Of course I had tweeted earlier about my surprise concert appearance, and my fans had retweeted me. Proof my career was hot. There might even be people who decided to come to DC tonight to see me. Sean had texted me this morning, asking to get together, but I hadn’t replied. After I tweeted where I was and why, he sent me a tweet wishing me well. I was relieved he hadn’t texted me again.
I suppose I should have thanked him for the flowers, but right now it hurt too much to think of how little he cared for me and how much I could care for him. My grandstand play Thursday night had been an act of desperation, born out of an illogical hope that if I showed him who I really was, he might love me. At least he was polite enough to send me flowers afterward.
I had little time for regrets the rest of the day. We hustled to get me as ready as possible before the performance, but of course I carried my gown and accessories in a garment bag and wore casual clothes to the last-minute rehearsal.
I hadn’t even eyeballed the program schedule, so I was surprised to see James Haverhill backstage. He was equally astonished to see me. “What are you doing here?”
“Substituting for Annie Larch. Apparently she has a cold. Or maybe it’s allergies.”
He frowned. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? We’re supposed to do the trio in the last scene of Faust. Annie, me, and Larry.”
“Faust? Uh-oh. I’m rusty on the part,” I said. “I haven’t sung it since music school, and then only for a concert. There’s not much time for a run-through.”
“I’ll collect Larry and find a rehearsal room. Also, we need to find the maestro and introduce him to you.”
James turned to go, but then pivoted back to face me. “You want to have a nightcap at my hotel afterward?”
A nightcap. He meant sex, not a drink. I shook my head and gave him a dirty look. “As recently as last week, you were still married. Against my code to betray a wife.”
Why did I waste my time talking morality to him? James was a player, the kind who never stopped messing with women. When we were briefly an item, I enjoyed having sex with him. But I never enjoyed his power plays with me or his refusal to be monogamous.
We hunted up the third in our trio, an alumnus of the DC Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist program. Learning to sing opera was a supremely expensive business, and only the donations of the wealthy and the fundraising ability of the handful of superstar opera singers left in the world made study venues possible. The days of Beverly Sills playing comedy skits with Carol Burnett on a prime time variety television show were over before I was born. If it weren’t for YouTube, I would never have known that opera once was popular on television.
Larry, James, and I marked our parts in the trio that ended Faust. James played the devil, who urged the tenor, Larry, to flee with me before I was to be executed—or torn apart by a mob. The devil had a plan to help us escape, but my character, Marguerite, refused. I wanted heaven’s forgiveness for my sin, and I had no desire to flee my just punishment for killing the love child of my affair with Faust. It was a great trio, ending with a choir of angels calling out that my repentance had saved me and I was going to heaven, not to hell, as I died. The devil was foiled.
Hard to believe Faust was the number one opera at the turn of the nineteenth century to the twentieth. Nobody in my world cared about the seduced-and-abandoned plot now, because having an out-of-wedlock child wasn’t a big social scandal anymore and women could get jobs to support themselves and not depend entirely on a man. Regardless of the outdated story, the music remained superb.
After the Faust, I did a super fast rehearsal of my two solos, just me and the maestro and some of the orchestra in another rehearsal room. Since this was a concert, there wasn’t a specific directorial interpretation to go by, but we did need to agree on the tempo. I hadn’t had time to decide on what to sing. I let the maestro suggest songs the orchestra already had rehearsed with the soprano I was replacing.
We did two arias, “Sempre libera” from Traviata, and “Caro nome” from Rigoletto. Although I had graduated from such parts, I still had the high clear notes to do both of them. After we ran through the two numbers, the maestro mentioned a third song, the barcarole from Tales of Hoffmann. It was to be a duet with Daylia Fedora.
Chapter 15
Not her again. How did I get to be so lucky? Working with her was a bad idea. She’d try to kill me in a duet. “Is she aware that Annie had to withdraw?”
The maestro said carefully, “Ms. Fedora is aware, but is unable to arrive early to rehearse. She still wants to do the song. She suggested you can practice your part alone.”
