Marie
(What my darling roomie
neglected to mention was that she wiped flour from near the crotch of his
pants! Sigh... master of the
understatement indeed! Let me tell you,
our dear Erik was quite the shocked and scandalized one! Anyway, my turn again! Lights!
Camera! Action!)
I all but skipped down the aisle of the Opera auditorium, excited to be singing with such a prestigious company! Never mind that I had only a menial part in the chorus and that many of the company would probably look down on me due to my nationality. I was in the Opera, for God's sake! This was something I'd always dreamed of!
Intent on impressing (or at least getting on the good side of) the chorus master, I arrived early to get aquatinted with the score of the opera we were currently working on; Mozart's The Magic Flute, which I had never come in contact with before other than a tiny blurb about it in Susan Kay's book referring to the high notes of the Queen of the Night. Understatement that was not! Luckily, the highest note for the chorus was an easily attainable one for me as a high soprano, although one would never know it from my speaking voice.
Now, not to blow my own horn or anything, but I consider myself a moderately talented singer. I'm no Sarah Brightman, certainly... but had there been no overt politics in high school, I thoroughly believed that I could've pulled off some of the lead roles in the musicals. As it stood however, I'd had no leading parts to date... indeed no cameos or supporting roles either... nothing other than chorus with maybe one speaking line. I had some small solos in choir concerts and was one of my voice teachers best pupils, but I remained incredulous of the lavish praise from friends and family (all of whom swore up and down and sideways that I was a terrific singer).
I also considered myself a fine judge of others' talents, able to pick an astounding Phantom by only four key scenes (Music of the Night, the first unmasking scene, Point of No Return, and the final lair scene) and usually apt at correcting my own mistakes. As such, I was hard put to the test not to wince in agony when I heard the first few notes of some aria being shrieked from center stage. I looked over from my seat a few rows into the audience where the rest of the cast was starting to assemble towards the stage. There a rather large woman with flame-red hair that was obviously dyed stood belting out the song with gusto and coming dangerously close to breaking all the crystals on the chandelier above them.
"Ugh... Qui est ça, la-bas?" I asked the nearest chorus member in French, gesturing to the woman with my hand.
"Ça?
Elle est La Carlotta, la diva de l'Opéra Populaire."
"Carlotta? The prima donna, huh?" I whispered to myself, a rather devious little plan hatching, if I do say so myself (and I do!).
"Hey!" I stood up on the seat and yelled over her screeching (which took some doing, I tell you). "Carlotta! Is that your face or did your neck throw up?"
She glared at me but effected not to notice a silly, insignificant chorus girl. Well, she obviously had no idea who she was dealing with. I glanced up at Box Five where I knew that Erik and Lisa were hiding and continued blithely on. "Look everyone... thar she blows! The white whale herself... Moby Carlotta!"
Giggles issued from the small crowd at my feet and Carlotta finally stopped singing (if one could call it that) and yelled at me in Spanish... a language in which I have no talent whatsoever.
"Same to you, sweets." I replied, stepping down from the seat and walking confidently up to the stage. "Didn't anyone tell you that fur wraps like that only make you look like more of a barbarian than you already are? You Tarzan, me Marie? Nah... Tarzan's not quite that manly even." I smiled at her innocently.
"Who are you? I demand an answer!" she sputtered in heavily-accented French.
"You're worst nightmare... someone who has no appreciation for your squawking and refuses to be a groveling spaniel to your colossal ego. I tell it like it is and frankly, your version of singing is giving me a migraine headache... who's your singing teacher, Napoleon? And what is with that hair? That is not any color found in nature! And, you know, you look like a bulldog when you frown like that. You are overacting so badly it hurts... and, lady, if that chandelier doesn't fall on you soon, it'll be a miracle. Please, put us all out of our misery and shut up!" I gestured wildly, feeling like Robin Williams on a severe comedy kick.
"I'll have you know I have trained with the best! I am the greatest singer of all time! My voice has been worshipped for years!" she said grandly.
"Yes, you have a lovely voice... don't strain it by singing. For heaven's sake, you couldn't carry a tune if it were in a bucket! You slide all over the place without ever landing quite on the pitch... you add vibrato like your life depends on it... I can't even recognize that as German when you sing it... and you're throwing the orchestra off! Shut the fuck up!" I yelled, earning the instant applause of everyone present.
"I'll have you all fired for this!" she screeched, pointing at everyone she could.
"I would love to see you try. Ticket sales have gone down since you came back and audiences are the smallest they've ever been at the Opera... no one wants to see a forty-year-old has-been diva try to be an eighteen-year-old maiden when she sounds like a milking cow on its last legs. My bet is that the management would sooner fire you than everyone else... than me even." I smiled, my arms crossed over my chest in mutiny.
