Superstitions and Curious Customs in Opera
Friday 13th, broken mirrors, black cats and leaning ladders… Superstition, the belief that certain symbols or symbolic actions bring good or bad luck, has always played a role in our lives. And nowhere are superstitions kept more alive than in opera.
I remember singing in the children’s choir of an opera production. During one of the rehearsals, I was on my way through the corridors to the stage, whistling a melody from the piece, when a chorus member with decades of theatre experience grabbed my arm and said, ‘You don’t whistle here!’ Before the dress rehearsal, I could hear people saying on all sides, ‘I hope something goes wrong today, so the premiere will be good.’ And on the day of the premiere, a colleague shot me a judgemental look when I thanked them for a well-meant ‘toi, toi, toi’ (which I have never done again since). Luckily, the premiere was a success! Years later, when I was working at the opera house, I learnt that these were just a few of many superstitious rituals practised in opera. Often, there is more to it than meets the eye.
Don’t Whistle While You Work!
There are some practical reasons for not whistling at work. Before the invention of electric lighting, when gas lamps still lit the theatre, a whistling sound could indicate a gas leak, posing a fire hazard. Also, the evolution of Baroque opera from the 17th century onwards led to the development of stage machinery. Thanks to an ingenious system of pulleys, it was possible to change scenery and stage sets quickly. The stage technicians hired for this demanding task were often sailors, who knew their way around knots and rigging, were at ease even on the highest lighting bridge, and could keep a cool head in the most chaotic situations. For the work in the theatres they retained their usual way of communicating on the high seas, namely through whistle signals. If a singer whistled on stage, the men in the flies could be confused, causing them to change a scene too early or close the curtain – and accidents could be close behind.
À propos. Another superstition came to opera with the sailors. While there are a lot of ropes above and next to the stage, the actual French word for rope, ‘corde’, is considered an absolute taboo word in French theatres. The only part of a sailing ship’s rigging that is called ‘corde’ is the short end of the rope under the bell that is rung in memory of deceased sailors. And this misfortune is not something you want to summon in an opera house.
The Colours of Misfortune
Costumes in bright colours can be real eye-catchers. But did you know that in some countries, certain colours are considered to bring bad luck? While there is no explicit “colour ban” on opera stages today, there are some good explanations for this superstition. In Italy, for example, people are particularly cautious with the colour purple. This is not only because the colour is associated with funerals. One explanation for this superstition dates back to a time when the Catholic Church banned theatre companies from performing during Lent, leaving the artists without work for 40 days. As an act of solidarity with these afflicted theatre folk, no one on stage or in the audience at the opera wore purple, which has been the liturgical colour during Lent up to this day. Yellow is also considered a dangerous colour, especially in Spain. During bullfights, the corrida de toros, the bull is steered through an arena with the help of a large cape, which is usually purple on the outside and yellow on the inside. With injury or worse just a step away, the last colour a bullfighter might see before they are taken by the bull onto his horns is yellow. Reason enough to avoid it on the opera stage!
Centuries ago, blue was one of the most expensive colours to produce. Balancing a theatre’s finances was (and is) always a challenge and at times the extravagance of beautiful blue costumes is rumoured to have tipped some theatres over the edge. To ward off the threat of bankruptcy, a company could decorate their blue costumes with silver to prove their solvency – only with real silver, of course. Green costumes have not always brought good luck, either. Until the 19th century, green fabrics were dyed with poisonous substances, which often caused discomfort or illness in their wearers through skin contact – hence the name ‘poison green’. A much-cited story from France concerns the legendary death of the great French playwright and actor Molière. On 17 February 1673, he collapsed during a performance and died from a haemorrhage that same day. The bittersweet irony is that Molière had been performing in the title role of his final play, The Imaginary Invalid. And wearing a green costume.
Cursed Operas
There are complete operas too that are considered cursed due to their difficult origins, or because performances of these works seem to attract accidents. Take Puccini’s Tosca, for example. A considerable number of incidents have occurred during performances of the opera over the decades, such as when Maria Callas’s wig caught fire during a rehearsal at the Royal Opera House in London on 18 January 1964. The New York Times reported: ‘As she leaned back for a high note her black wig dangled over a stage candlestick. Flames appeared around her head. Still singing, she dabbed at the blaze with one hand. Mr. Gobbi [the baritone] helped pat out the flames. Miss Callas sang on under her charred wig.’ A similar mishap happened in Vienna in the 1970s to Galina Vishnevskaya, who suffered burns to her scalp. In 1986, Eva Marton broke her jaw at the Met in New York when her stage partner singing Scarpia accidentally hit her with his elbow. In 1993, at the Minnesota Opera, Elisabeth Knighton Printy missed the mattress hidden behind the stage when she jumped over the balustrade of Castel Sant’Angelo during the finale act of the opera, breaking both her legs in the process.
