Why do Singers Wish Each Other Toi, Toi, Toi?

Elaine Alvarez in BLO's 2015 production of Kátya Kabanová.
Photo by Eric Antoniou.

Opera lovers may be familiar with the phrase, toi, toi, toi, uttered among singers before the house lights fade and the conductor lifts the baton. Pronounced TOY (rather than TO-WAH like the French word for you), the mystique of this tradition of well-wishing is woven tightly into the superstitious history of the performing arts and the multicultural mélange of opera. So, what does toi, toi, toi mean, and where did it come from?

Working in the theater is one of the most superstitious professions, said to be second only to horse racing. This is undoubtedly in part because there is a long history of backstage crews being made up of sailors on leave, navy or otherwise. Sailors brought with them their own traditions and superstitions that, when brought into the theater, stuck. For example, to whistle on deck of a ship is considered bad luck, and so it is also bad luck to whistle onstage or backstage in a theater. Among the many things it is unlucky to do in a theater, one of the worst is to wish a performer good luck.

Toi, toi, toi is an onomatopoetic imitation of the sound of spitting, done to ward of a hex or evil spirits. It is always uttered three times, and sometimes accompanied by pantomimed spitting over someone’s shoulder while in an embrace. It comes from Yiddish, Hebrew, and Old German traditions where saliva was believed to have demon-banishing powers. Some even say it is a shortened version of the German word teufel, meaning “devil,” thus uttering his name to ward him off. It is a common good luck sentiment to wish someone in Germany regardless of the context. How this became specifically associated with opera remains a mystery, but in the superstitious theater, warding off evil spirits can only be helpful!

Alternatively, you may have heard opera singers wish each other in bocca al lupo, Italian for “in the mouth of the wolf.” The traditional reply is crepi il lupo, or simply crepi, meaning “may the wolf die.” It is an Italian idiomatic expression that refers to any challenging scenario, likening it to being caught between the jaws of a wild beast. Perhaps this is similar to the circus trick of putting one’s head in the mouth of a lion or even a biblical reference to Daniel in the lion’s den. Although it is also unclear how this saying became associated with opera, it is clear that Italian theater and music traditions have had a tremendous influence on the art form.

The most common and well-known (at least in America!) expression of good luck in the theater is “break a leg.” There are many anecdotes and theories as to how this tradition began, yet the sentiment remains the same. Similarly, at the ballet, and later extended to all dance forms, dancers wish each other merde in French. Again, there are many theories about how this tradition began, but this one is my favorite: Since wealthy patrons used to arrive by horse-drawn carriage, the more horse droppings out in front of the theater, the more paying spectators were inside!

So next time you are in the Theatre District and happen to run into a performer before a show begins, tell opera singers, “Toi, toi, toi!” or “In bocca al lupo.” Exclaim “Merde!” to a dancer, and when in doubt, “Break a leg!” will always work. Above all, honor the long-standing and often strange tradition in theater by avoiding the words “good luck” before the curtain opens; if not you may risk unintentionally wishing the opposite!

Want to read more? Check out these online articles!

• Houston Culture Map
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• Seattle Opera Blog

- Rebecca Ann S. Kirk, Manager of Education Programs

Opera Expectations

Before interning with Boston Lyric Opera, I had no exposure to opera. However, working behind-the-scenes during Macbeth allowed me to learn what opera is really about through I a story I already knew. I broke through many of the preconceived notions I held about the opera.

These are a few of the misconceptions about the opera that I had:

“I won’t be able to understand an opera because I don’t know {insert language here}.”

When I attended the new Broadway production of West Side Story, in which Spanish lyrics were incorporated, I felt concerned about seeing a show in another language. I know everything about West Side Story and I studied Spanish for five years, yet I left feeling confused. How could I appreciate and enjoy an opera I know nothing about, told in a language I don’t understand? However, my fears were assuaged when I learned many opera companies project English translations (called supertitles) on screens during the performance, allowing the audience to follow the story and appreciate the amazing vocal talent. Additionally, there are operas composed in English, like Peter Maxwell Davies’ The Lighthouse, which BLO will produce in February as this season’s Opera Annex.

“Opera is just a bunch of people singing. Only people with intense vocal training can really appreciate it.”

When I first entered the Citi Performing Arts Center^SM Shubert Theatre for Macbeth, I initially noticed the display of bodies hanging from the ceiling of the stage. The scenery was awe-inspiring. Don’t get me wrong; opera is about the amazing vocal talent. However, it is also a performance, which makes it a theatrical experience.

