The singer's trained and assured voice delivered the notes from a century and half ago, and with a sweeping gesture, she tried to negotiate that distance, summoning the retired muse here in the space before us. The other hand clasped the case of the Steinway. The muse would not come. And who could blame her; for the most part unwanted or unacknowledged, she nevertheless held fast to her dignity.
And this art, it seems, has been dying for generations. The sapphire bracelet and the gown are thrown over her, though they cannot diffuse the staleness of the air, the hollowness of the tones, the cold toll of bells in an abandoned parish church.