Wrangler Dani

Saturday was my 32nd birthday, and my sweet husband showed his absolute devotion and studliness by taking me to a three-hour opera to celebrate. I love Handel’s Messiah, but have never heard it live, and our little 1940’s-era theater downtown was hosting a performance.

It was a magical evening and I left feeling very inspired – not only because the music and singing was incredible, although it was. I was inspired that our little town of 100,000 people has a group of 40 or so “mastersingers” who devote their free time to being really good at opera. It’s an odd hobby for a Central Oregonian, in a place that values exertion over art, and the latest trendy vibe over 250-year-old songs of Christendom; yet here is a broad swath of humanity – young, old, light, dark, male, female – who are all excellent at their craft and share it unabashedly with us. The musicians must spend hours and hours practicing an odd instrument – the oboe or the upright bass – just so that when the time comes they may lend their skill to something really beautiful. They get their names in the program but no spotlight, no payment or other recognition for their art. All we know is that we would miss them if they weren’t there, that the music would not be as beautiful without their labor.

The world is a scary place, sometimes, and it’s easy to feel small and foolish in my little pursuits of beauty. I want to say something inspiring and honest, and yet I even scoff at my own ambition. Who am I to dare to believe that my creativity could make the world better, brighter? Do I really believe that a world of refugees and war needs my voice?

But I watched a beautiful woman with long gray hair pulled back in a sensible bun step forward and give the most earnest sonata I’ve ever heard, just because she can, because her heart would burst if she didn’t. I watched a young man clear his throat before his solo, straightening the bowtie of his tuxedo and holding his sheet music book just so, devoted to excellence despite his nerves. They dared to believe that their art could make the world a better place, that singing a 250-year-old chorus in a 75-year-old theater could matter.

The program had a quote from George Frederic Handel, which said, “I should be sorry if I only entertained them, I wish to make them better.” It seems to me that watching “The Messiah” was our attempt at being better. We are beating back the night with beauty, giving standing ovations for earnest solos and small-town violinists, reminding ourselves that “unto us a child is born” and this is indeed a reason to create, to rejoice, to sing with fervor and to give each other hope.