Opera Graphic Summary
Act I:
Scene I: Home (Background)
Nothing fit. She wasn’t fat, but she wasn’t skinny either. Her clothes were bland, loose fitted. Nothing that hugged any area too tight. She wasn’t bad looking, but she wasn’t someone men were interested in sleeping with either. When she made an effort to be. She looked older than she was. She missed being young. She dreamed of being wealthier. She longed to be skinnier. She ached to be loved. She ached to feel wanted. She had messy brown hair, sporadic acne, and chapped lips. Her eyebrow arch was disappointing. Her husband barely paid much attention to her anymore. It’s not like he was so impressive either, but women liked him. Women were drawn to him. Maybe because he was tall and didn’t talk about his family much. More importantly, did not talk about her much.
Scene II: Walking passed Mannequins (Commute to Work)
The Big Apple swallowed her whole; she often felt like the worm inside it. She intentionally walked by Bloomingdales daily on her way to work, admiring all the women who were able to afford walking in and envying the women with full ‘big brown bags’ walking out. Yet, what she idolized most was not the lucky woman walking through, but the impeccably dressed, thin mannequins that stood flawlessly in the store windows. She saw herself in their lifeless and featureless faces. She was constantly trying to align her reflection to match up with their gorgeous figures. She tilted her head to the perfect angle, coordinated her arms and legs to match the woman behind the glass window, but when it came to her hips, breasts, and stomach, her body never matched up to their perfectly sculpted bodies. She never thought about how silly she must have looked trying to imitate the mannequins because she was always just too busy envying every part of them. The mannequin’s outfits were changed regularly, always flaunting the chicest trends and were positioned seductively, showing off their hollow curves. She spent minutes ogling the beautiful plastic women before until averting her eyes and eventually forced herself to continue walking.
Scene III: Work
Even during work, she could not wait till her lunch break to go back to the big spotless windows to look at the molded woman in luxurious clothing. Her eyes always wandered towards the plastic black and white clock that hung near the bulletin board across from her desk. She was rarely productive at work. She just constantly scrolled through designer clothing on her laptop and wished she had a thick enough wallet to afford anything in her online cart. The gorgeous plastic mannequins danced around in her head, stopping to do their perfect poses, flashing their Louis Vuitton hand bags and clicking their expensive heels as they walked around in circles in her mind. Christmas was coming and the thought of the famous holiday store front windows on Fifth Avenue made her mouth drool until an abruptly obnoxious ring from her office phone awakened her. She hoped it was a call from her husband checking in, but of course it was not. It never was. She answered the phone in the same monotone voice she always did, repeating the lines she was told to memorize when addressing a customer. She despised her boss who had flowers delivered to her from her fiancé daily, and she hated having to put them on her bosses desk. The letter attached to the bouquets were always romantic, seductive, and charming, which the She envied. When she read them on her way up the elevator, she lived vicariously through them, falling more and more in love with the words on the card. She always made sure to tuck the mini card back into its mini envelope, double checking that her tears didn’t stain the heartfelt masterpiece.
Act II:
Scene I: Waiting in Bed
As she washed up for bed after a long day at work, she sifted through her underwear drawer, pushing aside the lingerie she hadn’t worn in months. She carefully got into bed, pretending like she had a sleeping husband by her side whom she wanted to wake up to. Falling asleep was hard for her. She was always half awake, due to the hope of her husband returning, however, her husband would arrive after she would fall asleep. Waiting for him was exhausting. Though it always took time for the sadness to subside, her dreams took her to a place of pure bliss and relaxation, where she danced around in lavish clothing amongst the long legged slim mannequins.
Scene II: The Wish
One morning, her 7:00 AM alarm shrieked as she threw her hand across her body to press the snooze button on her iPhone. She pushed aside her scattered hair, hoping to see her husband sleeping beside her. It was the second night in a row that he hadn’t come home. As she swung her legs off the bed and placed her feet on the floor, she felt a weird sensation in her feet. Her toes felt numb. When she looked down at her once flesh colored toes, she saw that her whole right foot was bleach white. She quickly swung her leg over the other and tapped her chipped nail polish fingers against the white plastic foot that was attached to her leg. She pulled her foot as close to her face as possible examining the familiar looking white piece of plastic that was now a part of her body. It did not take her long to realize why the body part looked oddly familiar, her foot looked just like the mannequin’s foot on Fifth Avenue. As she stood up from the bed, the artificial whiteness spread up her leg till her hip. Amazed, she walked towards the bathroom, grabbing her glasses from her night stand, cleaning them with the corner of her loose tank top. Her thoughts took her to hopeful and optimistic places. She couldn’t wait for her husband to see her perfect figure. Maybe he would come back. Maybe he would finally find her sexually appealing. She would finally be able to fit into form fitting clothing. Her skin was turning into a beautiful gleaming white which hid her acne and imperfections. She was ecstatic to stand perfectly and beautifully in the New York City department store windows in her ostentatious wardrobe. Maybe her husband would actually look at her longingly. Maybe he’d make time to see her. Her heart soared when thinking about the big brand names she would model for, Gucci, Prada, and Burberry. The expensive brand names were music to her ears. She even felt warmth at the idea of the quality clothes hugging her slim body, her stomach turned with excitement. She felt the plastic crawl up her other leg and stomach as she took each step. She took a long look into her full-length mirror and gasped. Her right thigh was made out of a glossy plastic, but was large and bulky compared to her left thigh. She looked down and saw that her right toes were thick, bleach white, and beefy, sticking out of her attached plastic sandal. Her left toes were perfectly sized and glazed with what looked like white nail polish. When looking straight into the mirror, she saw that her breasts were uneven in size and appearance. Her waist was lopsided, and her neck was at an odd angle at which she could not move from. She looked at her reflection perplexed and unsatisfied. The plastic continued to creep up her body, but it started to settle and dry like new concrete on a city sidewalk. As it moved up to her face, the plastic washed over her chapped lips and all the hair on her head fell to the floor. She could no longer move. She could no longer talk. She was stuck, as usual, facing her imperfect reflection in the mirror. She longed for something else, for a different body.
My reflection:
This opera focuses on the contemporary issue of longing for the ideal body image which society constructs. The opera ends tragically due to showing a contemporary issue and not ending with a “fairy tale”. How society and advertisement portray media is a contemporary issue which goes unspoken for and this fictional story is one based on non-fictional experiences. The opera takes place in a 21st century society and each scene is set in the most common places locations: home, commute to work, work. She receives no attention from her husband and seeks to be a non-existent object in which society constructs as being ideal. When she gets her wish, she realizes she is unhappy with being a mannequin and longs to be her original self. In today’s world, people have a constant desire for wanting something else instead of being satisfied with what they have. This opera can teach one many lessons such as be happy with what you have, you don’t realize how good you have it until something is lost and society creates social constructs which can alter a person’s happiness. Additionally, this story’s two main characters purposely go unnamed and are called by their pronouns due to their names being symbolic and correlated to each person’s gender. Lastly, throughout each scene there will be songs but mostly sad ones due to the girls sad life and there will not be many characters, rather, there will be a narrator and many internal dialogues.
Andrew Langer
