“I think I’m done with walking,” I said.
We called one of the city’s convenient internet cab companies and got picked up quickly and without fuss. The driver admitted he was happy to find that we hadn’t been drinking. “The late-night crowd is usually drunks,” he said. “Worse, they vomit.”
Sean and I smiled and said nothing. I was thinking about how our night might end. Hoping maybe Sean wanted to be my lover after all.
Back at the hotel, Sean and I agreed on a very early wake-up call so we could get back to Baltimore for a full day of rehearsing. At my door, we dawdled a little. It had been a quiet, pleasant night in the friendzone. Maybe I could accept that the friendzone was all Sean wanted from me.
He leaned in and kissed me on the lips.
It was a soft kiss, full of promise. He pulled back and didn’t kiss me again. I know my eyes asked him why. His revealed nothing but friendliness. He reached out a hand and touched my cheek. “Goodnight, opera lady.”
I wanted to leap on him and kiss him past the friendzone, but he was being so sweet I couldn’t break the mood. “Good night.” I pushed my door open and went inside my single hotel room, wishing I hadn’t talked him out of sharing a suite with me. I leaned against the closed door and indulged myself in a fantasy of us being in the hotel room together. A minute later, I shook myself and unpacked my satchel to get ready for bed. I saw the “emergency” candy bars I’d thoughtlessly stowed there. I tore open each wrapper and deliberately threw the candy into the trash can.
Chapter 7
Sean and I rushed to make our Amtrak train the next morning, neither of us in a talkative mood. I’d gotten about four hours of sleep. Not enough. We both napped in the designated “quiet car.” I woke up from my stupor at one point to find my head resting on his chest and his arm around me.
I should have moved away, but I didn’t. Was this the friendzone, or something more? He held me so firmly. I felt protected and cared for. I snuggled closer, and his arm tightened a little. I dozed off.
When the conductor announced, “Baltimore in three minutes,” we both stirred and naturally separated and gathered our things.
I heaved a big sigh. “That’s better.” I tried to wake myself thoroughly. “I need coffee. It’s going to be a long day.”
“Coffee first stop, then over to the opera house. We’ll make our call hour with time to spare.”
Sean took charge of the coffee and the cab, and we showed up on the dot for our first full day of rehearsal. Franco, the tenor, had arrived. We were old pals, and he greeted me with European hugging and kissing of the cheeks. Now we were ready to do some work.
The maestro himself, Herr Kaufmann, attended the morning meeting. In bigger opera houses, going through the music with the singers might have been left to the assistant conductor, but we had Herr Kaufmann’s full attention part of each day. Another reason I’d signed on for what was basically a regional second- or third-tier opera company.
The director, Richard Laiken, explained his concept. A wiry, middle-aged man with a reputation for sarcasm, he’d be cracking the whip over us daily, too. The set and costume designers came over and talked a little about how their work reflected the director’s ideas.
Before we began the slow, meticulous slog through every note of the opera, work that would continue for two weeks and be barely enough rehearsal, we went to the stage itself. It was moderate in size, big enough for the Act I crowd scene of worshippers in the cathedral of Sant’ Andrea della Valle, but small enough for the intimacy of the pivotal Act II scene in the Palazzo Farnese. The curtain was up, so I could visualize how high my jump off the roof of the Castel Sant’ Angelo could be at the opera’s end. Not that high, which was a relief.
The auditorium was a decent size, but not overwhelming like the Metropolitan Opera or the National Opera in New York. The Baltimore Civic Opera had only one balcony. Two aisles in the orchestra section kept the rows from being overlong. The house probably seated under a thousand people. Big enough to be a good challenge, but not too big. Unlike many an opera house, the décor was all purple velvet and silver gilt. The effect was more modern than the typical red and gold—or gold plus rococo gold—of so many other opera houses.
