I needed the maestro to guide me during the performance. With all the character drama I enacted on the stage, it was easy for me to lose my way and require help. Some opera houses had a prompter, a person who sat in a tiny boxlike room that stuck up slightly at the very front of the stage. The prompter kept track of every note of the score. He or she was the singer’s lifeline when we couldn’t remember our next bit. On old opera recordings, the prompter often could be heard saying the line just before a singer sang it. Some very famous opera singers needed constant help from the prompter.
Without a prompter, the singer’s only resource was the maestro. We looked at him to see what he was doing with his hands. And he kept his eye on us, and adjusted what his hands told the musicians. It was that simple and that complicated.
Rehearsals with the orchestra and maestro were always in the morning. I wondered how Sean would behave toward me, but I needn’t have. He was his normal cheerful self. Maybe all that kissing never happened. Being near him during this part of the rehearsal didn’t allow buried urges to surface since we didn’t have to touch or act. We merely sang, each following our scores and paying attention to the maestro’s directions.
For now, we were good, but there would be hours more rehearsing this afternoon and touching would be involved. Although I wanted to spend time with Sean, get to know him better, I knew that hanging around and looking hopeful was not the way. I invited Franco to lunch and took him to a vegetarian restaurant nearby. He routinely ate his pasta without meat sauce. I would eschew the pasta, too. I was in the mood for food that didn’t cost me a ton of calories. I could not let the tension of being near Sean and feeling frustrated push me into overeating. Even the relatively small amount of snacking that happened the other night after Aida had been enough to throw me off. Today I was doing penance. A vegetarian meal for a meat-and-potatoes eater like me was the food equivalent of sackcloth and ashes.
On our way back into the building, Franco said, “I saw the hungry way Sean looked at you. A new conquest?”
I inclined my head. “One may hope. A long shot.” At his blank look, I explained the idiom. “Not likely.”
Franco eyed my expression, then said thoughtfully, “I think he does not pursue merely one woman.”
I tightened my lips. “He says we are friends.”
“And you want more?”
I shrugged. “Don’t I always?”
Franco put an arm around my shoulders. “You have changed since I first knew you. Do not deny it. You are serious about this—this barihunk.”
He said it all in Italian, except the word “barihunk.”
I burst out laughing. “You’ve been picking up the worst sort of slang. Don’t let him hear you call him that.”
“What’s so funny?” Sean’s voice came from behind us.
We turned. Sean stared at us with an odd expression on his face. Feeling left out, or something else? Hopefully, he hadn’t heard his name mentioned. Franco and I glanced at each other naughtily. “Oh, nothing.” Then we spoiled it by chortling.
Sean seemed just a tiny bit piqued at us for keeping secrets, but he swallowed it and was his usual cheerful self all afternoon. This even though the director took a whack at both of us for not doing a good job with the Scarpia–Tosca interaction in the first meeting we’d rehearsed yesterday afternoon.
“No, no, no,” Richard cried. “Abbie, you’re Tosca, a singer who has hit the big time and now performs for royalty. Act as if you are socially above Scarpia at all times. Don’t give him the time of day until he arouses your total jealousy. Even then, scorn his wooing words.” He gestured for us to do it again.
“I’ve never thought anyone was beneath me in my life,” I said. “I’m perplexed about how to do this.”
He arranged Sean to reach out to take my hand again. Then Richard had me hold mine out, “But do it reluctantly, Abbie.” He frowned. “Now tilt your head and rear back just a little. Breathe through your nose, as if you smell something bad.”
I tilted my head, but said, “I won’t be able to breathe through my nose at that moment. I have a line to sing.”
The director wasn’t satisfied. “How you act will be more important than the line. Here.” He actually put his hands on my head and tilted it more. “That’s better. Look down your nose at Scarpia, that low-born scoundrel.”
Suddenly, I had a fit of the giggles. Sean Grant, all six feet plus of him, all red hair and clear green eyes, and those muscles. Plus his smiling personality. He just didn’t fit the image of the villain. Also, with Richard’s attention focused on me, Sean was making faces behind his back.
