I sang, but Richard didn’t like my take on hauteur. “You’ve got to put your disdain into your voice, Abbie. Do it again.”
We worked on my hauteur for a solid thirty minutes. I wasn’t getting it. Richard got more and more exasperated. “Why can’t you picture Tosca as a diva? You’re a diva yourself, and much more renowned than Tosca would have been.”
I was embarrassed. “I’m just a singer. I don’t consider myself above anybody. Isn’t that what you want me to project as Tosca in this moment? That she feels she’s above Scarpia? I don’t know how.”
“It’s called acting,” he said.
That kind of sarcasm was enough to shrivel anyone’s desire to be open, vulnerable, and cooperative. Richard’s directorial style was abrasive and unhelpful. He kept hectoring, and I kept trying, but I got worse, not better. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. “I think I need a break,” I croaked, and grabbed my water bottle.
Richard reluctantly gave us all fifteen minutes. Franco shot me a sympathetic look as we exited the room.
Sean said, “I wonder why you can’t see yourself acting haughty?”
“I come from humble circumstances. We were poor in our small town, and in a small town, they let you know it. Even after Mom got her wonderful new job and we moved to a nice Maryland suburb near DC, I still felt as if I didn’t belong. I couldn’t be like the kids who had grown up with rooms full of toys and electronics. I didn’t take it for granted. I didn’t see affluence as my due.”
In the break room, Franco, Sean, and Joe, who played Spoletta, got coffee and snacks. I limited myself to another bottle of water.
Sean said, “I’ve got an idea about how you can project haughtiness.”
Glumly, I replied. “All suggestions welcome.”
The four of us sat down together at a plastic table. Sean asked, “Have you ever heard about opera singers who toss other singers’ possessions out of a dressing room? Aren’t they haughty?”
Franco nodded. “I have heard of these. Very famous divas of history.”
I smiled wryly. “Not only have I heard about such things, it actually happened to me.”
“Oh?” Sean was intrigued. “Tell us all about it.”
I eyed my compadres. “I won’t name any names, but I’m sure if you’re desperate to know who, you can look up the performance in the archives. It happened a year ago.”
I shook my head, remembering. “I actually could not believe what I saw. I returned to my dressing room after the end of the Saturday matinee at the Nat. You probably know how it works there. You get a private dressing room only if you’ve got a major role in the opera, but they don’t have enough rooms for everybody, so you have to vacate them quickly on a matinee day. Once your performance is over, someone else needs the room.”
I took a sip of water. “So, anyway, I’m in this opera that’s really long, and the matinee runs late, but not terribly late. The audience loves us so much they give us a full five minutes of applause.”
“Nice,” Joe said.
I took another sip of water. My audience was hanging on my story.
“Go on. Tell us,” Sean said.
“I walk down the hall to the part where the rooms are, and I see a pile of stuff on the floor. It’s a long hall, and I don’t remember exactly which room is mine. Then I get closer to the pile of stuff and recognize my coat. On the floor. Also my street clothes, my satchel with my score, a few more things. I rummage through the pile and realize my underwear is not there.”
“You were performing without underwear? Tsk, tsk,” Sean said.
I mock scowled at him. “Get your mind out of the gutter. The costume had a built-in corset strong enough to hold up the Statue of Liberty.” I giggled.
“What?” Sean asked.
“It gets better. Down the corridor, I see the costume department woman approaching me. You know what that means. The costume department does not stand on ceremony. She’d rip the costume off me in the hallway. So I start banging on the dressing room door frantically, shouting, ‘Hey! I need my underwear! Now!’”
I shrugged and said, “Underwear wasn’t the exact word I used, but anyway.” I continued my tale. “I can hear someone vocalizing inside the dressing room, but I’m pounding on the door and meanwhile, the costume person is getting closer, so I shriek, ‘I need my underwear NOW!’