Usually we rehearsed in a separate rehearsal room. The lights on the stage made hanging out there for hours and hours hashing over a musical phrase uneconomical. At some opera houses, like the Met in New York, there would be another performance and other rehearsals simultaneously, so using the stage was out of the question. But Baltimore Civic was housed in an old theater that was dark at the moment. We had the luxury of hearing how our voices would sound in the actual auditorium. Not that we listened for that necessarily, because an empty auditorium reflected more sound than one filled with people. An audience absorbed sound. We fine tuned our voices in small, intimate spaces and then sent them out into large ones, hoping the hall acoustics accurately carried the sounds we made to the most obscure seats in the house.
My first attack on the role of Tosca would be before a relatively small audience, which was likely to be very enthusiastic. Critics as well in smaller cities tended to be so grateful for any arts scene that they were very kind to us if we showed at least a decent level of professionalism. I could expect a respectful or even a glowing review of this run if I didn’t screw it up too badly. Some people might come by from Washington or New York just to check me out, but they’d cut me slack because this was my first try. By the time I hit a much bigger venue, where being absolutely perfect would be essential because all eyes would be on me, I’d have this role cold.
Although productions and directors differed, once a singer knew a role thoroughly, we could adapt our interpretation to suit the current whim. The director was the boss of the production. The general manager ran the opera house and the opera company, but the director ran the show. That is, if he wasn’t feuding with the maestro, who also was of the opinion that he ran things.
We paced around the stage getting comfortable with its dimensions. As I crossed near the front, an elevator in the floor suddenly opened in front of me. One of my feet was in midair above the growing hole as the elevator moved down. I hurtled forward into the hole.
“Aaahh!”
Strong arms grabbed me and pulled me back, lifting me away from the trap door. Sean held me tightly as we both fell to the wooden floor of the stage. My weight must have overbalanced him. I probably resembled a whale crashing on a beach.
“Are you okay?” His anxious voice rumbled in my ear.
I caught my breath. I was safe, lying on the stage, with Sean’s muscular arms still around me. Safe, and everything ached.
He repeated his question. Others gathered around us. I sat up gingerly with his assistance, checking myself for injuries. The skin of my right leg stung and my pants were torn, revealing a bloody scrape. “I—I must have hit the side of the trap when you caught me.”
“Good job, Grant. You saved her from a broken leg,” Richard said.
A broken leg. The Tarot had predicted a broken leg. Mine, after all.
Someone yelled at the stage tech who had sent the elevator down.
“This never happens,” I said, shaking.
The assistant stage manager came and also yelled down into the elevator shaft, exchanging hot words with the unseen tech.
I said, “It was just an accident.” But my voice was weak. I was still shaken.
“You could have been seriously hurt. Maybe you are,” Sean said.
Franco said, “It was the ghost of Maria Callas. She knows you are singing her role and she doesn’t want you to succeed.”
He spoke in rapid Italian rather than the imperfect English with which he was still uneasy. I answered in equally rapid but not always grammatically correct Italian. Claudio had insisted that I spend a year singing in multiple small regional houses across Italy so I’d pick up a truly Italianate tone to my phrasing. I’d done so, and also picked up the language as I was drinking my way through Tusca
ny between opera dates.
Amid much gesticulating and use of infinitives, Franco and I decided it couldn’t be Callas. Sean watched us and didn’t say a word. A slight frown marred his expression.
I switched back to English. “Sorry. Franco thinks the greatest Maria is a suspect, but I don’t agree. She wasn’t a jealous person. The press made up her big rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and then the loggiones at La Scala jumped on it.”
“The true fans,” he confirmed.
“Right. So we’ll forget the ghost idea, as opposed to plain old bad luck. I doubt this happened because someone is out to get me or anyone else working here.”
“What’s politely termed a “disgruntled former employee,” Sean said.
“Cosa vuol dire? What is this ‘disgruntled’?” Franco asked, overpronouncing all the syllables in his charming way.
I came up with what I thought might be the closest Italian word, “Scontento?”
