Heldentenor

I was walking along the rue Aubernon, heading for the Boulangerie La Belle Epoque to get the morning's semi-industrial quantities of bread and viennoiseries. The streets were still wet after the passage of the cleaning lorries, and the delivery men were working full swing replenishing the bars with their stock for the evening's beuverie.

Suddenly, over the metallic din of beer kegs being rolled from lorries, there came a sweet tenor voice, from the part of the street reserved for an antiques market (flea market really). The tune was what attracted me first: a modified and quirky version of "O sole mio". It was only when I got closer that I could pick out the text. The Heldentenor was lyrically intoning, with perhaps a touch of indulgent melisma and rubato, "O va fa'n cu-ulo, faccia di me-erda" as he was setting out his stall of junk. It was perhaps the most successful combination of pre-existent text and pre-existent music since Parry and Blake were married to each other in Jerusalem.

A circle of admiring junk dealers crowded around and joined in, perfectly in tune and on time, for the final, exquisite "merda". It was one of those fairytale operatic moments when, at the theatre, you forget the daft libretto, the wooden acting and the uncomfortable seats in the stalls, and just soak in the emotion. As of course you are meant to do.

After buying the bread, and on my way back through the flea market, I could see that the same auteur was now addressing his fellow squatters. They were approving of a recent move by the gardes mobiles, a somewhat antiquated term for the dreaded CRS riot police, to rid Antibes of traveling folk, aka gypsies, aka Romanians. The junk sellers, all franco-français and LePennistes, couldn't see the irony in the fact that they too were occupying public space, creating an obstruction, and (for those privileged to understand Italian) debasing the local moeurs with their exotic song.