Opera and Superstition
The public hears a great deal about operatic traditions, but very little about operatic superstitions. That superstition breeds upon the stage is well known, and in opera there is no exception. Indeed, superstition become polyglot, and the superstitions of all the countries whence have come the artists make a singular congregation of ideas. Some artists are superstitious about all manner of little things. On the stage, for instance, it is considered very bad luck to say the "tag" of the play. The "tag" is the last word or line before the curtain goes down. Once this is uttered, the performance is doomed to ruin just as certain as is the household where some one rashly turns the loaf of bread upside down on the table. Just why theatre folks and opera folks, many of whom have had international careers, fine educations and cultured surroundings, cannot break away from superstition is hard to tell. Of course, many ignore everything of the sort; but there are others who instinctively wear certain articles with as great faith in their efficacy for success as the talismans of tenth century alchemists.
Luigi Arditi tells of the superstitions of the great Marietta Alboni. Like many others, she was subject to the "thirteen" fear, and would have nothing to do with things connected in any way with that number. Once she was given room number thirteen in a Western hotel. The proprietor had been warned, but the only room he had was thirteen, and he cautiously pasted a piece of paper over the number on the door. Alboni comfortably fixed in her room suddenly thought that it would be a good idea to find out the number of it. She picked up a candle and peered out into the darkness of the corridor. In a far shorter time than it takes me to write these lines the whole house was in a fearful uproar, bells were ringing, and the hotel people and guests were rushing about in a state of panic, thinking they were about to be burnt alive or murdered. Alboni was discovered standing in front of her door in the attitude of a tragedy queen, with the candle in one hand and the fatal piece of paper bearing the fictitious number in the other. No persuasion on earth could induce her to retire quietly to room 13. Finally an elderly gentleman consented to get up and give his room in exchange for that of the hysterical prima donna. Then, and then only, was quiet restored and the guests allowed to return to their slumbers.