What if you could rewrite your world every half century? Redesign the creatures, reassign the rulers, rewrite the book. And what if this magical book was an opera singer with a carousel dress of mythical creatures?
On Sunday morning, I slipped on a black dress and rode a tram to the Národní divadlo (Prague’s National Theater) to catch the magical world of Enchantia (Čarokraj), a Czech opera by Marko Ivanović and Petr and Matěj Forman accompanied by the Czech National Opera Orchestra.
On the way there, I passed a line of children and parents dressed in their Sunday best while a green toad led them toward the carved doors lined in gold. Spiral after spiral of red velvet stairs led me to my red velvet seat in a balcony towering over the entire theater. Peering over the edge, I started to grumble about my lack of binoculars, until the orchestra thumped to life and a white feathered parrot-man boasted a long deep chord of sound. A chorus of hooded glowing women surrounded him along with goat-men on stilts, slithering creatures, and a woman with a massive carousel dress. Instead of whimsical unicorns and winged pegasus creatures, her dress was a carousel of pages twirling with the images of mythical creatures. She was the singing book of life in Enchantia—a book with the power to change the world every fifty years.
A small screen projected lyrics translated into Czech and English. For the most part, it was incredibly difficult to drag my eyes from the amazing stage sets, costumes, and dance performances. Sound became my guiding stick as the National Orchestra powered through every emotion and gesture. The giant marching drums, the slew of violins, cellos, flutes, and chimes, the surprise appearance of modern instruments. It was a classic quest story, and I didn’t need the words.
Like the children in the row in front of me, I propped my elbows along the railing and lurched toward the spectacle bellow. Evil bird-like creatures called Cockatrices stormed the stage with spears intent on rewriting themselves as the rules of Enchantia. Suddenly, a human woman in a white dress was plucked like a daisy from the orchestra as if the fourth wall never existed. Her name was Penelope. Immediately, the opera threw me into an Alice in Wonderland style adventure—a much needed fall into another world.
During four weeks of intense studying and teaching in Prague, I almost completely locked away reading and writing fiction simply because there wasn’t enough time or brainpower leftover. For a whole month, I’ve been re-learning English in a way natives never usually do, all while adjusting and adventuring in a foreign city. Too long has my mind been filled with the laws of grammar, the intricacies of phonology, the preciseness of vocabulary, and the mysteries of Czech language and culture. For me, literature and English language are incomplete without creativity. I needed to return to the Enchanted.
I followed Penelope, Parrot, and Toad on their quest to save the world and defeat the evil Cockatrices. They sang through perilous seas, swam with mermaids, fought werewolves, escaped dang dungeons, and jumped through mythological realms. The costumes and stage sets were clouds of imagination brought to life—flapping, glowing, slithering, spinning, splashing. Humans became creatures, and the audience became Penelope plucked from the orchestra stage. And then, when the red velvet curtains slid shut, I was still Penelope, eager to return to my Enchanted world of writing, eager to rewrite my own book.
Ana Ellickson 