard Hasan's arms, pointing
out the edge of this plain, the very edge of the cliff.
This is a game they both like and play often: Guard Hasan throws
the little girl up high and catches her. The little girl flies in
the sky for a while; then, while she is falling down, she finds
herself in the trusted arms of Hasan. She wants to play this game,
not at any place on the plain, but always at the very edge of the
cliff.
That's why she is insisting again today. "Let's go to the edge
of the cliff! Let's go to the edge of the cliff!"
Here they are at the edge of the cliff (well, almost). Guard Hasan
is throwing the little girl up high to the skies. While flying with
laughter up there (at that moment), she is dominant over the plain,
the valley and even the skies. Then the falling starts. She is falling
and falling and falling…
While falling and falling and falling, at that moment when the laughter
is replaced by the greatest fear, as if everything is going to disappear,
she finds herself in the dependable arms of Guard Hasan: Oh, I am
saved again!
She might start to insist again: "Please Guard Hasan, again
please, once again!"
There, at the edge of the cliff, it is the hills of Cubuklu, Istanbul.
Leyla Ceyrekgil is a tiny little girl.
The Arena Flegra in Naples is an open theater that holds 10,000
people. That night there is not one empty seat. There is no corner
that a childhood memory, a dream, which can give courage or hope,
can sit. Well, the time for the show has arrived; all the lights
go down.
A young woman is standing in the dark at the top of the amphitheater
that ascends layer by layer, a woman with jet-black hair, pitch-black
eyes. She is looking at the steps descending in front of her, as
if they are not going to end, and looking to the stage at the edge
of the steps.
She is at the very top, at the peak. Below is the tiny stage. The
Arena is huge. The Arena is ready to swallow her. It's a cliff.
All of a sudden, all the lights are on her. She is starting to walk
down the stairs. Ten thousand pairs of eyes are watching her. Ten
thousand people are ready to swallow her.
She is going down the first step, the second step. Her knees are
trembling. Third step, fourth step, fifth…
It was five days ago during an exam (yes, yes, it was an exam) that
she told a lie. "Yes, I know Cavalleria Rusticana. I can sing
it," she said. But she did not know it. In other words, she
did not know it in Italian. She has not sung this opera in Italian
until now. But once she said, "I know, I can sing it…"
Now, at the edge of the cliff, while she is going down the endless
well, her knees are trembling.
Fifth step, sixth step. At that moment the fear grew, in that moment
when the cliff was about to swallow her, a voice inside her, her
voice said: "Come on, conquer them. Come on!" And she
did. When she reached the other end of the cliff, when she reached
the stage, she dominated the arena. She was dominating 10,000 people.
Oh! She did not fall into the emptiness, the nothingness this time
either!
Naples, the night of 16th July, 1953.
A young woman: Leyla Gencer.
She is at the edge of the cliff again. Because she is going to take
her place on the stage in a little while. Her only weapon, assurance,
is her passion: not to roll over the cliff, not to get mixed up
with nothingness, emptiness, nonexistence.
Her voice is a human voice at the end. It is the most sensitive
tool she carries inside her; she has trained, augmented, colored
it inside her. It can be destroyed any time; it can be bruised,
spoiled any time.
Her passion, her belief, love, lust, power, weakness, loneliness,
magnificence, magic, and her reason for existence, to sing.
She is not the black-haired little girl now who would say: "Please,
let's go to the edge of the cliff" from the trustworthy arms
of Guard Hasan. No, she does not want the edges of the cliff anymore.
Being at the edge of the cliff is not a matter of choice anymore.
It is a must.
What takes her to the edge of the cliff all the time is her passion
and her voice.
Her passion and her voice are always saving her from rolling over
the cliff. That is, they have saved her until now. What about tonight?
What about in a little while onstage? What if she falls down to
the below, the emptiness, the nothingness at the edge of the cliff
this time?
She will take the stage now. This is why she is so afraid, as if
she is going to die of fear.
This jet black-haired, pitch black-eyed woman does not have an age.
She is at the age of Lucia, Norma, Lady Macbeth, Queen Elizabeth,
Floria Tosca, Lucrezia, Madame Butterfly, Alceste, Aida, Violetta
and Leonora.
She is in Milan, Vienna, Paris, San Francisco, Koln [Most English-speakers
know this as "Cologne." You might want to change it.],
Buenos Aires, Stockholm, London, Rio de Janeiro, Bilbao or Chicago.
Her name is Diva -- La Diva Turca
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