I have a bit of vocal training, (as much as high-school chorale can provide), enabling me to appreciate how talented and well-trained the singers are. However, even someone who has never sung a note would be impressed.

“Operas are so long!”

Although many operas run longer than a typical movie, musical or play, an opera production tends to have more intermissions. Although the run time of an opera performance may be four hours, the audience isn’t expected to stay seated the entire time. There are two to three intermissions! This provides time for the audience to stretch their legs, visit the restroom, grab a snack and get excited to experience the rest of the show.

“I don’t think opera is my thing.”

If one has never seen an opera, how does one know? Take a chance; Carpe Diem!

Attending the opera is a unique and interesting experience that enriches the individual. While it may be a new and scary experience for many, I encourage everyone to take a chance and try something new, see an opera! I think you’ll figure out for yourself if it really “ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”

-- Elyssa Sternberg, Boston University ‘15

Intern Ramblings: Opera & Gum

I only chew gum when I’m at work. I used to chew gum all the time, but gave it up when I was seven because my mom said I chew like a cow.

Don’t tell my mother, but every time I work at my internship at Boston Lyric Opera, I pop a piece of gum in my mouth and start filling subscription orders and filing ticket forms. Initially, I thought this gum habit began because the first couple of days I worked at BLO I didn’t want to offend my new colleagues with any lingering lunchtime breath. I chewed a piece of gum. The habit stuck. However, I think that this habit is more than just a way to freshen my breath.

Freshman year of college is like throwing your life into a blender and praying the end result isn’t too messy. I find there are very few constants as my life changed over the past few months: my hair still doesn’t cooperate, I still like to talk, (much to my roommates’ dismay) and I still love the rush of putting on a show, from anywhere, playing any role in the process.

So here I am -- at Boston Lyric Opera -- learning what happens behind the curtain. It may seem odd, but filing paperwork and will-call tickets is therapeutic. I chew my gum, file forms, sing “Merrily We Roll Along” to myself and work alongside some really cool people. I learn not only about the mechanics getting a ticket into the patron’s hand, but also about this little thing called opera.

I admit the extent of my opera knowledge is limited to the episode of "Hey Arnold" where the students of PS 118 dream themselves in Carmen (Lyrics include: “My name’s Don Arnold, please have a caramel; your hair is lovely, do you like my pants,” it is a must-see). I don’t speak Italian, German or French. However, I speak theatre.

I know the excitement of sitting in a seat, program in hand, gazing around at the architecture of the performance space. And the only way you get there is with a ticket. Maybe I handled yours.

Although the rush of college is great, sometimes, in between T-rides and Anthropology homework, what I need is to organize will-call tickets, listen to The Barber of Seville and chew some gum. Working for Boston Lyric Opera is an entirely new experience for me and I appreciate every second of it.

--Elyssa Sternberg, Boston University '15

Operatic Recipes

Tired of boring old roast turkey and pumpkin pie?

Try a few new recipes from some operatic kitchen wizards (or in this case to be more specific ... witches). These are excerpted from A Book of (Culinary) Spells which was published by the Medea Press in neighboring Salem for our Hocus Pocus Gala patrons in October and we'd like to share some of them with you ... but be careful in your preparation ... strange things can happen! Bon Appetit!

Do you have a favorite seasonal dish? Perhaps you have an operatic recipe waiting in the wings? Share yours and win your own copy of A Book of (Culinary) Spells for more spooky recipes!

SEIZE THE POWER - OK, BUT THEN WHAT DO YOU DO WITH IT? (Part 2)

By, BLO Artistic Advisor John Conklin

In the end, is what the artist meant important? The production result (not the process or even the intent) is what matters. Good artists work on many levels within themselves and often (thank God) produce work that they may not completely understand. Accepted ambiguity can provide meaning, stimulation, involvement. (It can also, of course, in less skilled hands produce uninteresting muddle.) A group of artists producing an opera on the stage creates a stimulus—the stage production. They need to commit themselves totally to the evolution of that stimulus through discussion, conceptual thinking, research, but they must, in the end, give it over to the recipients, the members of the audience. The artists in a sense lose control, but that is the glory and often the misery of being an artist. You don’t own the piece any more—your audience member now does. Is it possible for an artist to be misunderstood or misinterpreted? This is a question that goes to the heart of the artistic exchange.

