The Role of Her Lifetime
By Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2017 Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk
ISBN 9781634863278
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
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For Ti.
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The Role of Her Lifetime
By Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 1
Marie Jacolby read through the form, one more time, to make sure everything was correct: Marie D. Jacolby, Contralto, Graduated from Julliard College of Music, Major: Opera: Voice, Had parts in…
Yes, everything was correct and spelled right. Satisfied, she paper-clipped a copy of her printed résumé and her headshot to it.
The ads had been hopeful: All roles open. No pre-casting. She had taken a deep breath. Maybe. You could never be sure, but you could always be hopeful.
She’d read the flyer that was available at the entrance. There was one part she’d love to get. Hopefully, they’d think she was good enough.
Yeah, right.
That part was the lead; fat chance of getting it.
She’d graduated from Juilliard nine years ago and still hadn’t landed a major role. She always got a part in the chorus and, from time to time, had a few solo lines. A couple times, she’d even gotten a small named part, but never a major role. Of course, most of the major roles went to sopranos. Mezzo parts were usually for character roles or secondary characters. Contralto parts were older women, the mothers or grandmothers. Even the villainous characters played by contraltos were older. There was such type-targeting in operas.
Sopranos were the beautiful heroines; baritones were the dashing heroes. Lower voices were lesser characters, and tenors were young men or comic roles.
Damn! Am I going to have to wait until I’m fifty to get a good role?
She was just over thirty, and the thought of having to wait another twenty years didn’t sit well with her.
Of course, the lead role here was a trouser role. Marie had always wanted to play a trouser role: where a contralto or mezzo-soprano plays a young man. Hansel in the opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck was one of the more famous ones.
She walked to the front of the room where someone watched the schedules and collected résumés.
The woman looked over Marie’s forms. “There was a big rush in the last two days, but it’s quieter today. We had a big response from sopranos, but a lot less mezzos, and even fewer contraltos. So your chances are good.”
“That’s nice to hear. I wouldn’t mind if it was only a chorus part.”
“There are lots of chorus parts, and one of the main characters is a contralto. You never know,” the secretary said. She grinned, almost to herself. “It’s the same as always: have a seat and wait. They’ll probably see you in about a half hour.”
Marie smiled in thanks and then turned around and looked at the other people waiting. There were about a couple dozen men, young and old, of all shapes, sizes, and colors. There was only a dozen other women. She walked over and sat beside a woman she’s seen at a lot of open calls and in the choruses of several operas.
“How’s it going?” the woman asked as Marie sat down.
“It’s the same as always. I spend more time auditioning and have less time to practice.”
“I hear you.” She held out her hand. “Jackie Allenson,” she introduced herself. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a chance to talk before, but I know you’ve been in the chorus of several operas.”
Marie shook her hand. “Marie Jacolby. It’s nice to finally get to meet you.”
“Yes,” Jackie said. “I’ve seen you at chorus rehearsals, but we were always in different groups.”
“That’s the thing about chorus parts: you never get to really know anyone.”
Jackie sat forward to look around the room. “Sometimes, I wonder why I’m here. I had three auditions last month and got nothing.”
“Well, maybe this one will bring you something.”
“Oh, God, I hope so. I haven’t had a singing role in almost two years, not even two measures. Don’t you ever get tired of just being listed in the chorus roster?”
“Oh, sure,” Marie answered. “But at least it’s something to put on a résumé.”
“That’s true, but it would be a lot better to have a role name before it.” She pushed her long golden brown hair back behind her ear.
“Something will come.” Marie took a deep breath. “My best friend plays cello. She couldn’t find anything, either. She’s been playing mood music with a quartet at a museum for the last eight or nine years. Then one day, this agent saw her and got her a job advertising perfume. Now everyone wants her to play for them. She’s ending a tour across the country, soloing with a dozen orchestras. She should be home on Sunday.”
“Perfume? That wouldn’t be Christine Anthony, would it?”
“Yup. That’s her.”
“Those ads were fantastically hot.”
“Yes, I know. Damn her!” Marie murmured with a frown, kidding.
They both laughed.
“Have the auditions today been fast, or are they more of a sing-everything-you-know deal?” Marie asked.
“I’m not sure. Some have been in there for only a few minutes, but there have been others in there for much, much longer.” Jackie looked at Marie. “I had to laugh at the ads for these auditions, though. They said all the roles were open; that no one had been pre-cast. I seriously doubt that. They always have some dynamite singer in mind for something.”
