Every time I walk past the Italian restaurant Tutta Pasta on Washington Street in Hoboken, I hear opera arias in my head. Last week as I glanced up at the restaurant’s sign, sounds of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” went wafting through my mind and got locked on the Queen of the Night’s aria, which forced me to hum it all the way home. If dreams are the brain’s way of ordering events and data we receive each day, mine did an Oscar-winning performance that night.
The scene in my mind opened with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his friend Antonio Salieri eating pasta primavera at the front table at Tutta Pasta, right near the actor Danny Aiello. With their velvet breeches, ruffled shirts, buckled shoes, and white powdered wigs, Salieri and Mozart stood out starkly from the rest of the crowd.
Tutta Pasta is a popular dining spot for actors, singers, tourists, and Hobokenites in general. However, the management cannot document if Mozart ever actually dined in Hoboken. They can tell you about Elvis and Sinatra spottings, but Mozart spottings, never.
According to my nocturnal date book supplied by Morpheus, it was June, 2006. Why Salieri picked June to celebrate his friend Mozart’s 250th birthday, which was in January, is unclear. It was also unclear as to why Salieri chose Hoboken, rather than Salzburg, Mozart’s birthplace, as a place for a party, but apparently the movie theater on River Street was showing the film Amadeus, and having missed it the first time due to the technical limitations of living in the 18th century, he was really anxious to see it.
“Have schnapps, Wolfie,” Salieri urged Mozart, “you’ll feel better about the movie.”
“Better? What an arrogant confabulation about my life! Do I look like an idiot? How was I to know my Enron stock would go to zero?”
Salieri nodded in agreement. “A ridiculous notion, indeed. You, a compulsive gambler! Me, your jealous murderer, ha!”
Mozart suddenly jumped up onto the table. “You film producers are all liars!” he screamed. “Cosi fan tutta pasta!” (May pasta fall on all your houses!)
Aiello, calmly dining at an adjoining table, enjoying his Fettuccine Alfredo, seemed totally nonplussed. One concluded that Aiello was used to such scenes, and is therefore very tolerant of people acting either in character, out of character, or without character. He knows that deep down we are all actors at heart. A waiter in red silk pajamas ran towards Mozart’s table, twisting his ankle as he tried desperately to reach the two eccentric men who were disrupting the otherwise calm ambience of the restaurant.
“You don’t understand!” Salieri hissed, grabbing the waiter by the lapels. “People think I tried to murder my dear friend here, when, in fact, I was only trying to help him get a job! He composed 41 symphonies, 25 operas, 30 piano concertos – more than 600 musical works! And he died at 36. Imagine if he had he lived to be 100?” “Joe!” the waiter shouted hoarsely for the manager.
Salieri was undaunted. He had been Beethoven’s teacher. He was a man of musical and physical substance. He had eaten many dishes of Fettuccine Alfredo in his day. The manager appeared, a big burly fellow well over six feet tall. He towered over Mozart and Salieri.
“All right, move it,” he glowered at them.
Aiello continued eating his meal, unperturbed, although you could hear him singing Papageno’s aria from “The Magic Flute” under his breath as he plucked the radishes out of his salad.
Mozart and Salieri, forcibly ejected from Tutta Pasta, stood on Washington Street, confused. Mozart’s wig was lopsided, Salieri’s left sleeve hung, torn in the scuffle.
“We didn’t pay the bill,” Mozart said ruefully.
“I can’t find my money, Wolfie. Besides, they use these funny plastic things here, Maestro Cards, I think…”
The scene ended as abruptly as it began. The two men from another time and place disappeared into the Saturday night crowds of Hoboken and dissolved in the evening mist of my dream. – Pamela Ross
Hoboken resident Pamela Ross is an actress and pianist. Comments on this piece can be sent to: current@hudsonreporter.com