Those of you who have read Dangerous Neighbors (Egmont USA) know that key moments unfold within and outside of Operti's Tropical Garden, which stood on the margins of the Centennial grounds. Contemporary reporters described Operti's as "one of the handsomest places of amusement in Philadelphia. It was light and airy, and was handsomely decorated with frescoes and other paintings. Long lines of colored globes, each containing a gas jet, stretched across the interior beneath the ceiling, and shed a brilliant light upon the scene below. At the back a large waterfall dashed over the painted rocks, forming a beautiful cascade, and giving to the air on the hot nights of the summer a delicious coolness."
More than sixty performers led by a certain Signor Giuseppe Operti filled the place with music each night—the cascade being dimmed long enough for the music to soar, and then "spr(inging) into life again." Years later, working with those lines of description and this image, I was inspired to imagine a bird set free and all the nuanced consequences. From Dangerous Neighbors:
Operti’s is an aromatic cove of high skies and blooms. Gas lanterns float like kites overhead. Potted trees shadow the paths. There are the bright flags of celosia and astilbe, the yellow sleeves of forsythia forced well past their season, begonias the color of dandelions and fire, and in the midst of it all, the orchestra stage. On every wall, frescoes, and in the very back someone has painted a rock cliff of schist and granite, then turned some sort of spigot on, so that water, real water, cascades down. The sound of Operti’s is gush and violins, the squeak of a chair, the leak of gas in a jet above, a stifled sneeze in the vicinity of the gardenias, and above that the silence of every single place that has ever lain in wait for an evening audience. By the time that Katherine has taken it all in, the girl, the mysterious mistress of the bird, has disappeared.1 Comments on Talking the Centennial, Operti's Tropical Garden, and the Birthing of Fiction in Nonfiction, last added: 2/14/2011Display Comments Add a CommentBy: Beth Kephart , on 9/24/2010
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I'd posted this image long ago, before Dangerous Neighbors was a book with a home or a future. But this is Operti's Tropical Garden, where some of the novel action takes place, and I post it now so that it might send you fluttering toward the Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia, who is hosting a me interview and Dangerous Neighbors giveaway. She asked some great questions about sisters, inspirations, research. I hope my answers lived up to her curiosity.
Oh, and Cecelia: Authors are flattered to answer reader's questions, especially readers like you.1 Comments on Dangerous Neighbors interview and giveaway, last added: 9/25/2010Display Comments Add a Comment
How lovely, Beth.