What Love Is

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OONA MILLIKEN, HOST

In today’s commentary, Zijie Yang recalls a creative collaboration that helped him better understand opera, and himself.

ZIJIE YANG, BYLINE

I went to college at the University of California in Berkeley. One evening in late autumn, I was in my apartment, and I heard someone calling my name. I looked down from the balcony and my friend Tom from the music department shouted up from the street: ”Do you know what love is?”

Tom was like that. People walking by turned to look. I called down, “What’s wrong with you?”  “Let’s write a story about love,” he shouted back, grinning.

He came up and explained he recently read a collection of letters between the author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and his wife Consuelo. Tom proposed that we collaborate on an opera based on the letters, and the story of the Little Prince–how he embarked on a journey to find the meaning of love, and returned to his planet with his beloved rose, even though it meant he had to endure the bite of a poisonous snake. 

I had never written an opera, but his passion was infectious and I agreed.

(Vivid theme from opera)

Over the next six months, he came to my apartment in the evenings and we wrote overnight. I sat on the keyboard, typing, and Tom at the piano. Once a song was finished, he sang it out loud. I clapped and sang along. Sometimes, very late at night, the neighbors knocked on the walls. 

We were tired too. And sometimes for a break, we’d go down to the street. On clear nights the sky was starry, and the moon was bright. We named the constellations and zodiac signs. I told him about the bright dot at the side of the moon. It was the Venus. 

One time as we were walking on the street at night, I tripped over the curb. He grabbed my hand and held it for a moment (is this last bit true? Seemed it needed a slight nod to emphasize the contact)

When we finished the opera, Tom suggested a walk in the Berkeley Rose Garden. The roses were wilted and faded in winter, but the sun setting over the ocean turned the pedals gold. He handed me a copy of the script and I opened it and saw the dedication…to his long term girlfriend, and “to Zijie, a friend that spent so much time with me exploring the story together.”

But my feelings towards him were more than a friend. When we worked through the nights, I feared the morning, when he packed the music scores in his bag, grabbed his olive green trench coat, and left. I had never felt attracted to a person of the same sex before. 

After the last rehearsal before the show, I asked him to stay with me backstage. I mumbled and stuttered, and finally, in a light, joking tone, said “You know, I really want to say, I love you. The level of attraction, probably more than a friend.”

He responded, he appreciated the closeness and intensity of the collaboration. And he hoped we could work together again in the future.  

Through the process of writing the opera, I gained a greater understanding of what love is. And I realized that the attraction that I feel isn’t limited by sexuality or gender. I understand I would and I can feel attraction to a person of the same sex. And maybe I needed to know that, to write an opera about love.