I made a face to underline how stressed I’d been at that moment. “Finally, the door is flung open, and I almost fall inside. A mezzo who is famous for being all sweetness and smiles on stage gives me a look that could flash fry a frozen turkey. She dangles my bra—excuse me, my underwear—in her hand, saying, “Is this rag yours? It’s trash.” Then she throws it on the floor and slams the door on me, leaving me to the mercy of the costume lady. But at least I had my underwear,” I concluded triumphantly.
Sean smiled appreciatively. Joe was taking it all in, wide-eyed.
Franco said, “I have met the diva. A little bird tells me she is close to being banned from the Nat.”
“Karma,” I said. “She used to be okay to work with, but she’s changed lately.” I took another sip of water. “Do guys do crap—sorry, stuff—like that, or is it only women?”
The men shared a look. Joe said, “Guys are worse. They deliberately hide your belongings.”
“That’s during the shared dressing room years, of course.” Sean said. “I couldn’t find my shoes for an hour once. Joker hid them behind the radiator. Luckily, it was a warm day. Otherwise, they’d have been toasted.”
“I, too,” Franco said, with an air of confession. “A vil bastardo took my pants. To make sure I could not find them, he wore them under his own costume.” Franco’s eyes sparkled. “But I took revenge. I wore his trousers home.”
Joe checked his phone. “Break time is over. The boss awaits.”
“Probably tapping his foot.” I grimaced. “I still don’t know how to satisfy Richard about acting haughty.”
“We got sidetracked by your great story.” Sean said, “You can channel your mezzo’s expression. What kind of face did she make when she opened the door?”
I imitated smelling something bad.
Sean pointed his forefinger at me. “Nailed it.”
Franco concurred. “The attitude of a grandee when addressing a peon.”
I tried it again.
Joe said, “You definitely could shrivel any nineteenth century dirty cop with social pretensions.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thanks, guys. I hope it works.”
We rose from the table and filed back down the hall to the rehearsal room.
Chapter 10
Richard was satisfied with the face I made, which was a good thing. I wanted to please the director, not disappoint him. I was supposed to work on not being a constant people pleaser, but it was good business to please the director. He was in charge of the production concept. The public who never went to operas probably thought every opera was always the same. They imagined the horned helmets for Wagner’s Ring Cycle never changed, not realizing that even sacred Wagner productions got makeovers. It was just like Broadway revivals or remakes of old movies or television shows. Every decade, there was a new and different Tarzan movie. The same with operas. The director came up with an idea and then sets and costumes were designed to complement it. Then the director instructed the singers how to act and even how to sing the roles—within limits. The music director, who at some houses was the maestro but at others was the boss of numerous conductors, might at the same time decide on certain cuts in the music, and on certain phrasing. If the music director and the production director disagreed, there was trouble.
This opera production was unusual because the opera company was spending lavishly on the principals involved even though we could give the project scant rehearsal time. Prior Baltimore opera companies had gone bankrupt or simply given up. The Baltimore Civic Opera was funded by a billionaire consortium with very deep pockets. We also were in a refurbished theate
r whose lobby had been extensively gutted to provide the one amenity most opera houses didn’t have—enough restrooms. No doubt our audience would enjoy that very much. But despite the high level of talent hired for this production, we didn’t have substantial rehearsal time. They’d made the offer to me only a few months ago, and I couldn’t get out of what I was doing until half of the rehearsal time allotted was over. Neither could Franco, who was in demand, too. That was crazy, which was why we we’d worked through the weekend.
We proceeded to the next issue, and the next. If I’d thought Richard was tough on me, it was nothing compared to how hard he pushed the others. In particular, he rode Sean to be more overtly villainous. Sean had a naturally open and pleasant expression. Good humor seemed permanently etched on his face.
Richard wasn’t having any of that. “Dig deeper. Connect to your inner sadist.”
He motioned that I should stand next to Sean. “Abbie, sing your line where you get down on your knees and beg him for mercy for Mario.”