“Why are you laughing?” Richard asked.
I replied solemnly, “Sean doesn’t look menacing enough.”
Richard whirled around, in time to catch Sean imitating Tosca, offering his hand with a simper of pretend gentility. The director was not amused.
He had us play the scene over and over. Sean snapped back into villain mode, but I couldn’t seem to get Tosca’s hauteur.
“Don’t you understand, Abbie? He’s beneath you. You don’t even want him to touch your fingertips.”
But I desperately did want Sean to touch my fingertips, and other places on my body, too. By now, I was clinging to Sean’s hand and wouldn’t let go. I was ready to cry. “I can’t do it. I’ve tried and tried.” I put one hand over my face to hide the tears I knew were about to fall. I was such a crybaby. And now I was hungry again.
The pianist cleared his throat. “If I might make a suggestion?”
At the director’s nod, he continued. “Why don’t I play the music? The music tells you how to act.”
And indeed it did. The music told me exactly when I needed to pull my fingers away from Scarpia as if he was dirty and his lips were even worse. I was finally able to ignore my desire to let Sean hold my hand forever. Finally, I was acting.
“Ah, perfect. At last.” The director was satisfied.
Chapter 9
We worked all the rest of the week on Act I, sometimes with the maestro, sometimes with the director. Every time I had to sing with Sean, I was totally dazzled by my attraction to him. I couldn’t be sure that he felt the same about me, yet there were flashes. And after all, he’d followed me to Philly.
If I saw Sean during breaks or as I left for the day, he was usually with a different girl each time. I didn’t try to pursue him under those circumstances. I dined by myself several nights in a row after catching a late evening opening at a museum or some other soul-improving cultural venue.
I was surprised and disappointed when he begged off from going out to lunch with me Thursday. “I thought we were going to be friends?” I asked.
He ducked his head. “About that.” He grimaced. “I think we’ll be better friends if we keep our distance.”
I made a face. “You’re joking. That’s not friendship.”
“I got a little carried away earlier this week. Franco set me straight about what you expect of a friend. I can’t be your casual hookup.”
I glared at Franco, who was on the other side of the rehearsal room, talking to Herr Kaufmann. I let out an impatient breath. Franco would hear from me about telling wild tales of my adventures in Italy a decade ago.
I tried again. “I think he gave you the wrong idea about me. I’m not looking for a—” I used a term that would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap when I was a child. Then I winced. I’d been trying to clean up my language. According to the therapist, changing the words I routinely used would help me become a different person. Sounded crazy, but I was desperate to be that new person. I’d been giving it a try.
I ate lunch alone that day. In other cities this past year, sometimes I even brought a salad to the opera house and ate it in my dressing room and then walked during the rest of the lunch hour. I worked diligently to keep my focus on what was good for me in the long term.
It didn’t make up for being turned down.
On Friday night I didn’t want to b
e alone. We would be rehearsing all weekend, and I wanted a change of some sort. The Orioles were having a home game tonight. I asked Sean if he wanted to go with me, but he said he had prior plans.
“Sorry.” I said. “I’m only trying to arrange something fun to do when we’re not working. I thought a baseball game would be different and low effort since the ballpark is so close by.”
“You’ll have to count me out. I’ve got a hot date with a textbook.”
At least not with another woman. That was a relief. “What are you studying?”
“German.”
Sean was thinking ahead. There were many German repertory roles for a baritone to sing, although usually not this early in a career. The German rep was heavy and dangerous for a young voice. We often learned our German singing vocabulary by rote, and then brushed up our accents with the help of a language coach. The Germans we worked with, such as Herr Kaufmann, all spoke English because they studied it in school. Still, it always helped if we knew the local language, especially the language of the maestro in case he had trouble conveying a concept across idioms.
