Lobetanz

Cleo, like any 3-year-old, is a rather complex little gal. She likes peanut butter but not almond butter, can read the word and but not the word sand, and prefers tights to jeans. She loves princesses, sure, but she also likes stories about Frankenstein, and now, too, tales about the first manned mission to the moon. And then there's the fact that she's often, of all things, slightly melancholy; living with her can be something like living with a Romantic poet, as she periodically announces, in a world-weary voice, that she is especially sad today because she misses... well, it could be almost anything. West Virginia? Her friend Sukie? Mom? The sense of heavy lack, defined against a deep implied love, consistently colors her mood.

In that sense, I suppose that she might be compared to one princess in particular: to the princess in Ludwig Thielle's 1898 musical play 'Lobetanz,' which was first performed in New York in 1911. The play focuses upon an especially melancholy princess who simply cannot be roused from her depression. A number of local musicians compete, in an effort to lighten her mood, but they fail - only to then watch as a melody from the fiddle of an itinerant musician named Lobetanz plunges her into unconsciousness (or what Cleo, a fan of Snow White's, would call the sleep of death). Lobetanz then falls asleep in a linden tree that had once acted as the princess's favorite seat, and is apprehended. About to be hanged, he's allowed to play one last tune - and, of course, that melody brings color back into the princess's cheeks; she recovers fully, begins to dance, and soon marries Lobetanz.

Princess, marriage; a touching, redeeming sadness: several elements of the plot catch my eye. But so, too, does the notion of a young woman's favorite seat. For just this weekend, while Cleo and I sat in front of the wood stove in our West Virginia cabin and watched the strong fire burn, she suddenly said this: "This is my one favorite place, just watching it dance for me."

Perhaps we are all, occasionally, unconscious, and roused only periodically by melodies of especial beauty.