Voice of Destiny

by JH Fletcher

  ‘Got anywhere to stay?’

  ‘I thought here.’

  She’d come twelve thousand miles; the least he could do was find her a bed. Edma decided to be gracious about it. ‘I’m sure we can fit you in somewhere.’

  It was ridiculous. All she’d wanted was to get back to her roots. She’d thought of catching up with her father, re-establishing the closeness, unspoken but real, they’d had once. Now she felt she’d stuck her foot in a dingo trap. She didn’t want to change her father’s life or interfere in any way, yet how, without insulting them, could she say they had nothing to fear from her? She decided to settle for what she could get. She smiled as she accepted Edma’s offer. ‘That’ll be good.’

  At least their welcome extended to supper. Over chops Ted said: ‘You don’ sound like an Eyetie.’

  Which might have been an overture of friendship, although it seemed Edma still had doubts. That night, wrapped in blankets in a corner of the living room, Lucy heard her carrying on behind the closed bedroom door. It reminded her of her mother and Eduardo, in the old days. The next day she decided to cut her losses.

  ‘I’ll be off, then.’

  Ted looked uneasy. ‘We haven’t had the chance to talk much.’

  Not that they ever had. While Edma kept a conspicuous silence.

  ‘I’ve got to make a living,’ Lucy said. Out of his depth, Ted scratched his head. ‘Maybe Sydney. That’s the place for opera singers.’

  ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  Twenty-four hours after she’d arrived and with her plans for a joyous reunion in tatters, Lucy was on the train back east.

  3

  She found a job as an invoice typist, and a one-room roost in Kings Cross. She survived, that was the best she could say. She’d had this romantic notion of her father; now there was nothing at all. More and more she wondered what she was doing here. She wrote to her mother, who didn’t reply, and to Marta Bianci, who did. Marta told her that Teresa Sciotto was making a name for herself; there was talk that La Scala might find a place for her in a season or two. I wish you would come home, Marta told her. The longer you leave it, the harder it will be. At least make sure you keep up with your studies.

  Fat chance. There was a pit before her, bottomless, in which lurked despair. She was in no mood for study. She bought half a dozen cream buns to console herself.

  Music lovers were thin on the ground in Oz; when she heard of John and Aïda Dickens, who had a name in Australian music, she found out their address and turned up on their doorstep. With little faith in her chances, she bent their ears about her career in Italy during the war, how she’d been Marta Bianci’s pupil and sung the title role in Fidelio at the Parma Opera. John gave her a thoughtful look. Two days later he contacted her at work and invited her to audition. The woman in charge of the typing pool ticked her off.

  ‘No personal calls in office hours, if you please.’

  The old bat could take a jump, as far as Lucy was concerned. She hadn’t sung a note for weeks. Over the next two days she spent every spare moment vocalising in a desperate attempt to catch up. When she arrived for the audition, John Dickens handed her the music of Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppaea.

  ‘Know it, do you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Give it a shot. See how you go.’

  He heard her through.

  ‘We’re putting on a performance of Purcell’s Dido. Would you be interested?’

  After it was over she wrote to Marta Bianci to tell her about her star billing and how successful the performance had been. Marta was pleased for her but cautious.

  Very few people here even know where Sydney is. This is where you should be, and the sooner the better.

  Through Aïda Dickens she met a man called Anwar Bendurian who claimed to be an impressario. He offered to find her roles in Europe and America. He was a showman or at least a show-off, with two-tone shoes and a tie bright enough to light the way home from the pub, but he seemed to know what he was on about.

  ‘Your friend’s right. You’ve gotta go to Europe, the States. I got contacts in every capital city in the western world. Voice like yours, they’ll be queueing to sign you. But hearsay won’t get you far. You gotta be there so they can hear you.’

  She asked Aïda about this Anwar Bendurian who talked so blue a streak.

  ‘He claims he’s got contacts,’ Aïda said. ‘Does he think he can do anything for you?’