Richard positioned Sean in front of me. “Now, when she’s on her knees, I want you to look at her in a nasty, wolfish way. You’re not deaf to her pleas, not at all. You’re enjoying seeing her humble herself. You’re drinking it in. Abbie, sing the line.” He cued the pianist.
I sang it. Richard motioned that I should drop to my knees. Awkward. As a big girl, getting down on my knees was hard to do gracefully. Getting up could be a major issue. I hesitated.
“Why did you stop?” Richard asked.
Sean said, “Let me get you a pillow.”
“A pillow? What for?”
Sean’s voice was slightly muffled as he walked across the room and grabbed a cushion from a bench. “These floors are hard.”
Richard humphed, but Sean brought the cushion back to me.
I thanked him with my eyes, but cautiously, since Richard was standing there waiting impatiently. I sang the line again, and dropped to my knees and onto the pillow, in full begging mode.
Richard didn’t like Sean’s reaction. “Abbie, do the line and the drop all over again, and this time, Sean, look evil.”
I didn’t like what that would do to my knees. “Uh, why don’t I just stay here on my knees and sing the line again?”
“No, get up and do the part of the scene.”
I counted. My therapist had encouraged me to stop and think in these power situations. I swiveled a little from my position facing Sean so I looked directly at Richard. I spoke pleasantly, but firmly. “I’m very sorry, but my knees can’t take repeated up and down. I’m happy to stay in this position, and wring my hands and be in full begging mode if that will help Sean feel a sadistic pleasure.” I glanced at Sean. “Look evil quickly, please.”
“Whatever the lady desires,” he purred, and twirled an imaginary mustache. His action successfully brought the focus back to his acting, not my refusal. Sean allowed Richard to save face after I’d disobeyed him.
And I saved my knees. Richard made me do the line fifteen times before Sean found the right facial expression as a reaction.
“Good, that’s the one. Now you look like a rotten bastard instead of the usual middle-aged lecher. Make sure you stare at her breasts. Scarpia is a sexual sadist who appreciates a beautiful woman.”
Nice to be considered beautiful. “May I get up now?” I asked.
“After you two do it again.”
I begged, and Sean ogled me, staring at my breasts in particular. Luckily, my blouse and overblouse combo was too thick to show how my nipples peaked in reaction to his stare.
“Good. Okay, done with this part. Now, Joe, I want to work on how you and Scarpia connive over the false pardon.”
Sean leaned over and offered a hand to help me stand up. Somehow, he did it without making me feel humiliated because it was so effortful for a big girl to rise from the floor.
I needed his support. “Ouch. My legs have gone to sleep.” I leaned on his arm as my tingling legs threatened to stop holding me up. “Yikes.”
Sean’s strong arm held me firmly. He was wearing another t-shirt that clung to his well-muscled torso. The shirt was russet colored, like his hair. I liked his hair, a lot. He wore it long enough to be interesting. I wanted to touch the shiny deep-red strands he tucked behind his ears. I liked his male sinews even more. I wanted to stroke his upper arm, put my fingertips on that place where the t-shirt ended and his bare flesh curved in a large muscle. “You must work out,” I blurted. He cocked his head at me in inquiry. “You’re so strong,” I babbled. Yes, I actually said that. I was very close to him. I wanted to be closer. There was something in his eyes that said he saw my need. Perhaps he echoed it.
“You okay now?” He put the feeling away and brought us back to the mundane as he led me to a chair. “I do a few things to keep in shape. Can’t always depend on a director to ask me to do fifteen knee drops.” He said it with a wry smile.
Joe and Sean did the next bit together, and I rested and wondered about Sean. Was he really not attracted to me? No. I believed I saw attraction in his eyes. Did he not want to get involved? He’d already told me we were to be friends, not lovers. But what about those kisses in the cab last week?
If they really happened, why had there been no follow-up, not even a word or look of acknowledgment from Sean? Every since I gave up drinking in my twenties, a decade ago, I was never in a fog, but that night I got spacey from exhaustion. I didn’t know how to bring up the incident with Sean. What should I say? “Excuse me, but why did you tongue kiss me within an inch of my life last week before you went on your hot date with some other chick?” Uh, no. Not going there.
