With the help of his Manual, Walther ascertained that the young woman was named Maria Piavi, and that she was an Italian operatic soprano appearing currently in Uniport with a New York company.
Walther's buoyancy began to return. What better way to become acquainted with Earth's culture than to spend his first evening at the opera? He removed the announcement with Maria Piavi's picture from under the glass and stood it upright against the mirror.
Dinner in the hotel's main dining room was a confusing interlude. The cuisine was superb, the robot waiter faultless—although Walther was beginning to weary of their fixed smiles. But more irritating was the flicker of huge, tri-dimensional television screens on the walls of the dining room. When he deciphered his bill, he saw he had been taxed for the TV entertainment.
After dinner, he showed the opera announcement to the hotel clerk, and asked how to get there. The clerk wrote down the number of the monorail car he was to take, but when Walther learned the opera house was only six blocks away, he decided to walk. The clerk was aghast at this, and followed him all the way to the sidewalk, waving his arms and protesting in an hysterical jumble of consonants.
The opera house itself was a revelation. All he had dreamed of, and more. The frescoed facade! The dazzling marquee! The crowd of elegantly dressed men and women, animatedly speaking their strange syllables as they watched a floor show in the lobby. When the floor show ended, and the crowd shifted to the far end, where a pantomimist was beginning his act, Walther had a dear view of the life-size cutout of Maria Piavi in the center of the lobby.
He stood in front of it, staring with unashamed admiration. There was an earthiness and warmth about her that reminded him of the young women of his own planet. Paradoxically, there was also an air of remoteness and rigid self-discipline, a sense of emotion eternally controlled. He wondered which was the real Maria. Beside her picture was the photograph of a peppery old man whom Walther was able to identify as Willy Fritsh. The consonants under his name said he was now a producer, and had formerly directed for many years.
Walther purchased his ticket without too much difficulty. The lights blinked, and he followed the crowd into the orchestra section.
As he sank into the luxury of upholstered seat, Walther opened his senses to the sounds and sights about him, the tingling scent of the lovely women, the ebb and flow of indistinguishable conversation, the strange, short bursts of music which he found to be emanating from a tiny, jeweled radio in the purse of the woman who sat next to him.
His excitement and anticipation grew still greater when he carefully deciphered the program and discovered that Maria Piavi was to sing Gilda, in Rigoletto, this very evening. What unbelievable good luck! Rigoletto, to commemorate his first evening on Earth! Walther vaguely knew the story of the opera, but from earliest childhood he could remember his mother singing snatches of Caro Nome and La donna e mobile. Now he would hear the entire arias, the full score of this masterpiece.