  ‘He says so.’ He’d shown her letterheads from Rome, Paris, Chicago, all of them eager to audition singers of the top rank, had said, ‘That’s you, baby. But they won’t sign up anyone they don’t know from ten thousand miles away.’

  Aïda agreed, and asked, ‘Why did you come back to Australia, anyway?’

  ‘To find my roots. But I’m beginning to think my roots may be in Europe, after all.’

  ‘Go back, then, as soon as you can raise the fare.’

  She thought about it, went to see Anwar at his pint-sized office.

  ‘I’m taking your advice. I’m going back.’

  He clapped his hands. ‘I’ll get things moving straightaway. I got an agreement here for your signature.’

  She looked at it; it was one of those legal documents tight with clauses and subclauses, couched in phraseology incomprehensible to all but lawyers and quite probably to them, too. What the hell, she thought. And signed it. She went back to Europe.

  4

  As soon as she arrived in Italy she went to see Marta Bianci, who greeted her with open arms but little else. Operatic roles were hard to find and what she’d done in Sydney interested no-one. Anxiety had fuelled Lucia’s appetite. All the way over on the boat she’d stuffed herself; waddling down the gangway at Genoa she had been twice the woman who had left Australia. With no employment in sight and beset by fears that she had once again done the wrong thing, she went on feeding her face: pasta, cream, butter, cheese.

  Marta Bianci protested but it made no difference. Lucia Visconti had become fat and, as the weeks passed with no engagement in sight, as she heard more and more of Teresa Sciotto’s successes in Italy and South America, she became fatter still.

  Fortunately it didn’t affect her voice. She worked on it every day, developing and polishing it assiduously. It was a wonder to all who heard it, but Anwar Bendurian’s promised help had failed to materialise and what use was a voice, however wonderful, without an audience?

  She went to see her mother. They spent an awkward evening together. The ghost of Eduardo and of the future that Helena believed she would have had with him stood between them still. More and more Lucia was convinced it always would. Her mother cloaked herself in grievances to protect herself from loneliness, complaining constantly about a world that had denied her the place to which she believed herself entitled. All the world was in conspiracy against her and she was determined to make the most of her role as self-appointed victim. Lucia suspected Helena was as anxious to see her go as she was. They kissed the air beside each other’s cheeks and it was over.

  Lucia retreated to Parma where she was once again forced to work in a typing pool. Unspoken lamentations soured the air; her career was over before it had begun.

  5

  A cold, wet January day, its bleakness an apt reminder of a coming year that, like its predecessor, held little promise.

  Lucia had an appointment with Marta Bianci at the conservatorium. As she braved the dismal streets, the air with a hint of sleet, she wondered why she was bothering. Art had proved a delusion. She would be better off to forget all about it and get on with her life.

  She went into Marta’s room. Marta Bianci was seventy years old now, hard to believe but true. Her hair was grey but she seemed as energetic and decisive as ever. Lucia saw from her expression that something had happened, the teacher so excited she could hardly get the words out of her mouth.

  ‘Zenatello is in town!’

  Giovanni Zenatello was as old as the hills — he’d been the original P
inkerton in Madama Butterfly, for heaven’s sake — and his presence in Parma was hardly news to turn winter into summer. However, Marta hadn’t finished.

  ‘He’s artistic director of the Verona Festival. He wants to open with Gioconda. He’s been in New York looking for a soprano. He auditioned Zinka Milanov but she wasn’t right, and Herva Nelli was too expensive. So he’s still looking. I’ve spoken to him and he’s agreed to give you an audition this afternoon.’

  Dear heavens. Lucia thought she was about to faint.

  Marta said: ‘I’ve got the score here. Let’s get to work.’

  It was what Lucia had wanted, more than life, yet now she was scared to death. It was all she could do not to refuse the opportunity. The possible opportunity. The impossible opportunity. That was the problem. She studied herself in the mirror, the rolls and layers of fat, the porcine creature she had allowed herself to become. Marta’s own words, spoken so long ago, tormented her: you must be elegant. Now look at her. She was not destined for success; to audition would be to face the certainty of rejection. She could not bear to think of it.