Personal anecdotal case study number two: After a performance of Don Giovanni, which I designed, I was accosted by a audience member—red in the face, veins throbbing. I thought, “Oh, great, now I’m going to cause the death of an irate operagoer.” He sputtered, “I didn’t understand ANYTHING that you did in that production. Was Giovanni in a wheelchair because he had syphilis?” He went on and on. After a bit I gently stopped him gently, “Sir, you said you didn’t understand anything, and here you have just give a quite thorough and detailed explanations of what it meant—to you.” “But is that what you meant?” “That makes no difference.” (Actually his explanation of Giovanni’s wheelchair was a completely new thought for me, and in some ways a more interesting interpretation than what the director and I had discussed.) Pause. The furious red drained away. As he walked slowly away, he said, “Maybe I should go back and see this again.”

I had somehow given him permission to have his own thoughts, interpretation, to OWN the production for himself, which was his right... and responsibility. The power to take over and experience a piece in your mind is a joy and a rush. We live in culture which tells us all the time what to think and what things mean—critical reviews, experts’ comments, labels on pictures in museum which explain what to think. Fear of being wrong, fear of appearing stupid, colors people’s reactions and make them passive receptors. We as producers need to make each audience member unafraid, to give the control back to them.

TO THE AUDIENCE--SEIZE THE POWER (Part 1)

By, BLO Artistic Advisor John Conklin

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for Opera America Magazine. I am very interested in the "problem" of how an audience member might approach an opera performance--whether for the first time or the 50^th--whether a standard repertory piece or a new or unfamiliar work. Do you need to "prepare"? .... and if so how?  I'd love to have your feedback on these questions or others raised in the article. Let's get a discussion going here.  Next week, another excerpt.

With the coming of projected supertitles, the somewhat ridiculous notion of having to do “homework” before attending a foreign language opera performance should have receded. In those far-off days before titles, what was one actually supposed to do? Study a detailed but inevitably too generalized synopsis of the action (insufficient) or memorize the libretto’s text by heart (impossible)? The theatrical experience is a moment-to-moment accumulation of words, visual images, sounds, music, narrative action and psychological development given from the stage and received by any given audience member in a detailed and complicated exchange.

But with the growth of opera company education departments (ostensibly a positive development) this notion of homework has, if anything, become more pervasive. I myself have put together a number of programs designed to somehow prepare people for a production. Is this a good thing?

Personal anecdotal case study number one: I attended a performance at English National Opera of Nicholas Hytner’s production of Handel’s Xerxes. I was familiar with Handel’s stage works in general but I didn’t know at that point any of the specifics of this one. I had read no reviews, I deliberately avoided looking at any of the publicity pictures, I didn’t read the synopsis in the program or even look at the cast of characters. I was thrown into the midst of a complicated plot whose character relationships I had to work out as they came up. Plot twists, betrayals, misunderstandings were surprising, unexpected, sometimes shocking. The opera was sung in English and, this being the era before titles, you were compelled to really listen to what they were saying ... at the moment. The design and the staging were complicated, witty and allusive—unexpectedly combining Baroque elements with Assyrian motifs. In other words, there was a lot going on, but the result, rather than one of overwhelming confusion was one of the most compelling (and totally entertaining) evenings of opera I have ever experienced. Much of that engrossing delight and interest was, I think, generated by the unfolding of a surface narrative—a good story that I was receiving and understanding for the first time as it unfolded.

In the American opera world generally, a dearth in the repertory of new operas and the seemingly obsessive dependence on the “standard” repertory has led to loss of the sense of surprise, of a journey into unknown territory, of the excitement of discovery based on unexpected revelations of plot or character or idea. We have so often lost one of the basic attractions and pulls of theater—an attraction and pull that seems to live on the surface but which can draw one in deeper and deeper and lead one beneath that surface into whatever depths are appropriate and available. And this pull is the simple storytelling question—“what’s going to happen next?”

I understand how sharing a bit of the plot line might be useful in selling the opera in a brochure or advertisement, but I believe suspense, curiosity and good old-fashioned dramatic storytelling are time-honored ways of drawing an audience member in. You notice I say “audience member.” I am opposed to thinking of “the audience” as an abstract entity to be educated or performed AT. Each person is different, with a totally different and unique set of emotions, experiences that interact with the stimulus emitted by the stage and the pit to produce a totally unique event.

Confusion sets in when we think of a performance as an event that is prepared and delivered by a group of artists to a more or less passive public that more or less receives it. In the end, a theatrical event doesn’t actually happen on the stage; it happens in the mind and heart and guts of each individual audience member.