Her heavily rouged mouth formed a perfect O as she was struck speechless by my tirade against her perceived perfectness. Without further comment despite the wide range of insults running a pandemonium in my head (I applaud myself on my restraint), I confidently turned on my heel and returned to my place of origin. (My seat in the audience, not MeadowBrook Hospital... you silly person.)
The entire company except for Carlotta was in total chaos, falling over themselves and everyone else laughing hysterically. Even the managers and the orchestra were doubled over and going into near-conniptions. I sat in my seat and grinned , satisfied that I had done what all of you readers had always wanted to... told off Carlotta in the best way possible, in public.
Ain't you all proud of me now? :)
****
Other than that, most of rehearsal was pretty boring. Carlotta threw a two-year-old-sized temper tantrum while I sat back and made like I was filing my nails, the managers did their best to calm her and eventually succeeded, then we got down to business. Surprisingly enough, the notes weren't very hard, it was the language that tripped me up. German or Austrian or something... very difficult for someone who's only ever sung in English or French before. Why on earth couldn't they have been doing Faust instead?
Anyhoo, it was almost dinnertime by the time I finally made my way back down the lair, as Lisa and I called it affectionately. Lise was out somewhere, probably drooling all over Notre Dame with her sketchbook in hand if I were to guess. Erik was seated in his chair/throne thumbing through one of the books we'd brought... Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire. I smiled as I came in and greeted the entire lair with a loud "Honey, I'm home!"
Erik looked up at me with mild surprise. "Good evening, Marie. Have a good rehearsal, I assume?"
"Eeh..." I shrugged. "After the first half-hour of All My Divas, I found it dreadfully dull. Sing this, sing it again, sing it again, and again, and again, and once more with feeling. Yeesh, I know repetition is part of the job, but this is ridiculous."
"A neccessary evil." he nodded.
I eyed him speculatively while he was absorbed in staring at the carpet. He'd been pulled out of his apathy temporarily because of our arrival. Now that the newness was wearing off, he was steadily slipping back into his indifferent state.
I had been toying with an idea in my head and had intended to talk it over with Lisa that night. However, as things sometimes go with me, I got inspired and took the plunge. If you thought that Lisa's babbling was bad... mine is worse.
"I've been thinking..." I began and then hesitated.
"Oh really?" he asked without looking up.
"Yeah... see the smoke coming out of my ears?" I quipped.
He looked at me finally, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. My heart did a flip-flop and I tore on ahead.
"You, me, and Lisa have become fairly good friends over the weeks and you know, school will want to see us again... if only to grind another $20,000 out of us. I was thinking that when Lise and I go back... you should come with us." I blurted out.
He looked at me with an expression of confusion on his face but I didn't give him a chance to say or ask anything yet. "I mean we can only show you a few things here... from the future, I mean. It's hard to explain airplanes or helicopters or satellites or space shuttles to you when we're in a 19th-century basement... no offense. And we were watching this show before we left about medical miracles... like separating Siamese twins or providing prosthetic for lost limbs and stuff. It's a cool, if somewhat dangerous time... but danger's anywhere, right? And people are likely to be more accepting of you in the future..." I trailed off finally.
"Slow down, cherie." he pulled me down onto the couch next to him and I tried desperately not to remember that my first love scene in Black Velvet started out on Erik's living room couch. I didn't succeed too much of a degree, but I did manage not to jump him right then and there.
"I will have to think about this." he continued, thankfully unaware of my thoughts. "Although I will admit that it is very tempting. Where would I stay though? What would I do?"
"You could stay with us until you get your own place, if you want. And you could be anything you wanted; a teacher, a musician, a singer, an architect, a doctor, whatever. You wouldn't even have to get a job... the money you have is considered antique and would probably be worth tons of money... you'd be a millionaire of sorts." I babbled on, hoping against hope that he would come with us.
He nodded slowly. "You've thought this all out, haven't you?"
"Well, I figured you might want to come with... so I sorta planned ahead a bit." I admitted, looking down at my hands clasped in my lap.
"I will think about it... for it's certainly no simple trick to just up and leave your entire century behind to explore a new one. If you'll excuse me." he rose and swung his cloak about his shoulders while I watched in utter fascination, wishing I had my sketchbook or a camera at least.
"Do you want me to start dinner? I'm sure you'll be hungry when you get back." I volunteered despite my just-average cooking skills.
He smiled gently and looked at me with a strange light in his eyes. "I've spent all of my life taking care of myself... now, suddenly I have two young women waiting on me hand and foot."
"Oh no... just hand... you wouldn't want me to use my feet." I smiled back. "Chicken okay?"
"Fine, Marie... I should be back soon."
"Great!"