  Marta, somehow, understood. That was the miracle of this woman; always she understood. She came and held Lucia, rocking her gently. After a minute she stood back, hands still on Lucia’s shoulders, and smiled at her.

  ‘Come.’

  And Lucia went.

  They practised all morning. When she went to the audition, she was so frightened she barely knew where she was. Before going into the room she brought all her willpower into play. She focused on what was waiting on the far side of the door. She was neither Lucia Visconti nor Lucy Fisher. She was not in wintry Parma but in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. She was the ballad singer Gioconda, her lover lost to her, her mother vanished, who in her despair was thinking of killing herself.

  She could certainly relate to that.

  She steadied herself. She forced herself to breathe deeply. Calmness replaced terror. It was Gioconda who opened the door and went to meet her fate.

  6

  ‘Four performances! Conducted by Serafin!’ She danced, giddily swinging both Marta and herself.

  Laughing and protesting, Marta said: ‘How much?’

  ‘Peanuts!’

  And again she laughed, while triumph spilled with every breath. What did money matter?

  7

  August, and the start of the Verona Festival. The arena was bright with the thousands of flickering candles that, by tradition, were lit during the overture to any operatic performance.

  Lucia waited. She had gone to another place, deep within herself, far from the world of candleflame and audiences. She was apart, poised, ready to receive and convey the moment of revelation. It was a sacrament in a world where music was breath.

  The overture ended. The candles went out.

  A masterly performance — Il Gazzettino

  Fine musicianship coupled with a magnificent sense of drama — Corriere del Teatro

  Vast molten and lyrical sounds … Masterly inflexion … Ethereal beauty contrasted with stark fatalism … A revelation — Corriere della Sera

  8

  Serafin shook his head fiercely. ‘I strongly advise against it.’

  The Festival was over. The only offer Lucia had received was to sing Gioconda again at a small and unimportant theatre near Milan.

  ‘I must do something. What other offers have I got?’

  ‘They’ll come. For an artist as talented as yourself, they will come.’

  Easily said. Nevertheless, frightened of offending the great conductor, she refused the offer from Milan and went back to the typing pool, bashing out invoices until she was almost cross-eyed and half dead with boredom, waiting for Serafin to be proved right, for offers to flow like miracles from an indifferent world.

  Days passed, then weeks. The world, it seemed, had run out of miracles. Then Marta showed up at her workplace.

  Indignation like the furious quacking of ducks as the grey-haired woman thrust herself purposefully between the typists at their clattering machines. The manageress threatened to fetch the police.

  ‘The police, Signora! You hear me? This is the place of business of a famous and respected company! You have no right to come bursting in here.’

  Marta turned on her, a termagent in stilt-heeled shoes.

  ‘This office will be famous, Signora, because of the woman you employ here.’ She gesticulated in Lucia’s direction. ‘This young woman, Madame, is the most talented soprano in Italy! And soon she will be the most famous!’

  Marta blew away both manageress and typing pool with her contempt. She turned to Lucia, sitting wide-eyed and motionless at her machine.

  ‘Catozzo is looking for someone to sing Isolde in Tristan at La Fenice in December. Serafin wants you to audition for the role.’

  ‘I don’t know it.’

  ‘Then you must learn. Serafin is expecting you this afternoon. You’ll have to sight-read the score. Once he’s satisfied, they’ll give you a proper contract.’

  She sang; Serafin recommended her. She would go to Rome where he would coach her himself. She would sing, she would sing …

  The miracles had been late in coming but now, it seemed, they had begun at last.

  9

  On its home turf, Venice’s Il Gazzettino was as supportive as ever. This living miracle …

  After Isolde, Catozzo offered her the role of Turandot, which she sang in January of 1949.