I stared at him. Did he seriously think I would put up with that—that malarkey? Doing a duet without a rehearsal was crazy. Not that I wanted to be in a rehearsal room with her. Anyway, by now, we were running out of time, awfully close to when the concert would begin, and I still had to dress and do my makeup. “Is Daylia here? I haven’t seen her.”
“I believe she plans to arrive just prior to the performance.” The maestro appeared a bit embarrassed. I knew what that meant. Daylia was up to her usual tricks, acting the diva in the most unpleasant interpretation of the term, disobliging everyone around her.
I summoned up all my courage. I almost shook saying the next words, but if I was ever to stop being a people pleaser, this was the moment to draw a line in the sand. “Since there’s no time to rehearse together, I can’t sing that duet with her.”
Maestro kept his expression blank. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said, and hoped my voice didn’t squeak. It was that hard to say it. “Now I really must get gowned and made up.” I left the rehearsal room with the maestro looking unhappy, while I secretly quaked in reaction to my bold stand. I didn’t feel all that brave, but I tried not to show it.
To cover all my bases, I approached the concert manager, Adrian Carter, and explained the problem. “I can’t sing a duet without a rehearsal.”
He seemed worried. “Ms. Fedora will not like that.”
“No rehearsal, no duet,” I said, trying for a firm tone of voice. It was easier this time. I bit my tongue rather than criticize Daylia by saying she ought to have come in.
“Ms. Fedora feels she rehearsed sufficiently with Ms. Larch.”
I looked at him quizzically. Did he take me for a Fedora acolyte? I breathed deeply. “A professional rehearses with a duet partner.”
I repeated my refusal, adding, “When she finally arrives, please tell her the duet is out.”
His expression was sour. He continued to argue, but I wouldn’t listen to more of his bootlicking attitude about Daylia.
“I have to dress now,” I said, and walked away.
I had to protect myself. Singing a duet in a concert setting was very exposed. Rehearsal was necessary. If Daylia planned to pull her usual tricks, I wanted no part of them, either. I texted Claudio, to keep him in the loop, and also to see if he could apply pressure to Adrian Carter.
If I hadn’t been wary of Daylia before the Aida debacle, her deliberate sabotage during it would have made me hate her for sure. But she’d pulled crap on me before. She was the witch who threw my personal possessions out in the hall at the Nat a year ago. That dirty trick was nothing new. It had been done by various divas in the twentieth century, and probably in the nineteenth as well. Not that such rotten behavior was ever justifiable.
Because forewarned was forearmed, I made quick work of changing into my gown and doing my hair and makeup. This time around, I took every possession of mine to safety in a hall locker to which only I had a key. I’d gotten lucky during Aida, but tonight I took no chances.
After I did that, the jeweler arrived and decked me out with a quarter of a million dollars in diamonds—a massive necklace that matched my body type, drippy earrings, a large cuff-style bracelet, and a huge dinner ring. He had brought me a security guard, Michael. I was happy to allow the guard to stay close to me. He could protect me from Daylia if Adrian Carter didn’t do his job a
nd soothe her raging ego.
I told Michael, “There’s another singer, she’s very beautiful and looks very sweet. But she’s a rabid witch. If she comes at me, I want you ready to physically intervene.”
His expression was doubting.
“I’m not kidding,” I emphasized my urgency by putting my hand to my throat, where the fabulous diamond necklace now rested. “If I have to defend myself against her, these jewels could get messed up. Singers always go for the throat.” That had him nodding in agreement.
Only a few minutes later, I heard screaming and carrying on in the dressing room area. Daylia had arrived and evidently someone had given her the good news that she would be singing the barcarole by herself, if at all.
Funny. Thinking of the drama to come with Daylia had calmed any nerves I had about doing this concert without adequate rehearsal. The songs I would be singing were all appropriate to my voice, at least short term, although I didn’t usually sing the full operas anymore. I knew these songs well. If I could stay out of Daylia’s way, the evening should be a success.
