I Could NOT Stop Laughing at an Opera — while Abroad
As much as I wished it wasn’t, this is a true story
I have a problem.
For as long as my memory serves, I have caught myself in awkward situations where I burst out in uncontrollable laughter at places where the least I should have done is kept my mouth shut.
The struggle finds its roots way back into my early childhood.
As a kid, I have been in trouble more times than I care to remember — at school with my teachers, in large social gatherings where I ended up mortifying my family or relatives, rendering my friends aghast to my reaction upon finding them in pitiable states — because I just happened that weird kid who would split my sides into laughter at the most inappropriate times.
But, it is not what you think.
I know I shouldn’t. And I don’t want to either, but it’s as if some unknown force takes over me and sends me into fits of laughter — without my consent.
I cannot help myself.
And this impending, brutal force nonchalantly followed me into my adult life too. I had to learn the hard way to overcome getting myself to the point where the situation gets out of hand, but I’ve got stories from many of my adult years when I absolutely couldn’t. And this is one such story. So brace yourself, and enjoy the ride at my expense! :’)
The adventure that led me to the moment
It was Spring ‘2013 when me and my husband — newly married young lovers — set out on our dream honeymoon to explore off-the-beaten parts of South America. Stuffing our backpacks with old clothes, hiking shoes, and camping gear, we took off for an extended two months long adventure on a shoestring budget, traversing around Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. Yeah, I know… but we preferred to do that instead of throwing a wedding party of any proportion.
So while we mostly bummed exploring the diverse moonscape akin terrain of the Andes region in those countries, we couch-surfed whenever we could every time we passed through a major city — which was sparsely on that journey. But that was our attempt to prolong our time on the road while also getting the opportunity to experience the local culture via its people that hosted us and save any money we would. Yeah, you get the drift.
But this was different. I knew this guy who welcomed us to his home.
I met our host a couple of years prior in my suburban birth town of Mumbai, where, alongside a bunch of other travellers, I showed him around as well. You see — when I wasn’t travelling, I tried to be a good samaritan to the Couchsurfing community. And this was my way to pay it forward and offer gratitude to all the people that had welcomed and hosted me on many of my travels — and they were more than I could count on my fingertips.
This was one guy from the group that I instantly hit off with. He was a musician who also produced electronic music, and at the time, I was regularly performing in the clubs as a DJ. We were both ardent travellers too. Our common passions led us to become friends and keep in contact.
So when we included Bolivia in our Latin American adventures, it was a no-brainer that I wanted to take a little detour to the quirky city of Cochabamba, his hometown, which was also actually much appreciated after spending long chunks of our time in the Andes wilderness and challenging ourselves on one strenuous hike after another.
The decision that led up to the moment
Beyond the gates in a posh area, when we arrived at his family home, we were startled at what we witnessed — a big house that reeked of affluence and wealth. However, his family was kind and welcoming. We were given a nice and cosy room with a comfortable mattress, a private bathroom, etc., and were told to make ourselves home for as long as we pleased.
The luxury his home offered us was too tempting to pass, so we decided to stay a couple of days longer than we had initially intended to. A much-needed change after nights on end of zipping up in sleeping bags inside a tent that's dubiously perched somewhere far-flung on a rocky volcano at 4000 metres high and such.
While on our stay there, he took the time to not only show us around but also introduce us to his friends with whom we hung out, and basically, let us enter his culturally rich life in the city.
One of those mornings, he invited us to join him for a concert that he was to attend with some of his artsy friends. The genre of music concert was, for some reason, left undisclosed. Not sure why that was — perhaps our host wanted to surprise us with a different, sophisticated experience on our journey.
Despite my best efforts at forgetting, I still vividly remember that afternoon.
Located in a posh area of downtown Cochabamba, we arrived at a beautiful concert hall that had a courtyard garden, which was vibrant with a small crowd of chattering people waiting to get in.
Soon after, the doors opened. Lining up in a queue, we made our way into the old building walking through the high ceiling corridors firmly held by grand columns, to then enter the concert room — which, to my surprise, was relatively small and dimly lit by a couple of chandeliers hovering above us.
In the centre was a slightly raised stage with a backdrop embedded in marble with an elegant fireplace above which was found a splendid painting surrounded by sculptures of beautiful, bare-breasted women intricately hand-carved by the artisans from yesteryears.
Without a shadow of a doubt, this was the kind of place frequented by art fiends from various privileged backgrounds. That evening though, the eccentric community of Cochabamba had conglomerated in the room. One would find musicians, writers, actors, designers, and such creatives — the kinds of people that nudged the cultural envelope forward.
The room filled up pretty quickly, and the attendees took their seats on intimately arranged chairs. Amongst them were us — a couple of sunburnt backpackers just getting to know the city by also participating in the local art and music scene.
It was a pleasure to be there. The whole purpose of Couchsurfing served, I thought.
During those days in our journey, we crossed paths with a German traveller who soon became our friend and decided to join us for some days. So here we were, a bunch of hippies in an event we otherwise had no business being at had it not been for our host, my local friend.
And what did I do? I behaved like a fucking toddler with no control over her impulsive laughter and blew the whole damn evening! Well, kinda… sorta.
The moment of truth
Soon enough, the performer of the afternoon made her entry.
A middle-aged woman clad in an elegant blue dress took centre stage, and alongside her was a pianist. The host of the evening said something in Spanish, most of what I didn’t decipher but assumed to have been an introduction. A round of applause followed.
What happened next is something I would’ve never imagined in my wildest dreams! The singer grabbed the microphone, and what hit my ears was something I wasn’t — in a million years — ready for.
As soon as she opened her mouth, the sound of a deep, high note filled the room — my jaw dropped. I was flabbergasted.
