This Terrible World
Very few novels dare to embody what they explore. Anne Patchett’s narrative, Bel Canto, however, is an exception. Bel Canto is utterly unique in that it explores opera and is operatic itself in nature. While reading the gripping scene of the initial takeover, Patchett’s words take musical form; as the tension builds, a skilled soprano climbs higher and higher into a note of a suspenseful aria. But Patchett’s novel isn’t only operatic in language. Along with including several specific elements of opera, Patchett mirrors opera’s format. In true opera form, Bel Canto is divided into three distinct acts: before the arrival of sheet music, after the arrival of sheet music and the government intervention.











Patchett begins act one with an essential element of opera, an overture. Similar to the summary one would find in the playbill, she spends the first eight pages setting the scene and introducing two main characters Mr. Hosokawa and Roxanne. Patchett continues to describe the occasion for the elaborate affair, Mr. Hosokawa’s birthday. The only “reason the host country …was throwing a birthday party of unreasonable expense” was in hopes that Mr. Hosokawa, “the founder and chairman of Nansei, the largest electronics corporation in Japan” would “smile on them… and help them in some of the hundred different ways they needed helping” (Patchett 2).





The overture, however, establishes much more than the scene; it also ingeniously establishes a contrast. All the elements of the lavish birthday party: the balloons, the cake, the black tie attire, the toasts, the laughter, the singing and most of all the kiss, will starkly contrast life in captivity.







Also important to note is that the overture always takes place in the dark. Patchett follows convention and extinguish the lights with Roxanne’s last note. In addition to dramatic effect, the darkness introduces the motif of self-identity-the distinction between who we are in the light and who we are in the dark. In the three acts to follow the characters will explore their conflicting identities and endeavor to meld them into a singular self.
Yet, Patchett is much too sophisticated for an aria of motif. She elevates the overture by catalyzing her character’s discovery for self with a second motif, love as it develops in confinement. The “strong and passionate” kiss on page one is an omen of Patchett’s future exploration of love (1). Throughout the three acts Patchett suggests that suffering makes us love more passionately and that we find ourselves by loving another.











Of course there are some elements of our identities we must define for ourselves such as gender. Patchett explores two character’s gender identities though a popular element of opera known as the “Trouser Role”. It was convention for 17th century operas to feature girls playing the part of boys whose voices have not yet changed. Bel Canto’s Carmen and Beatriz fill this niche. The hostages are initially under the impression that Roxanne Cross is the only girl. “And yet to everyone’s genuine surprise, two of the junior soldiers [turn] out to be girls” as well (117). Patchett’s inclusion of two “pants roles” is anything but arbitrary; she artfully incorporates this operatic element as a means of indirect characterization.







Patchett juxtaposes Carmen and Beatriz in the same role to contrast their dissimilar personalities. Beatriz is tomboyish in spirit; she does not pretend to be a boy, rather she simply isn’t feminine. Conversely, Carmen purposefully hides her gender. She “is much too beautiful” to be a boy with her “sweet warm smell” and “long … smooth neck” (118). Carmen’s attempt to conceal her gender symbolizes her inner struggle with self-identity. She is weak and doesn’t want her femininity to emphasize the fact.

More surprises unfold with Patchett’s incorporation of the operatic element the Cadenza. While the Cadenza in the traditional sense, is the section of an aria where a singer improvises, Patchett’s two cadenzas are metaphorical in implication. Both Tetsuya Kato and Cesar “improvise” when they reveal surreptitious talents. Tetusuya Kato, a man who works for Mr. Hosokawa and “ha[s] a reputation of being good with numbers” reveals his gift for playing the piano (127). Cesar, similarly, reveals a creative talent. He shocks everyone with his ability to sing opera. Additionally, just as cadenzas are rhythmically free, Kato and Cesar finally get the chance to free their inner selves. In this way Patchett builds upon the motifs begun in the overture, suggesting creative expression is equally conducive as love to self-discovery.



Patchett relieves the reader in-between acts one and two with an intermission. The delivery of the sheet music gives the reader a chance to get comfortable and stretch their legs because once “Messener br[ings] the box into the house everything chang[es]” (162). The delivery marks a complete shift in the dynamics of the house, “before the box the terrorists controlled the Vice President’s home” after the box “Roxanne Coss [is] in charge”(162).










Along with the shift in dynamics in act two, Patchett changes the set. Opting for a more somber environment, Patchett ushers in the rainy season in which the host country is blanketed by a garúa. The garúa, “more than a mist and less than a drizzle [hangs] woolly and gray over the city” and helps convey a sense of timelessness (106). “Time, in the manner in which they had all understood it, was over” (106). The garúa isolates Vice President Ruben’s house from the rest of the world; no one can look in or out. Cut off from everything else the characters look inward. Thus, it’s the garúa that ultimately fosters the creation of an alternate reality and the character’s discovery of self.











Given that, it should not be a surprise that when the garúa clears in act three, the sunny weather does not bring prosperity. Act three is the tragedy the audience has been waiting for; with sunshine comes the tragedy of self.





First Cesar falls, then General Benjamin, then Ishmael, and then the rest. And as each terrorist is shot and “spit out of this terrible world” their new identity ascends with them. Four months of life, love and self-exploration perish—as it always does when we leave the opera.

Works Cited
Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto: A Novel. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Print.