How’s Bayou? It’s not over till the heroine sinks

Loyola University artist Karoline Schleh’s ‘Invisible Woman,’ painted on a 19th-century studio-photograph card, channels Enda Pontellier’s fate.

Picture poor Edna Pontellier — heroine of Kate Chopin’s ground-breaking feminist novel of 1899, The Awakening — vacationing on Grand Isle last summer, instead of in the19th-century framework of the narrative.

“Yecch!” our forlorn heroine might have cried when tar balls hit her as she waded into the Gulf of Mexico — forcing her to turn right back to shore, rather than continue her swim out beyond the point of no return.

The sheets of rain that swept over my car as I drove to Madewood this week took me back to a treacherous drive from Napoleonville to Grand Isle just over a year ago.

The previous evening, Music@Madewood had presented the Louisiana premiere of scenes from an opera based on Kate Chopin’s The Awakening in a semi-staged version in the ballroom at Madewood.

In the months leading up to the performance, everything had gone smoothly. Preparation: 10. Execution: Well . . . .

“Wait. I see a sign that says Carville,” exclaimed the composer’s wife, pleading on her cell phone for more explicit directions to Madewood. “Is that where the lepers are?”

“Uh, not really,” I thought. “Can you see the river?” I questioned. “OK, turn left and keep going.”

Unfortunately, they were on the opposite side of the river, so my instructions were exactly wrong. Hours later, they arrived at Madewood, longing for the security and dependability of the A train in Manhattan.

The year before, when Music @ Madewood presented Amy Beach’s opera Cabildo in the courtyard of the Cabildo in the French Quarter, my homemade mix-and-match bouquets of flowers from Madewood’s gardens had been a hit with singers. But, when she arrived at Madewood, the composer’s wife was nervous about this and headed off to the local grocery for flowers to present to performers as they took their bows.

She returned half an hour later to a hot-house atmosphere. And, frustrated that I hadn’t rushed out to retrieve the flowers from her rented vehicle, she cried out, “I’ve got flowers wilting in the car out there! Will someone please help me?”

Channeling my father’s brash sense of humor, I shot back, “Trust me: You’ve got bigger fish to fry!”

“What?” she demanded as she pressed her face close to mine.

“Well, the conductor just decided that he doesn’t want the performance recorded. He says it didn’t sound right in the dress rehearsal. He’s afraid the recording will not be up to par.”

Flash Gordon himself couldn’t have made it to the ballroom faster than she did; meanwhile, I ducked into the obscurity of The Broken Chair Room (chronicled in an earlier column) to hide . . . a trick I’d learned from my wife, Millie, who was in Portland, Oregon, that weekend for a how-to-turn-an-aging-former-journalist-into-forward-thinking-social-media-maven meeting.

Friends tell me it was a wonderful production. I wouldn’t know. I was too busy putting out fire.  But the Blu-ray disk that was made — after fervent pleas to the conductor — seems to confirm this. I finally made it back to the ballroom, which was perfect as Edna’s parlor, just as a Louisiana historian in the audience was pinning the composer to the wall about mistakes he’d made in interpreting Chopin. The ill-advised question-and-answer session that the conductor had initiated at the conclusion of the performance made everyone nervous, and I tried to fan whiffs of Honeybaked Ham from the nearby buffet into the room to draw everyone away.

Let’s just say that at that point, if Madewood were on Grand Isle, I would have walked out the back door, waded into the Gulf of Mexico like Edna, and never returned.

The next morning — wouldn’t you know — the early risers who’d spent the night at Madewood ate all the croissants before the performers stirred. “My sanity. My sanity,” I thought, “My sanity for a croissant!”

I retreated once again to The Broken Chair Room, before a vain attempt to drive a group of diehards to Grand Isle through a blinding rainstorm to get a taste of what Kate Chopin might have experienced on the island.

As far as opera at Madewood goes, I’ve decided to take a little break — take to my bed, so to speak, as Edna might have done. Just call it a musicological fainting spell. I’ll be back one day.

There’s been a revival of interest in Kate Chopin and The Awakening, and I’m delighted that Madewood furthered this by presenting this work-in-progress opera that I hope one day will wind up on stage.

But I’d like it to end with a 21st-century twist: As Edna’s descendants log onto nola.com in the salon of her Esplanade Avenue abode, they see in bold typeface:

“Remains of Woman Feared Dead Off Coast of Grand Isle a Century Ago Seal Ruptured Blowout Protector; BP Awards Kate Chopin Foundation Billions for Heroic Efforts of Edna Pontellier.”