  In April she sang the same role in Rome, and it was there, at a dinner in her honour, that she met a man who briefly swept her off her feet.

  Harry Lassiter was at least twenty years older than she was, tanned and spare, with dark eyes and a mane of grey hair. He was, he informed her cheerfully, recently divorced.

  ‘I’m sorry …’ She did not know what to say.

  He shrugged. ‘It happens.’

  ‘You sound as though you’re used to it.’

  ‘Clarice was number three.’

  He chuckled as though it was a joke to have married and failed three times in — what? — thirty years. It would normally have put her right off him but for some reason did not. He was a man confident both in himself and the world in which he moved. Confident with her, too. She was growing used to men who were intimidated by the up-and-coming diva; Harry was not like that at all, and it was a refreshing change. She liked him. He was charming, he made her laugh, he showed her a good time. The three failed marriages no longer seemed important. She thought it would be easy to fall in love with such a man. She realised later that she had been lonely, her identity lost behind the voice that more and more was becoming the centre and focus of her existence. It made her an easy target for Harry’s practised skills.

  After their first night together, she felt she had been operated on by an expert. After each performance she could not wait to get back to the hotel where she knew he would be waiting in her suite. She was getting out of her clothes before the door was shut behind her. He transported her, again and again, into a writhing ecstasy. And yet …

  Perhaps it was his technique, bringing her so effortlessly to climax, that left her unsatisfied. Because technique was all it was. It was fun, but there was nothing more. She had thought she would discover his hidden depths but there were no hidden depths to discover.

  They were together a month, then she moved on to Genoa. He gave her a valuable miniature, they parted friends; she thought of him kindly, but the relationship held no future for either of them. She thought how lucky she was to have found out in time. Now it was back to her career, and the real world.

  She was a great hit in Genoa. Then, in September, she went on to Udine.

  Her mother’s country. Lucia paid Helena duty visits from time to time; now her finances were improving she was able to send her a little money but they were not truly reconciled. Now she asked her whether she would come to Udine to see her first appearance in La Forza del Destino. To her surprise, her mother accepted.

  They had dinner to
gether after the performance. Helena was only fifty, yet disappointment had drawn deep furrows in her cheeks and she looked ten years older than her years. She said: ‘Things are going well for you?’

  ‘I’ve been getting a reputation. More and more people are beginning to hear about me.’

  ‘When are you going to appear at La Scala or any of the other major theatres? Paris, London, New York?’

  ‘When they invite me.’

  ‘Don’t let them keep you waiting too long.’

  Lucia was exasperated, not because Helena was saying these things but because she was right. La Fenice apart, no major opera house had shown any interest in her at all, whereas Teresa Sciotto, or so the papers said, had just enjoyed an epic triumph in San Francisco.

  ‘I’ll write and tick them off.’

  Some of her irritation must have shown in her voice; Helena looked at her with an expression at once combative and sardonic, proud and contemptuous.

  ‘You need to do something.’

  Once again, she was right. Udine had been another triumph, yet Lucia returned to Parma out of sorts with herself and the world, with no new engagements in sight.

  Once again she was missing her father, not the stranger she had met after the war but the father she would have had if she’d stayed in the mallee, the man whose silent but kindly presence peopled her earliest memories. She would have liked him to be proud of her; only success, absolute and unqualified, would compensate for losing him. She told Marta Bianci she was getting nowhere.

  ‘Maybe I should’ve stayed in Australia, after all.’

  Marta had a way of dealing with such nonsense.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  She spoke to Serafin, Serafin to Siciliani, director of the Teatro Comunale in Florence, and Lucia was once again summoned to an audition.

  Siciliani was planning to put on a performance of Madama Butterfly but Lucia was too fat. She had never forgotten the comments about Sciotto. Even if the role were offered to her, she would not accept it; no-one was going to call her a sumo wrestler. Instead she sang excerpts from Tristan‚ Gioconda and Turandot.