BP guest parodist: Some editor at the Anchorage Daily News. (I can't locate his name now. Sorry, mister! Your employer shouldn't've made it so difficult for me to find you again!)
Anchorage Opera's upcoming production of Giuseppe Verdi's tragic romance, "La Traviata," will be sung in Italian with English translations projected above the stage. However, the translation will be in standard English, which might be unfamiliar to many Alaskans. Therefore, we provide this Alaskan English translation following the speech pattern found in the poetry of Robert Service.
The swells of Paree were dancing with glee
In sweet Violetta's salon,
Where rich married guys swilled champagne and made eyes
At mam'selles with virtue to pawn.
Sweet Vi, understand, was a French courtesan,
Who made money by pleasing admirers
With long pedigrees, dukes and counts and marquises,
Who funded her lavish desires.
Her whims, while emotional, were hardly devotional.
She'd tried being good but was through with it.
"Drink up and have fun!" she advised all and one,
And continued, "What's love got to do with it?"
Then she started to hack from a T.B. attack,
The disease that would soon be her doom.
The guests kindly turned, partied on, and adjourned
To a sumptuous adjoining room.
Thus Vi was alone and without chaperone
When in came Alfredo, a tenor.
With his mind on romance, he jumped at this chance,
And declared his intention to win her.
Violetta demurred, "Of sweet talk, I'm cured.
Affection's a marketing matter.
Though your song is divine, take a card, get in line,
And prepare for your young heart to splatter."
But Alfredo sang on till the first light of dawn
Sent the revelers home for the night.
As his song faded yonder, the courtesan pondered
Whether this guy might be Mr. Right.