LENA

"It is," he said. "That's the point."

"She doesn't find out until the third act?"

"Second," he said. "The third act is what she does with knowing."

I looked at the stage, which was still dark and pre-performance, the anticipatory quality of a space that was about to become something.

"What does she do," I said.

He looked at me.

"You'll see," he said.

The lights went down.

I want to be precise about the next two hours because precision is the only honest way to account for them. I did not become an opera person. I did not have a conversion experience, did not feel the thing I...