I’d reckoned without Sean, of course. Tweeting where I was singing, to engage my fans and keep the publicity wheel turning, also alerted him that I’d run away from Baltimore. The concert stage was well lit, and the audience members in the front rows were quite visible. Sean sat in the very first row, staring intently at me. When I performed “Sempre libera,” I hoped he wouldn’t take it as a message. Violetta started the song claiming she must always be free, but by the end, Alfredo's passionate wooing made her give in to love. Was Sean here to woo me?
Larry sang the tenor parts in it. Because of Sean, I was as emotionally keyed up as any Violetta when the younger man who wanted to be her lover serenaded her from the street. I received ecstatic applause, and felt my performance had earned it.
After James did a short, rousing solo piece from “The Barber of Seville,” the well-known “Largo factotum”—popularly known as “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro”—it was time for Daylia to come on. She entered from stage right. Luckily, when we exited, we were supposed to go left. That saved me at least one confrontation. She had a beautiful voice, no question, perfect for the popular mezzo fare she presented. She sang “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” from Samson and Delilah and the “Habanera” from Carmen. She received justified applause. I made sure to move away from that side of the theater before she took her bow.
We continued to parade in from the right and exit to the left until we reached intermission. I didn’t think Sean would try to come backstage during the break. He would wait until the concert was over if he intended to confront me. If I planned my exit in advance, I could avoid him. I walked over to the door guard to talk about pre-ordering a taxi for immediately after the concert.
Out of nowhere, a hand with red claws of fingernails reached out to scratch my face. I jumped back just in time, calling for Michael, the security guard who’d been faithfully trailing me backstage.
“How dare you change my program?” Daylia shrieked at me, her face a rictus of vicious anger. She aimed her claws at me again, but Michael sprang into action and got between her and me.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Please back away.” He spread his arms wide to form a fence between me and Daylia.
She leaned around him to shriek at me. “This concert was built around me. Me! I do not know who you think you are, but if I say we do the barcarole, we do the barcarole.”
I stared at her, remembering the hall one year ago, and the sad little pile of my garments heaped on the floor. I’d said nothing to her when she threw my best bra in my face. I hadn’t even confronted her after she’d repeatedly sabotaged me on stage last week, in Philadelphia. Now I finally spoke up. “We haven’t rehearsed the piece together, Daylia, so I will not sing it.”
She shrieked at me. “You dare to address me by name?! You’re nobody. You are fired!”
Her expression was as crazed as her words. Why shouldn’t I use her name? Didn’t she remember singing Amneris only two weeks ago to my Aida? At any moment, she’d be foaming at the mouth. Michael still had his arms out to block her, though she reached through them as if they were prison bars, her red-tipped claws extended.
I stood my ground, although my legs trembled. I said her name again, deliberately. “Daylia, back off.”
The shrieking continued. “I will see you banned in every opera house in the world! You do not know my power! I will destroy you!”
At that, I laughed. I made sure to do the “opera laugh” that was such a cliché, that went from the top of the scale to the bottom and lasted for at least three seconds. I was open in my scorn. And surprised at my courage.
Adrian Carter arrived at last to intervene. He spoke soothing words to her, while shooting me an aggrieved look. Too bad for him.
An older woman in drab backstage garb approached Daylia, putting her arms around her in a motherly gesture. A personal assistant? Her psychiatrist? In my opinion, Daylia needed therapeutic invention. She was a hazard to be around.
Michael was cool. Maybe he saw meltdowns like this every day.
I started to shiver in reaction as they led her away, all the while petting her and overflowing with soothing words. She still shrieked crazy threats aimed at me.
“That was fun,” James remarked, close to my elbow. He held up a cell phone. “Got it all. I’m putting it up on YouTube.”
I rolled my eyes. “You must be joking.”
“Nope. Here goes.” He used his thumbs to push the buttons that sent Daylia’s wild tantrum out to the entire online universe.
My fingers played nervously with the elaborate diamond cuff on my wrist. “That’s questionably legal. We’re inside a private venue.”