The catalogue of mishaps does not end here. Verdi’s Forza del destino seemed to be under a bad star from the beginning, as the premiere had to be postponed by almost a year due to the soprano’s serious illness. Nearly a century later, in 1960, baritone Leonard Warren died of a brain haemorrhage while performing the role of Don Carlo at the Met. Ironically, he collapsed just as he was finishing his aria that began with the words, ‘Morir, tremenda cosa (To die, an awful thing)’.
There is also a whiff of bad karma surrounding Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. While he was composing the opera, Wagner’s wife left him after discovering his close relationship with his muse, Mathilde Wesendonck. In 1959, a sold-out show at the Met almost had to be cancelled when all three tenors – Karl Liebl, who was scheduled, as well as both covers, Ramón Vinay and Albert da Costa – announced that they were too ill to perform the whole role. A huge disaster could be avoided thanks to the unique solution to have each of the tenors sing one act. The very first Tristan, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, died suddenly just a few weeks after the opera’s premiere in 1865, and the conductors Felix Mottl (1911) and Joseph Keilberth (1968) both suffered heart attacks during the second act. Whether this was due to a curse or the opera’s sheer complexity and length remains a mystery…
Disclaimer: No singer was harmed in the making of the following recordings.
The Formula of Luck: Broken Legs, Horse Dung and Wolves?
If, despite all the bad omens, you want to wish someone at the opera house a successful, accident-free performance, there are clear rules: avoid saying ‘Good luck’ at all costs! Fortunately, the superstitious opera community has come up with alternative sayings to avoid the threat of mishaps. Assuming that in such situations the expressed wish will turn into the opposite.
One of the best-known is ‘break a leg’. This originates from the German ‘Hals- und Beinbruch’ (literally ‘neck and leg break’), which is probably a mistranslation of the Yiddish ‘hazloche un broche’ (meaning ‘success and blessing’). If you mumble it a little, it comes pretty close to the absurd wish. However, the benevolent ‘breaking of the knee’ could also refer to the act of bending of the knee, which is associated with the numerous bows made during the final applause. Perhaps it comes from Elizabethan theatre audiences, who expressed their enthusiasm by banging their chairs on the floor – the more broken chair legs, the better the show. Or maybe it comes from the vaudeville acts, who only received their fee once they had performed on stage and thus broken through the side curtains, known as ‘legs’?
In ballet, where broken limbs can end careers, people tend to wish each other ‘Merde!’, borrowed from the ballet language French for ‘shit’ (in Spanish even ‘Mucha mierda!’). This less elegant curse presumably dates back to a time when audiences were brought to the opera by horse carriages. The more carriages there were in front of the opera house, the higher the ticket revenue, and the more horse droppings decorated the streets. In Italy, on the other hand, people wish the other person ‘in bocca al lupo (into the mouth of the wolf)’, which, in hunting parlance, promises a good hunt. The corresponding response is, ‘Crepi il lupo! (May the wolf die!)’. In Australia, it is common to use the exclamation ‘Chookas!’, which derives from the slang word ‘chook’ for chicken. This refers to a sold-out performance, which guarantees that the artists can afford a proper chicken instead of dry bread.
The Power of ‘Toi, toi, toi’
If you are not keen on memorising words in different languages, there is always the well-known theatrical and operatic wish of ‘toi, toi, toi’. These syllables, pronounced like the English word ‘toy’, have been used in the German language since the 19th century and may represent a threefold warning against the devil, the Teu-fel, on the one hand. On the other hand, they could be an onomatopoetic alternative to spitting three times, which is traditionally believed to ward off evil spirits. Beware! Whether wet or dry, for optimum success, one must always spit over the left shoulder of the other person, as this is where the devil sits and is thus ‘spat away’. In response, opera professionals either reply with the same phrase or wish ‘break a leg’ or something similar. But woe betide those who say ‘thank you’; they may cause misfortune. The only way to save the situation is to perform a ritual, which may involve turning on the spot three times, running around the theatre three times, or reciting Puck’s final verses from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream… Fortunately, it is customary at some opera houses to give small presents to colleagues at the premiere. This means you can still save yourself at the last second by saying, ‘Thank you… for your premiere present!’
And what about the unsuccessful dress rehearsal? There is no historical explanation for this. It is probably less a matter of superstition and more a psychological issue. If the dress rehearsal goes perfectly, those involved in a production may become overconfident, assuming that the premiere will go just as well. A bumpy dress rehearsal, on the other hand, heightens attention and tension, promising an energetic, adrenaline-fuelled first public performance.
In the end, superstition does not always need to be explained. Sometimes it is worth simply indulging in these curious little rituals and recognising the wonderful way in which they can bring together such a diverse group of people as those in opera. Why not give it a try at the next premiere? For that, I wish you all the best: Toi, toi, toi!
Hannes Föst