Franco nodded that he understood me, although I might have gotten the word wrong.
Sean asked, “Have you heard anything about anyone being on the outs with the management here?”
I shook my head. “No, and I would have. People tell me all the gossip. It’s just an accident.” How funny that I was the one who consulted the Tarot but Sean had some irrational worries about our safety. On the other hand, he wasn’t afraid to confront other opera singers behaving badly, as I was.
The manager came bustling in and said he’d called 911. Although someone had brought me a chair, Sean insisted I stay on the floor until the EMTs arrived. I wanted to stand, but one leg hurt and the other felt shaky and weak. Anyway, my weight made it difficult to stand up or even get into the chair with any amount of dignity, especially in my wounded condition. A mortifying fact I didn’t want to advertise to my coworkers. Sean sat next to me, his arm still around my shoulders.
The EMTs soon arrived and did their quick examination. They insisted on taking me in an ambulance to the hospital to be checked over more thoroughly.
“I don’t want to go. I’ll be there all day.” I protested, but the shock of my experience made my voice weak.
The manager of the house said it was required by the opera’s liability insurance company.
Sean urged me to go, saying, “You could have serious unsuspected injuries.” He aimed a black look at the elevator.
I patted his arm. “I’m okay, because you saved me. Thank you.”
“I should stay close to you from now on. Just in case.” He frowned again.
I smiled at him. “I’m all right with that idea.”
Three hours later, I returned, having been x-rayed, EKGed, and finally issued a bandage. I’d also detoured to the condo and changed my clothes.
The conductor had announced a change in plans. We were not rehearsing on the stage again until the full dress next week. That was a relief. One less thing to worry about while I got the role down.
After my hours in the ER, I wasn’t in shape to hike around Baltimore tonight doing tourist stuff. My plan to get in some of my daily five miles by walking to the original Washington Monument—Baltimore was proud to have erected theirs first in the nation—would have to be postponed. In fact, I was exhausted and my day’s work had barely begun.
***
Tosca was the perfect opera. The three main characters all died. They each had a death suited to their personalities. Nobody won.
Floria Tosca was an actress during the Napoleonic Wars. Her lover, Mario Cavaradossi, a painter, got caught in a web of circumstance that involved not only politics but personal ambition. Scarpia, the evil chief of police, lusted after Tosca. He used his power of life or death over Cavaradossi—on the mere suspicion that he had helped an escaped political prisoner—to force Tosca to submit to him sexually. To save Mario, Tosca miserably agreed, but then stabbed Scarpia to death rather than submit. But Scarpia had the last laugh even in death, because he had rigged a fake firing squad scene to be real instead. Once Tosca realized her lover had been executed after all, she threw herself off the top of the building to her death, vowing to meet Scarpia again before the judgment of God.
It was a simple storyline and a powerful opera. The threat of life and death existed because of the politically troubled times, but what moved the drama were the passions of the individual characters. Tosca was wildly jealous. When she came to visit her Mario at the cathedral where he was painting a mural, dark-haired Tosca saw he had painted a Madonna in the image of a blond woman. Tosca was immediately jealous and demanded that Mario change the image to look like her. Mario, who had already realized that his love for Tosca transcended blonde or brunette, humored her and sent her away. Then, believing in the cause of liberty even at the cost of his life, he helped an escaped political prisoner who had been hiding in a chapel.
With ominous music, Scarpia arrived, looking for the escapee. The sacristan, basically a janitor, didn’t like Mario, and helpfully fingered him as having given away an entire basket of food to someone. That made Scarpia suspicious. Then Tosca returned, still jealous, still insecure and wanting Mario to prove his love. Instead, when Scarpia presented her with a lady’s fan found nearby, she identified it as belonging to her blond “rival.” Scarpia realized the rival was the sister of the escapee, and Mario’s absence gave the police a clue to where the escapee had fled.
Scarpia attempted to charm Tosca, but even in the throes of jealously, she was cool to him. She didn’t like or trust him.
