one end of the scarf over his shoulder as he turned to greet me. His careless smile and quick, appraising glance suggested he was trying to determine just how much trouble I would eventually bring him.
“Good, we’ve been expecting you for days. I’m Rinaldo Torani, the director of this madhouse we call an opera company.” He bent to gather some sheets of music from a pile at the front of the stage. “I’ll let the others introduce themselves in good time.”
He waved the courteous introductory words I had been planning to speak aside and shoved the music into my hands. “Time is short, study these arias and be ready to rehearse after the dinner break.” He turned away abruptly and clapped his hands a few times. “Caterina, Crivelli. You’re the ones I need now. Everyone else off stage please.”
I stepped back into the wings and nearly tripped over a piece of lumber. One of the workmen rolled his eyes. The crooked room below stage seemed like a good place to read over my music. I was halfway down the stairs when a soft voice called my name.
“Signor Amato, wait a moment, please.”
I turned to face a welcoming smile and lovely, compelling gray eyes.
“I’m Adelina Belluna. We’re all so grateful you’ve arrived.” She continued, explaining where my dressing room was and apologizing for Torani’s abruptness, but her words did not speak to me as distinctly as her physical presence. She stood a stair or two above and leaned toward me on the banister. We were close enough for me to inhale the spicy, musky fragrance coming from her neck and bosom and to see the tiny web of lines at the corners of her eyes.
She slipped her arm under mine and led me past the stage and up two more flights of stairs to a wide hallway cluttered with old costume trunks and other castoffs from previous productions. A crudely painted chariot hung from the ceiling beams above our heads, and the long wall on our left was covered with the papier-mâché helmets and breastplates of a legion of mythical heroes and spear-carriers. The dressing rooms lay in a line on the opposite side of the hall.
Befitting her place as prima donna, Adelina’s chamber was the largest and the first on the right at the top of the stairs. The door stood open and I glimpsed a comfortable sofa, dressing table, and mounds of petticoats and wig boxes. As senior man of the company, Crivelli should have had the second room, but true to his generous nature, he had given this more comfortable space to Caterina and taken the next room along the hall. His small dressing room connected to my even smaller one by an archway covered with a folding screen. The dancers and any other singers with small parts had to dress in communal rooms on the floor below.
After we had entered my room from the hallway, Adelina ran her fingers along the dusty dressing table in front of the mirror and looked up at the cobweb-covered window in disgust. “This room needs cleaning, it hasn’t been used in a while. Look, somebody’s even taken your chair.”
“It will do for me. You’ve been very kind to help me get settled,” I said, beset by muddled emotions. I dearly wanted her to stay and keep talking, but I knew I had to start learning my arias. I didn’t want to risk disgrace on my first day.
She seemed as reluctant to leave as I was for her to go. As I shuffled the pages in my hand, she dallied around the room continuing to inspect what little there was to see. Finally, she took the scores from my hand and began humming one of the melodies as she laid the sheets of music out on the dressing table.
“Ah, I see Orlando is repeating himself,” she said more to herself than to me. She ran a finger along the lines of black notes tumbling across the page. “He must be running out of ideas. This is very much like an aria he wrote for Angelino last year. I’m beginning to think we singers should give the composers a rest and just write our own music.”
From down the hall, a
“Good, we’ve been expecting you for days. I’m Rinaldo Torani, the director of this madhouse we call an opera company.” He bent to gather some sheets of music from a pile at the front of the stage. “I’ll let the others introduce themselves in good time.”
He waved the courteous introductory words I had been planning to speak aside and shoved the music into my hands. “Time is short, study these arias and be ready to rehearse after the dinner break.” He turned away abruptly and clapped his hands a few times. “Caterina, Crivelli. You’re the ones I need now. Everyone else off stage please.”
I stepped back into the wings and nearly tripped over a piece of lumber. One of the workmen rolled his eyes. The crooked room below stage seemed like a good place to read over my music. I was halfway down the stairs when a soft voice called my name.
“Signor Amato, wait a moment, please.”
I turned to face a welcoming smile and lovely, compelling gray eyes.
“I’m Adelina Belluna. We’re all so grateful you’ve arrived.” She continued, explaining where my dressing room was and apologizing for Torani’s abruptness, but her words did not speak to me as distinctly as her physical presence. She stood a stair or two above and leaned toward me on the banister. We were close enough for me to inhale the spicy, musky fragrance coming from her neck and bosom and to see the tiny web of lines at the corners of her eyes.
She slipped her arm under mine and led me past the stage and up two more flights of stairs to a wide hallway cluttered with old costume trunks and other castoffs from previous productions. A crudely painted chariot hung from the ceiling beams above our heads, and the long wall on our left was covered with the papier-mâché helmets and breastplates of a legion of mythical heroes and spear-carriers. The dressing rooms lay in a line on the opposite side of the hall.
Befitting her place as prima donna, Adelina’s chamber was the largest and the first on the right at the top of the stairs. The door stood open and I glimpsed a comfortable sofa, dressing table, and mounds of petticoats and wig boxes. As senior man of the company, Crivelli should have had the second room, but true to his generous nature, he had given this more comfortable space to Caterina and taken the next room along the hall. His small dressing room connected to my even smaller one by an archway covered with a folding screen. The dancers and any other singers with small parts had to dress in communal rooms on the floor below.
After we had entered my room from the hallway, Adelina ran her fingers along the dusty dressing table in front of the mirror and looked up at the cobweb-covered window in disgust. “This room needs cleaning, it hasn’t been used in a while. Look, somebody’s even taken your chair.”
“It will do for me. You’ve been very kind to help me get settled,” I said, beset by muddled emotions. I dearly wanted her to stay and keep talking, but I knew I had to start learning my arias. I didn’t want to risk disgrace on my first day.
She seemed as reluctant to leave as I was for her to go. As I shuffled the pages in my hand, she dallied around the room continuing to inspect what little there was to see. Finally, she took the scores from my hand and began humming one of the melodies as she laid the sheets of music out on the dressing table.
“Ah, I see Orlando is repeating himself,” she said more to herself than to me. She ran a finger along the lines of black notes tumbling across the page. “He must be running out of ideas. This is very much like an aria he wrote for Angelino last year. I’m beginning to think we singers should give the composers a rest and just write our own music.”
From down the hall, a
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