Marie nodded her agreement. “Do you know what the show’s about? I couldn’t really tell from the flyer. The only thing I saw was First Act Prince, contralto/mezzo.”
“All I know is that it’s a reworking of Cinderella or something like that. I think they want to send it to Broadway.”
“Broadway? Holy cow! Andrew Lloyd Webber and Claude-Michel Schönberg really opened the door for opera-musicals on Broadway. Les Mis and Phantom were wonderful. I understand the co
ntralto part is a trouser role in this one.”
They looked up as two men walked out of the back room. The first one said goodbye and left. The other was an audition judge. He talked to the schedule person, picked up a set of papers, and called for one of the men. That man, who had dark hair and a trimmed mustache and goatee, got to his feet and followed the audition judge into the back room..
“I know him,” Jackie whispered. “He’s got a marvelous basso profundo. I imagine he’ll get something. I think the king is a basso.”
“Wasn’t he in Rosenkavalier a few years ago?” Marie asked.
“Yup. That was him. I couldn’t be in that one. It came right at the time my dad had a heart attack.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Jackie laughed. “Don’t worry. He got better. Now he knows he can’t eat a lot of fried foods if he’s going to go hiking in the mountains.”
“No,” Marie agreed. “That’s a bad combination.”
“Yes, they had to air-lift him out of the mountains. It’s a wonderful thing they had their cell phones with them and the reception was good there. It they’d been three thousand feet higher or five miles further into the mountains, they would never have gotten him out of there in time.”
“Wow. I guess we live in the right time. Ten years ago, fewer people had cells. I can’t imagine what they did when something like that came up.”
Jackie nodded. “Now he won’t go anywhere without his, and he double-checks the reception at each stop.”
Less than five minutes later, the two men walked back out.
“That was quick,” Marie said.
“They probably know him very well. Maybe he’s one they already cast. He’s just here to make it look good.”
They settled back to wait, making small talk and silly observations as they looked around at the other auditionees. Several other men and women were called to audition; some were in there at least five minutes, others much shorter.
The audition judge escorted an auditionee out of the back room and stopped to talk to the woman at the desk. He looked around and took a set of papers. Everyone in the room stared at him.
“Allenson?” he called.
“That’s me,” Jackie said as she started to stand up.
“Break a leg,” Marie told her new friend. “Knock ‘em dead.”
“Thanks. You, too.” She took a deep breath and walked to the front. She talked to the judge for just a moment, and he took her back to the audition room.
Marie sat back and opened a magazine she’d brought with her.
Hmmm, she thought, more interesting than I imagined. I should have met her a few years ago.
Jackie seemed to be everything Marie looked for in a woman: beauty, brains, talent, and a sense of humor. Marie liked that.
She relaxed as best she could to wait.
* * * *
It was quite a while before Jackie emerged.
“Well?” Marie asked as Jackie walked up to her.
“I think it went really well. They had me sing several arias I knew and tested my range and a few other things. So…we’ll see.”
“Wow! Then I hope you get a good part.” Marie smiled up at her.
“Well, I gotta run,” Jackie said, straightening all her music and possessions. “Hopefully, I’ll see you at rehearsals.”
“Hopefully,” Marie agreed.
Just then, the judge called “Jacolby?”
“Oops, that’s me.”
Jackie gave her a quick hug. “Break a leg.”
“Thanks.” Marie walked over to the judge as Jackie left. “I’m Jacolby,” she told him.
“This way.” He led her back into the audition room.
There were two other judges sitting there. Marie recognized them: the conductor of the orchestra and the chorus director.
“Give your music to the pianist,” the chorus director said.
Marie walked over to the pianist and handed him her music. He glanced at it and nodded.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the first judge said.
Marie took a step away from the piano and turned to the judges. “Give Him This Orchid from The Rape of Lucretia,” she announced. She nodded to the pianist. He started her aria.
Her first note seemed to soar. It felt good. She fell right into the music. This was one of her favorite operas. She’d sung this piece on her senior recital. Even though it had been almost ten years ago, she knew it deep down within herself. It seemed to just flow out of her. When it ended, the judges immediately bent to each other and started to confer.
Marie just stood there, waiting.
“Ms. Jacolby,” one of them asked her, “are you familiar with the arias from the Beggar’s Opera?”
“Yes, I am,” she answered.
This might be easier than I thought.
“Can you sing for us If Love a Virgin’s Heart Invades?”