In that instant, all of my bodily sensations went on mute and my whole sense of awareness was tightly held in the clutches of her mouth. No matter how hard I tried to break it off, my gaze was fixated on the tension of her face as she curved and pressed her lips in the most obtuse matter.
Of course, that wasn’t the reality, objectively speaking, but I was also heavily hungover from consecutively smoking weed for days prior to the event. And my state of being was the one that could be passed as that of a stoned person — even though I was sober at the time.
All I saw was a grotesque mouth blowing out high notes that rattled and jarred the deepest trenches of my ears. At that moment, something unwanted was tickled and awakened from the very core of my being.
A voice inside me pleaded and begged, but all too meek… and late.
The next moment, there was I, breaking the silence of this small room with very inappropriate snorts of laughter. NOOOO, not today, please. But what the heck! — This was the kind of perfect storm that brewed such a monstrous reaction within me.
What the fuck. This ain’t gunna go well. And why am I not already swallowed by the ground? —in vain, I helplessly thought.
Instead of being mesmerised by the performance, despite my desperate, sincere attempt, I couldn’t help my fixation on her mouth. The way those lips stretched and curled and twisted and twirled, it all looked very unnatural to me — to the point that it was insanely comical, for me.
I want to be here. Treasure this wonderful first-time Opera experience, but an unknown force held me in a tunnel vision where all I could see was the damn mouth — hideous in its movements and provoking my very sense of being.
If the shapeshifter conspiracy was true — she would be crowned as “the lizard woman”.
For heaven’s sake, hold your shit together bitch… not today… and not now. If you can’t be all classy and crap, keep your mouth shut, and face straight. Don’t be an asshole — I bullied myself, but any attempt to fight off the laughing resulted in an even bigger explosion waiting to happen. Fucking outrageous.
Look, I am not the one to give up easily. And so… I persisted in my attempt.
But they say laughter is contagious.
You see – when I first snorted a laugh, I glanced at my husband, and at my friend, with a look that cried, “Are you seeing this? No way, can you believe it?” whilst desperately attempting not to laugh.
All too late.
The initial sparks had caught the air, enough to trigger a wildfire in the forest. Sitting next to me, my friend now caught the laughter contagion. And that only made the matter worse. She was now trying to hold her laughter back but not quite succeeding.
You know, it was one of those times when you’ve exhausted everything within your power — pretty pointless trying to make this stop.
I remember the subtle warnings of ‘shh and pssts’ from the respectful audience who were sure enough disgusted by us — BUT — but that only sparked the laughter further. At this point, I was mortified and wanted the earth to open and suck me right in.
That would have been a fair end to my disrespectful charade, but I wasn’t fortunate enough to be blessed with such a convenient escape. I had to face the crowd and expose myself as this horrible, mannerless person.
The only solution was to raise ourselves from the tightly seated audience, make ourselves known — in case some people didn’t know who these laughing jerks were — and like a couple of little cowardly mice, sneak straight out the door.
One would think I would have shrunk in embarrassment, but no, a hell load of laughter broke loose upon freeing myself from the horrific ordeal. It was as if a caged bird was set free into its natural habitat for the first time in his life.
I didn’t have to hold or hide my sinful act any longer. I could now openly roar in my evil laughter along with my friend. Soon after, my husband joined us too. The wildfire fire had burnt all three of us!
But that’s not all my friends.
We were at the epitome of young, reckless, and carefree — you see, we even dared to return to the room and permit ourselves another chance (which should not have been allowed, I admit) to sit through the concert without laughing.
Thankfully, by whatever little grace we had left within ourselves (or not), by some impossible miracle, my (desperate) prayers were heard — we did get over ourselves and managed to sit through the performance without laughing openly.
I mean, we were still giving each other these looks. The tension persisted in the air while we were silently laughed-cried on the inside.
The dreadful moment of confrontation
The worst part of this was what awaited me next — having to face my friend, our kind host — after the concert. It would be understandable if he was upset and wanted nothing to do with us. He had good enough reason to be mad at us after all — for we had truly disrespected and embarrassed him in front of his artiste colleagues.
If my memory serves me right, I think our friend managed to evade us until the end of the event, and despite feeling disappointed with us, he maintained the class and decency of not confronting me. He didn’t even give us any cold shoulder — he was that nice — which made me feel even worse. But well, c’est la vie!
In my defence though — I know I don’t deserve one, but yeah — here I was, a young hippie who worked just enough to be able to travel the world, living in the moment with no concrete plans for the future, just like that casually thrown into an affair as serious as an opera that I had no business being in? Come on now!
In retrospect, now that I watch the video clip that I somehow still have from the concert — I find nothing about her performance funny. As a matter of fact, I am intrigued. But this is me, a decade later, a fraction older, and tad bit wiser for what it’s worth.
All these years later, to remember the situation: the artist — an opera singer at her international performance having the misfortune of confronting a bunch of absolute imbeciles in the crowd, still makes me feel some kind of way. I truly hope the singer didn’t notice us, but it is hard to be sure about that.
I wasn’t, and still am, not acquainted or have my ears enough trained (and eyes too as we are already aware) for matters relating to opera. I am a techno DJ, and that is as far as my musical proficiency goes.
Once in a blue moon when I do remember the episode, it still makes me laugh hysterically. Not because my reaction was funny but because of the story in and of itself. As it turns out the worst situations can turn into a funny story years later.
And so, here I am, at two in the night, sleepless — twisting and tossing on my bed because I had my second coffee much later in the day than I should allow myself, and upon having this memory surface out of nowhere that once again sends me in fits of laugher, I realise this story needs to be heard by the world — or a few dozens of people that will read, if you will — and jumping out of my bed, here I am, hysterically clanking away at my keyboard. :”)