Rehearsal went on and on. Richard was being very particular, but directors often were. They knew that when we went on stage to sing, we were no longer under their control. We’d do what we felt like. So they had to get us to understand what they wanted us to dramatize.
Finally, we broke for the day. No one had to remind Richard that twelve-hour rehearsals were not in our contracts, but he dismissed us with an ill grace, anyway. “Make sure you practice everything from today. No slipping.”
I said my farewells and walked out of the hall rolling my eyes and making faces I’d not dared to make all day. It felt good.
A few minutes later, I walked past Sean talking to an attractive young woman I’d never seen before. Sean smiled down at her. She gazed into his eyes, rapt. Was that how I had appeared to him only a couple of hours ago? No wonder Sean didn’t take me up on my silent invitations. He received the same encouragement from many other women.
Younger women. Thinner women. Women who didn’t have a lot of emotional baggage like mine. Although, to be fair, they probably were perpetually on a diet, just like me.
Sean must like female adulation. It seemed as if I never saw him without some girl hanging on his charm. So why did I persist in attempting to do the same?
I wanted dinner. Maybe a lot of dinner. The evening stretched ahead with nothing planned. I decided to get in some of my steps for the day by walking back to my condo. My knees were okay thanks to fighting Richard. Daylight still held sway, and the temperature was warm and inviting. People just home from work were walking their dogs and getting some fresh air.
“Abbie, wait up.”
Sean’s voice. I turned. He’d collected his messenger bag and slung it over one shoulder. He took giant strides to catch up to me.
“Walking back?” At my nod, he asked. “Okay if I join you? I need to get some exercise before my date tonight.”
“Where are you going? Anyplace interesting?”
He fell into step with me, not trying to force me to pick up my pace. “Just some restaurant along the waterfront. Want to come?”
“Didn’t you say you’ve got a date?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s only Julie from the chorus. She’s a rank beginner and I promised to tell her all about the struggle to become a lead singer. I’m sure she’d be thrilled if you joined us.”
I shook my head.
“Doubtful. She can get career encouragement from anybody. I’ll bet Julie from the chorus would like some time alone with the barihunk of Tosca.”
“You think she’s going to make a move on me?” He let the barihunk appellation pass, but seemed amused by the notion that Julie might come on to him.
“Isn’t that how it goes? Women today are straightforward about what they want.”
“She’s just a kid.” He shrugged.
We were climbing a hill, but I knew how to breathe, so that aspect was no big deal. Moving my two hundred pounds was the hard part. The hike up was weight training, anaerobic for sure. After a few seconds, I said, “I get the impression you like hanging out with women. Don’t they usually insinuate that they’d be willing to do more than just hang out?”
“Yeah, that does happen. A lot, actually.” He sounded a little surprised. Didn’t he know just how attractive he was?
We walked on.
After a few more steps, Sean said, “Thanks for the heads up. I always spend time with at least three or four women in a production, and sometimes they get mad at me.”
“I wonder why?” I asked, with fake innocence in my tone of voice.
“It’s dinner. Everybody has to eat. Why make a big deal about it?”
That was the exasperating thing about men. They could be very literal and unimaginative. I said, “Look at it from Julie’s perspective. The lead baritone asks her out. It doesn’t take much more to start calling her girlfriends and hinting that she might have a new roommate soon.”
He stared at me. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. We dream big.”
“Should I call Julie and cancel?”
I made a quizzical face at him. “Are you asking me for relationship advice?”
“Why not? You’re a woman. You know stuff about women.”
“I’m also a many-time loser at the game of love.” I made a dismissive gesture with my hand. “Forget me. Everybody has to eat. And she has to take her chances.” When he said nothing more, I asked. “Where are you going?”
“The Rock Hard Café down by the harbor. Ever been there?”
Friendzoned Soprano (Singers in Love Book 2) Page 8
