《纯真年代》的前三章.docVIP

On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York. 70年代初一个一月的晚上，克里斯廷·尼尔森在纽约音乐院演唱歌剧《浮士德》。 Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances above the Forties, of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the new people whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music. 虽然人们早就议论要在第40街以北的远郊兴建一座新的歌剧院，其造价与壮观将和欧洲那些著名首都的歌剧院媲美，然而上流社会却依然满足于每年冬天在这座历史悠久的音乐院红黄两色的旧包厢里进行社交聚会。保守派的人们欣赏它的窄小不便，这样可以把纽约社会开始惧怕但又为之吸引的“新人”拒之门外；多愁善感的人们因为它引起许多历史的联想而对它恋恋不舍；而音乐爱好者则留恋它精美的音响效果。在专为欣赏音乐而修建的厅堂中，音响效果向来都是个棘手的质量问题。 It was Madame Nilssons first appearance that winter, and what the daily press had already learned to describe as an exceptionally brilliant audience had gathered to hear her, transported through the slippery, snowy streets in private broughams, in the spacious family landau, or in the humbler but more convenient Brown coupe To come to the Opera in a Brown coupe was almost as honourable a way of arriving as in ones own carriage; and departure by the same means had the immense advantage of enabling one (with a playful allusion to democratic principles) to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line, instead of waiting till the cold-and-gin congested nose of ones own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy. It was one of the great livery-stablemans most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it. 这是尼尔森夫人当年冬天的首场演出。那些被日报称为“超凡脱俗的听众”已经