When I left the rehearsal room for a short comfort break, I heard through the grapevine that Sean’s date at lunch today had been with Herr Kaufman’s attractive daughter, who traveled with him. That explained the sudden interest in learning the German language. My heart sank.
Not five minutes later, somebody else mentioned seeing him out with a girl who worked in the ticket office. Maybe he’d told the truth that first day when he said he saw a lot of women. I should keep my thoughts in the friendzone and stop trying or even hoping for more.
The days were beginning to blur together. We kept working over Saturday and Sunday because of our seriously tight schedule. This was crazy. I’d have to tell Claudio to make sure he didn’t sign me up for a condensed schedule like this again.
On Monday we finally started on Act II, which was where the evil heart of the opera was revealed. Sean had the most to sing in this act. Basically he got to rub his hands together and laugh evilly, while I scornfully offered him a bribe, then begged and pleaded, then decided to submit, then killed him.
Act II opened with Scarpia hearing the sounds of a fancy party given by the upper crust of Rome, to which he was not invited. Tosca was, singing by royal invitation. Scarpia sent her a note to lure her to his rooms. Meanwhile, his henchman, Spoletta, had arrested Mario and brought him in so Scarpia could interrogate him. Mario tried to play it cool, but in a city with martial law, Scarpia’s merest suspicion was enough to have Mario tortured and eventually executed. When Tosca arrived, she broke down almost immediately upon hearing the sounds of Mario being tortured. Meanwhile, Mario unwisely sang a triumphant word, “Victory,” on the report of a military defeat that would soon end Scarpia’s reign of terror. Scarpia condemned him to death.
Tosca tried to pay off Scarpia, but he wanted sex, not money. She was miserable at the thought, and sang her famous aria, “Vissi d’arte,” about how unfair it was that having devoted her life to art, she was in this predicament.
By the time Puccini composed this opera, it was possible to believe that a talented woman could become a theatrical star without prostituting herself. In the time period when the story was laid, not so much, but still, Tosca sang about a life dedicated to art and to helping the poor, and audiences sympathized with her.
The director was there this morning during the music rehearsal. Double-teaming us. “Scarpia’s in his own world. He doesn’t see Tosca take the knife because he’s pulled this on women before. He’s used to them submitting. He likes to see them squirm.”
I grinned at Sean. “You’re a bad man.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Maestro was not satisfied quickly. We worked for hours with two violins setting the pace. He pushed me hard on “Vissi d’arte,” but not as hard as I pushed myself. People paid money to see Tosca’s big moment of misery. I wanted to give them a good show. I was known for the rich, refulgent tone of my voice. I had to make sure every part of my performance was brilliant.
Puccini operas tended to be very dramatic, sometimes labeled melodramatic, and they weren’t easy to sing. Tosca was basically through composed. Like a Wagner opera, the music never fully stopped. The burden of the story was not saved up for single arias, but spread throughout. That made singing it even harder because I had to act all the way up to and then through and beyond each aria. There was none of the infamous “park and bark” of opera singing in the twentieth century, with a tenor and a soprano standing at either side of the stage and practically pantomiming their roles. I had to show Tosca’s volatile emotions every step of the way.
Lunchtime came at last. Franco, Sean, and I piled into an indie cab to go to Hampden, the trendy section of town, which was a long ride but worth it. Sean evidently was okay spending time with me in a group situation.
We went to a barbecue joint. As was typical, the décor was totally minimal, consisting of a utilitarian grouping of tables and chairs with fluorescent lighting above us. Amazing food, messy but incredibly tender barbecued brisket and ribs, with the usual sides of corn on the cob, coleslaw, potato salad, cornmeal muffins, and baked beans. They even had hush puppies, a southern specialty I’d grown up with in rural western Maryland, small lumps of fried cornmeal with onion somewhat resembling a tater tot. Delicious. I only dared have one, while the guys piled in and finished them off plus the rest of the family-style servings of the other sides.
Franco asked me, “Did you get the contract with Salzburg?”
“I still don’t know. They’re stalling.”
