Gianni Schicchi At The Met

Allessandro Corbelli as Gianni Schicchi

She who must be obeyed and I went to the Live Transmission of the Metropolitan Opera of New York to see Il Trittico, the opera of which Gianni Schicchi forms the last third. She went because she loves the music of Gianni Schicchi, forming, as it does, the soundtrack of A Room With A View. I went because I thought that Gianni was the Gianni of Everybody Loves Raymond and Robert might be on stage, saying "Everybody loves Raymond."

She who must be obeyed was surprised to find that the source of her favorite music was an comic opera about a rascal. I found out that Gianni did not go to Nemo's Pizza Parlor to hang out. Gianni Schicchi is a form of the Trickster Image from our history. He is similar to Coyote, or Raven, or Kokopelli, or Legba; any number of similar figures who are cunning and use their intelligence to pull capers and pranks. Prometheus' theft of fire from Olympus was essentially a scam, a prank, a wheeze he pulled on the gods and for the benefit of humanity.

Odysseus was cunning, he was a man of turns and tricks, he was the go-to guy for the Achaeans, because, truth be told, the Achaeans were fighters, not thinkers.

Think of the tales of the Viking beserkers; that is what Ajax was like at Troy. That is what Achilles was like in the heat of battle, not some precious Brad Pitt figure who uses martial arts. These guys went beserk in battle.

It wasn't pretty.

Steam rolled off their bodies at the end of a battle.

In fact, it took a good deal of effort to get these guys down from their slaughter high after a battle. This has always been a problem for soldiers: getting them back into some semblance of sanity after they have waged a pitched battle.

The trickster was an entirely different figure from Ajax and Achilles. Odysseus was a trickster. He used his head. That's why he endured. (Of course, sometimes the scheme of the trickster backfires.)

Gianni is a trickster. He tricks the greedy relatives of poor old Buoso Donati.

I remember telling you Don Imus was a trickster and should be back on the airwaves.

We have had enough of the Best and the Brightest.

Give me Odysseus.

Give me Imus.

Give me Gianni Schicchi!