She relaxed even more. Yes, she knew that piece. It was another she’d sang on her recital. “Certainly,” she answered confidently. She looked at the pianist as he started.
It felt good to her.
The judges once again bent to each other.
“May we hear your range?” one asked.
Marie sang from the middle to the top note she could sing well, and then to the bottom.
“Can you go lower?”
Marie managed to get another two steps to come out. They weren’t the best quality tones, but they were there.
“How tall are you?”
What a strange question. They usually didn’t ask that.
“Five-five,” she answered.
The head judge wrote something on her audition sheet.
“Thank you, Ms. Jacolby,” one said as the other judge stood to usher her back out.
Once in the waiting room, Marie looked at her watch as she straightened her music and papers into her backpack. All right, now what? She’d taken the whole day off, so she had the rest of this Friday afternoon free.
Should I go grocery shopping? Go to the library and see what I could find about Cinderella? Go down to Juilliard and get some practice time? Go home and look it up on the computer?
Grocery shopping won. There was little in her refrigerator, and if she opened the last can of soup for dinner tonight, she didn’t have crackers to go with it.
“Maybe I’ll treat myself and get some chicken thighs; but not the legs, although they’re a bit cheaper.”
She could splurge and get a chicken breast, but she really liked the dark meat better. Okay, two thighs, or maybe even a whole chicken quarter. Hell, get a whole package and freeze the rest. That’s right, eat well tonight and sleep in tomorrow.
She walked slowly. This was a free day for her, and she didn’t have to rush anywhere. It felt strange to just stroll around Manhattan. Everyone else rushed to get somewhere, except the tourists, of course. You can always spot tourists. They were never in a hurry and were always looking up at the buildings. They might look you in the eye and even say hello. Natives never did that.
When she finally got home with her bag of groceries, her message machine was blinking. It was almost five in the evening. She listened to the message.
“Ms. Jacolby, this is the Windsor Opera Company. We’d like you to come in tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock for a follow-up audition. Please respond.” He left a number
Damn! Marie thought. A follow-up?” She’d never had a call-back before. It sounded hopeful. She dialed the number right away and told them she’d be there.
Those chicken thighs and mashed potatoes would taste really special tonight. She was glad she’d bought a small container of real butter and a bag of frozen peas to go with it.
“I wonder what role they’re calling me back for,” she pondered as she prepared the chicken to bake.
She’d decided to bake the entire package, eat what she wanted, and put the rest in the refrigerator. That way, she wouldn’t have to worry about cooking if she got hungry. She loved cold, left-over chic
ken or even microwaved ones. She could even cut up the meat and put it in some soup.
“I also wonder who or what I’m up against.”
Never having had a call-back, she was unsure about where it would lead. One thing she knew: it wasn’t a chorus job.
* * * *
There were nine women and one young man at the call-back. Marie recognized a few of them and knew two of the other women. Jackie Allenson was one of them.
Marie smiled at her. “Hello. I see you got a call-back, too.”
“Yes, maybe we’ll both be lucky.”
“Oh, I hope so.”
“I was so excited when I got that call. I had a very hard time falling asleep last night.” Jackie shook her head, woefully.
Marie smiled at her. “So did I. I think I tossed and turned most of the night, trying to second-guess what they were thinking.”
“Me, too,” Jackie said. Then she saw another person she recognized and turned to greet her.
When Marie looked up, a blonde immediately took her into her arms.
“Marie!” the blonde exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Hi, Ashley,” Marie responded with a smile, accepting Ashley’s light kiss on the cheek. They were basically the same height, but Ashley wore boots with a three-inch heel. She towered over Marie. “How have you been?”
After dating for a few months several years ago, they remained friends.
“The same old same old,” Ashley responded.
“But you’ve been getting some dynamite parts,” Marie said.
“Small parts, minor roles.”
“Not all that small,” Marie corrected her.
“They weren’t leads.”
“Still, they were roles.”
“Yes, roles,” Ashley repeated with a sneer, “small parts.”
“There are no small parts, only small actors,” Marie quoted the great acting teacher Constantin Stanislavski, striking a very theatric pose.
Ashley glared at her. Then they both broke into laughter.
“You haven’t changed,” Ashley said with a smile. “Still the same jokester.”
“And you haven’t changed, either,” Marie retorted.
They were interrupted by a young girl who was handing out a double sheet of music. Marie looked at it. It was the beginning of a duet from the opera. The two lines were Ella and Young Prince.
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