He shrugged. “They can threaten to sue me. Then I’ll tweet about it, and the bad PR will stop them cold.”
“You really are a bastard,” I said, half-appalled, half-admiring.
James got a cold look in his eyes. “She’s gotten away with crap too many times. She deserves to be outed.”
“Can’t argue with that. You saw what she did to me in Philly.”
“She does it to everyone. Enough.”
“Are you supposed to sing with her tonight?”
He snorted. “No way. When I signed up for this concert, I told my agent, absolutely no duet with her.”
“That was smart.” I hadn’t asked Claudio anything about who was singing. I’d wanted to get away from Baltimore and Sean and all the temptation to harm myself he represented.
I heaved a big sigh and tried to put Daylia behind me. “Hopefully, no more drama tonight.”
We talked briefly about what we each would sing next. James wandered off. I turned to Michael and thanked him for his timely aid.
He remarked, “I don’t want to pick up diamonds off the floor.”
I put a hand to my neck, touching the elaborate, incredibly valuable jewels. Right. He was here to protect them, not me. Ironically, he had also protected my throat, which was even more valuable than those jewels.
The rest of the show went smoothly. Daylia made no further appearance. Adrian Carter announced to the audience that she had been taken ill. I began to wonder why the soprano I was replacing had canceled due to illness. Perhaps not an unlucky cold or allergies after all? I should ask Claudio to dig deeper the next time he found a quick offer like this.
I was relieved not to have to anticipate a further scene from the drama queen, but then my worry that Sean would try to confront me flooded back. I got through my last solo piece okay, even though he was still seated in the front row. When I finished it, he threw me a bouquet of pink roses. I picked it up, of course, because that was what one did, and made the conventional bow of thanks. I couldn’t see his expression because of the stage lights and the moisture in my eyes. He must be trying to tell me something, but what? Should I listen?
Soon enough, James, Larry, and I did our piece from Faust to end the official program. We each did a short encore, and then all the singe
rs came on stage again, except Daylia, and we took our final bows.
When it was over, we all hugged backstage and began to drift off.
Michael said, “Excuse me, Ms. Fisher, but it’s time for me to finish my assignment.” He pointed to the locking steel attaché case he had laid open on a chair. He asked me to remove my jewels then and there. Perhaps it made sense to do it in front of witnesses.
James eyed us as I stripped them off one by one, the heavy necklace last. I said, “Don’t you dare put this online.”
He laughed. After countersigning Michael’s receipt, I asked James if it was safe to use the women’s dressing room again.
“Yeah, the wicked witch of the west took off, with an entourage, forty minutes ago. Wanna go back to my hotel room and get it on?”
He never stopped trying. I shook my head. James walked away. I was relieved that Daylia had left. She’d been a decent person to sing with years ago. Somewhere along the line, her personality had taken a drastic turn for the worse.
I picked up my roses, which a stage assistant had held for me during the encore part of the program. Before I could head to my locker to get my things, Adrian Carter came up to me, visibly upset. He made noises about how unfortunate it was that I had disobliged Daylia. I let him keep talking as I tried to figure out what he was trying to convey to me. Finally, I got it. James’s video must have already caused an online frenzy.
In the past, I would have apologized. I would have. I wanted so desperately to please people, to make them love me. This time, I stood my ground. “It was your responsibility to inform Daylia that she must rehearse the barcarole with a substitute soprano. Not mine.”
He complained some more, but I cut him short. “It is what it is. No reasonable person would expect me to sing a duet without rehearsing.” I shut my lips firmly to keep from saying anything derogatory about Daylia. Now that she had ticked off so many singers, her career was headed for trouble without me piling on.
He scowled, but suddenly I wasn’t afraid of him. I narrowed my eyes and made my voice low and threatening, channeling one of my tougher character roles. “You can bet I’ll tell Claudio how you didn’t do your part to avert Daylia’s tantrum. If she tries to cause me any trouble over the video, I’ll sue her for assault and battery if I want to. I’ll sue you, too, for being negligent and creating a hostile work environment.”
Friendzoned Soprano Page 12
