Wednesday, November 7, 2001
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Wednesday, November 7, 2001 |
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Of chocolate and music By
SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
Did I ever tell you about the chocolate museum in Köln, Germany? It's a must-see for any self-respecting chocoholic, believe me. I found it on one of my long rambles around that city while visiting our daughter Mary last year. Her rehearsal schedule at the opera house meant I had to amuse myself many hours each day, and I got to know the old city very well. I was particularly entranced by the mighty Rhine River and its steady stream of barge traffic, so on this particular chilly day, I walked from near Mary's apartment to the downtown area several miles along the river walk. Tired, and ready to turn in toward the shops and restaurants, I saw what appeared to be the prow of a huge glass and metal ship close to the bank. This demanded closer inspection. As I drew near, it became obvious I was looking at a building, one that apparently had been built over a span of centuries. Part of it looked like a Renaissance-era fortress; the far end looked like an unused warehouse, and then there was that ultra-modern prominence. The whole thing was set off from the bank far enough that a visitor crossed a narrow canal on a gangplank. It was the Chocolate Museum. I knew there was a Chocolate Museum in Köln [Cologne], but assumed it was some hole-in-the-wall. Wrong. It was spectacular. You enter through glass doors nearly surrounding a lavish lobby, with a dining area to the right and the most sumptuous gift shop to the left. Naturally the fragrance of chocolate drifts through the building, and detailed exhibits show the growing, harvesting, and preparation of cacao. There's even an old-fashioned glass conservatory in which cacao trees grow. Then you enter an actual production area, with displays of equipment from the primitive to the modern, and lo and behold, real people operating a real chocolate factory. An attendant standing in the very prow of the "ship" offers a stick she has just dipped into a swirl of lukewarm chocolate. I thought I was in heaven, looking past her to the surging waters of the Rhine, as though I was piloting a boat under the massive railroad bridge built by Kaiser Wilhelm, while chewing chocolate off a stick. Such sensory overload is inhumane. During the year Mary lived in Köln she never got around to visiting the museum. She loves chocolate as much as I do, but when I described the place, she looked skeptical that a museum for candy could possibly be so interesting. She moved back to Gelsenkirchen when that year's season ended, having taken a position in Dortmund, but returned to Köln to play a summertime gig at the Chocolate Museum. That concert proved to be rather challenging, even if it was intended primarily as light entertainment. Apparently the agent who arranged the evening gave the performers free rein to put together their own program and players. Mary was to accompany a baritone and a soprano, but they couldn't schedule practice together because of their regular commitments. Then one after another canceled out for a variety of reasons: The soprano moved and it wasn't worth it to her to come back. Her replacement's day off got changed, and then, just two days before the performance, the baritone came down with chicken pox caught from a nephew. As the only survivor in the group, Mary kept having to recruit replacements, then work out a program everyone could do with only one rehearsal. "I got the American baritone in Gelsenkirchen to do it," she wrote me later, "but of course it meant more work for me, deciding on the program and practicing with him, and then all together." The third soprano, Claudia, was "a good choice because she knows a lot of repertoire, including stuff the first girl sings, plus a lot of operetta and Broadway." Everything worked out well. Hey, these people are pros. "We did fine," Mary said, "and it was fun looking out over the Rhine blue skies for a change. Later, after it was dark, you could see the Strassenbahn [streetcars] coming over the bridge, but not the bridge itself." She did get annoyed when one of the singers "didn't think 500 marks each was enough, and that people weren't paying enough attention to them." I couldn't blame the audience if it was distracted. The view was sublime. "We were upstairs, with tables set up longwise in front of big windows parallel to the Rhine. And as it turned out, we got 600 marks." Don't anybody tell the baritone and soprano or their agent, but Mary would probably have done it in exchange for a large shopping bag and half an hour in the chocolate gift shop.
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