Scarpia wasn’t put off. He was sure he had her now, because her jealousy had just fingered her lover. When she rushed out, he had her followed. As the act ended, he sang a Te Deum in the cathedral along with the crowd, all the while plotting to get her. It was a triumphant moment for him, and his menacing music swelled to fill the scene.
There were only two ways to play the villain, Scarpia. Either he was a physically repellent, usually middle-aged man whose lecherous words and actions made him even more loathsome, or, he was a virile, attractive man who preferred to rape women rather than win their free consent. The libretto made his evil intentions clear, and surtitles projected above the stage translated the libretto and ensured that the opera audience understood every word of the dialogue.
During their church encounter, both Tosca and Scarpia displayed elaborate, formal manners, but she was putting on airs he was not able to because of his profession. She could act like a great lady and mingle with the aristocracy at the parties to which she was invited to perform. He could only do his job, which was the government’s dirty work, and terrorize the populace into submission. That he got his personal jollies by forcing women he lusted after into submitting to him made him despicable. He was a villain with no redeeming qualities.
So why was I singing the role of Tosca? Because it was a big sing for a soprano, a major role. It required the ability to show a wide range of emotions both in my singing and my acting—love, jealousy, social hauteur, cynicism, desperation, determination, feverish hope, and more. Tosca didn’t have a lot of complicated arias, just the one big one in Act II, the famous “Vissi d’arte.” Whoever sang her had to be able to demonstrate Tosca’s mercurial shifts of mood. She transitioned from happy love to insane jealousy in a split second. Her jealousy was pivotal throughout the first act. It set the tragedy in motion.
While I was rehearsing Act I, trying to get the timing right with Franco and then with Sean, I thought about the ladylike airs Tosca gave herself. How aspirational such behavior was, but also how hollow. She obviously had come up from nothing. Her offer of a bribe to Scarpia in Act II proved that whatever her exalted status today, she knew how the world was run. But although some slimy bottom feeders could be insulted even as they were bribed, Scarpia was not one of them. Scarpia might be the only true revolutionary in the opera, because he wanted to strike down the privilege of others. Mario wanted to have the privilege of an artist to be apolitical, but Scarpia caught him being political. Tosca wanted to have the privilege of an artist to jump social line
s, but since Scarpia couldn’t do similar, he wanted to drag Tosca down to his level by forcing her to sell herself to him to save her lover. Life around powerful people was precarious.
As I shaped my flirtatious words with Franco in rehearsal, I was aware of Sean sitting watching. Like the rest of us, he was casually dressed. His black jeans and green t-shirt outlined powerful muscles, the strength that had saved me this morning from a very bad fall. He must work out to get muscles like that. Most opera singers concentrated on their throats and not the rest of their bodies.
Sean knew I was acting with Franco, but I tried to be very charming, hoping some of my charm would radiate out and touch him. I wanted Sean to want me, to see me. Maybe he never would. I saw him chatting with an attractive woman from the chorus at one point. Younger than I, a fresh face, openly admiring of him. I’d heard already that Sean dated around, but women didn’t hold it against him because he was such a cheerful guy. By comparison, the feelings I had when I saw him were anything but cheerful and light. My longing for him weighed me down. Bad enough that I was constantly in a state of effortful denial of my desire for food. Now I was also caught up in a constant yearning for a man who might be out of my reach.
Herr Kaufmann was finally done with Franco and me, and now it was my turn with Sean. He popped up from his relaxed pose and we stood together in front of the piano, singing the same little bits of our first encounter over and over until the maestro deemed we had it right.
Richard, who’d been watching, said, “Remember, these two have met before. Scarpia was another stage door Johnny in Tosca’s theatrical climb. Only, she doesn’t need him now. She has arrived. She can afford to treat him with a hauteur that mimics the social coolness of the aristocracy.”
Friendzoned Soprano Page 5
