[Sound effect]

Terrance McKnight: This is the Open Ears Project

Deborah Frances White: This piece of music I share with new friends when we're sending YouTube clips of our favorite music back and forth. It's a real litmus test for me. If you don't feel this one, our friendship is not long for this world, you're an acquaintance. But, if this makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little, and you feel the the longing and the loss for all the loves that might have been, but they got off the elevator and turned left and you turned right, then we will be friends for a long time.

[MUSIC PLAYING: Mozart’s “Soave sia il vento.”]

00:55

I'm Deborah Francis White. I'm a comedian and writer and I'm best known for the Guilty Feminist podcast.

I've chosen “Soave sia il vento” from “Così fan tutte” by Mozart, which I think may be one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the history of the world.

Così Fan Tutte is an opera about an older man who challenges two younger men to a test to check that their girlfriends are faithful and they fail that test. 

This song is when the two young women are waving their lovers off, they think they're going to war. They're not. They're going to come back in costumes and fake them out, but in the end, all is forgiven, everybody gets married. Uh… LOL. 

02:15

I was raised in Australia, in a beach town, and when I was 14 my family became Jehovah's Witnesses, and then everything was banned and we'd gone from being a - a household that was, uh, full of music and books and ideas, and all of that really had to go in the alternative, uh, pursuit of worship of God. 

And so I had to drop out of everything I did, and I wasn't allowed to go to university or college, um, and it wasn't for quite a few years that I was able to get out of that in my twenties and find myself again.

I first came across “Così fan tutte” when I went to see it in London. I have to confess, I was still a Jehovah's Witness, I hadn't left yet. 

03:04

So I remember sitting in the Coliseum, a very beautiful theater, looking at all the couples around me who were happy, and I couldn't imagine even what it would be like to go on a date, even though I was in my early twenties, ‘cause I'd never had anything romantic at all. And, even though I'd never been kissed, the music could make me feel it and understand it.

But something absolutely remarkable happened that night. I was on my own on the tube and I was looking at the program and a man next to me started talking to me and he said, “Have you been to the theater?” 

I said,  “I've been to the opera.”

And he asked to see the program and he took it from me and he started twisting it in his hands back and forth and said: “Will you be my girlfriend?”

And I thought, Oh no, what do I do? And I just looked to my right and there was a handsome young man about my age, and I just took a chance and said: “Oh, I'm so sorry, this is my boyfriend Bob.” 

And the handsome young man came to my rescue and said: “Yes, this is my girlfriend. I'm sorry. She's already taken.” 

And he took the program out of this man's hands and straightened it out, gave it back to me, and started speaking to me as if we were together. 

Now my stop's coming up. We're having so much fun talking about the opera and how wonderful it was and what we thought of the performance and, and I thought, what's going to happen when I get off at my stop because this man might follow me off. And, uh, this other young man isn't going to be getting off here, but like an operatic plot, he was!

04:59

When we got in the elevator to go up above ground, he said to me, “Well, normally this is where the kiss would happen, but I'm really sorry, I'm um, a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, you'll know me as a Mormon, so I can't do that. I can't kiss a girl who isn't of my faith.” 

And I said, “Ha ha ha, I'm a Jehovah's Witness.”

05:24 And we're both in these strange, you know, culty religions, I mean, we wouldn't have put it like that, but that was the acknowledgement between us. And as the elevator doors opened and we came out, his parents were there waiting for him and we went our separate ways, but I do think of him sometimes, and I think of this lovely moment of opera post the opera where people were pretending to be who they weren't, and a dashing gentleman stood up for me. And although it wasn't my first kiss, it should have been.

06:19

I mean, I'm pretty much an atheist now, but I think all good atheists should be agnostic because we don't know… but I do think if anything is divine, it's music. 

And there's nobody, in my opinion, better than Mozart for allowing one voice to join with another, and they can be saying something slightly different or musically doing something slightly different, but they really demonstrate together the value of holding your diversity. It's like, oh, okay you are different, but you can be included. But what Mozart writes is diversity and belonging. We're not including you. You belong here. 

07:11

[OPEN EARS THEME MUSIC: Philip Glass’s Piano Etude No. 2]

Terrance McKnight: Comedian and author Deborah Frances-White chose Mozart’s “Soave sia il vento” from the opera “Cosi fan tutte.” It’s coming up. Stay with us. 

10:54

[MUSIC: “Soave sia il vento” from “Cosi fan tutte” by W.A. Mozart]

Terrance McKnight: This is The Open Ears Project. Join us next week. We’re going to hear about Franz Liszt from musician Damien Sneed.

Damien Sneed: That moment would finally give me an opportunity for the first time to exhale and to sigh, and to release all of that stuff about being adopted and rejected and being accepted, and is it OK to look for my family and what's it gonna be like?

Terrance McKnight: The Open Ears Project was conceived and created by Clemency Burton-Hill. I’m Terrance McKnight. I’m just pleased to present season two of his podcast to you. 

If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform, and if you’ve got a story about a piece of classical music, we want to know. Email us at openears@wqxr.org. You can also head to our website, WQXR.org, to check out our other podcasts about classical music.

Season two of The Open Ears Project was produced by Clemency Burton-Hill and Rosa Gollan. Our technical director is Sapir Rosenblatt, and our project manager is Natalia Ramirez. Elizabeth Nonemaker is the executive producer of podcasts at WQXR, and Ed Yim is our chief content officer. I’m Terrance McKnight. Thanks so much for listening.

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