“Is Salzburg such a plum?” Sean asked. “You mentioned it before. It’s not the only city in Europe with a summer opera festival.” He was filling up on the bread basket as only a young male could. If I ate even one corn muffin, I’d regain five pounds. I played with my napkin.
“Depends on what you aspire to,” I said. “Franco did Salzburg a long time ago and doesn’t care. I’ve never sung there, so I want to.”
Sean shook his head. “That’s perverse logic. What makes it so special?”
I counted on my fingers. “Let’s see. One, it’s a really cool festival attended by opera fans and critics from all over Europe. Two, it has fascinating new productions by today’s cutting edge regie directors. Three, the fees are high. What else?”
“Do not forget,” Franco said, “Salzburg often does live streaming and cinema simulcasts. You receive a worldwide audience to see you sing.”
I nodded. “That’s huge. We opera singers don’t get much media exposure. A century ago, we would have been rock stars. Not any more.”
Franco said, “A singer will lie in bed moaning, complaining he shall soon die, but if the Bayerische Staatsoper of Munich calls and asks him to fill in for someone for a live stream, he will rise from his deathbed, travel to Munich, and sing. I know such a one. He asked for last rites.”
I laughed. “Sorry. You’re kidding, right?”
Franco shook his head solemnly. “The truth, I swear it.” Only he said a typical Italian opera dialogue line, “Lo juro.”
Sean said, “Opera singers are all hypochondriacs.”
“Absolutely,” Franco said.
More food came and we talked about the pros and cons of this production. We agreed it was traditional and non-threatening.
“Is a little boring, you know?” Franco said with that lovely Italian lilt in his voice. “But easy to sing because boring.”
“You’ve done a lot of Toscas, but this is only my first,” I said. “Every bit of it is new territory. I would find a minimalist set with modern costumes difficult to handle, because I’d need to have the entire story in my head.” I turned to Sean. “What about you?”
“I’ve done Scarpia before, but only once, in a very small venue. It depends on how much time you have to rehearse, to learn how the director sees the story.”
Franco asked me, “When will you hear from Salzburg?”
I wanted to shrug
to show that I didn’t care, but I wouldn’t have been fooling either of them. I sighed. “I don’t know. I hope they aren’t stalling because they want to turn me down.” I didn’t say what was really on my mind, that I was afraid they would reject me because of my weight. The scuttlebutt all pointed to that being an issue. I gazed at my plate and its sparse contents, the bones from a couple of ribs and a smear of sauce from the brisket. Franco and Sean were wolfing down large amounts of coleslaw with their meat. I heaved an inward sigh. I didn’t even like coleslaw, but I also didn’t like being forbidden to eat it.
Weight loss. Getting roles. Speaking up for myself. All very important. But the most important at this moment was my confusion over Sean. He’d acted like a casual friend for days. It was disconcerting to be in someone’s arms one night, and seemingly just another coworker thereafter. But not quite. Sean kept flirting with me during rehearsals. I knew flirting when I encountered it.
Back in rehearsal, the director, Richard, put us through our blocking and emphasized his take on the action. “Abbie, Tosca at first haughtily disbelieves a low-life like Scarpia has any power over her. You have to show how the realization slowly creeps over her. There’s so much going on in this scene. Franco, your Mario at first should be casually dismissive of Scarpia, but it’s an obvious act. Mario is not comfortable with authority figures. He sees no common ground with a scoundrel like Scarpia, so after his initial pretense of indignation, Mario can’t even fake it.”
Franco nodded pleasantly. “I sang Mario in Chicago last year. He is, how do you say it, a nice guy, but un poco, a little clueless.”
“Exactly.” Richard turned to me. “Now, remember, even though you’re very confident that you can straighten out whatever bureaucratic mess Mario has gotten himself into, you’re a bit surprised at Scarpia’s impertinence. Who is he to demand that you come see him? Sing her opening bars.”
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.”
Friendzoned Soprano Page 7
