myself back to sense. Surely it didn’t matter that much.
But it did. It mattered more than anything else.
The worst of it was that it was
my fault
that the other person – Brian the baritone – knew about my singing. My stupid, clumsy, self-indulgent fault.
I had gone to work at seven thirty yesterday morning to make sure I got everything finished before leaving for America. It had been a beautiful day and the air was milky when I got off the 38 bus at Holborn. Walking along Drury Lane I felt as if I’d been suspended in a pleasant sepia bubble. Things moved calmly, gently; even the vansdisgorging coffee beans, wooden boxes of lettuce, stacks of croissants seemed to belong to another time when people moved slowly and worried less.
As I often did when I got to work super-early, I headed for the empty auditorium. Even now – after all these years – it gave me a greater high than any drug I could imagine.
The front-of-house door shut softly behind me and the red, velvety silence reached around and hugged me. I exhaled happily, looking up at tier after tier of boxes, exquisite little treasure chests of gold, red velvet and marble. The candle lamps were dimmed and the beautiful gold roof arched up away from me, like a great shell, staggeringly high above the stalls.
I sat in a seat and closed my eyes, breathing gently, imagining this same air tonight: warm and swollen with hundreds of voices, thick with the smells of old-fashioned powder and the sharper, sexier perfumes of the young. I imagined the orchestra tuning up in their pit, all long, low blasts and high-pitched squeaks, like a ship’s dockyard. The stage managers buzzing around with their headsets and tiny Maglites; the makeup team pinning wigs and powdering faces, my wardrobe colleagues sliding things off hangers with the quiet, unfussy efficiency on which we prided ourselves.
And finally I allowed myself to imagine the singers waiting behind the safety curtain. Dressed in a hundred different colours; warmed up and ready; simultaneously relieved and frustrated not to be in the spotlight tonight. Somewhere among them would be the two stars, still nervous after all these years, breathing, stretching, humming. Ready.
‘Keith!’ someone yelled offstage. ‘They’re craning the
La Bohème
set out of the workshop. Move your fat arse.’
Smiling, I slipped out of the auditorium and took the lift up to Wardrobe, thinking about
La Bohème
. This coming autumn, once I was back from New York, we had a cast change and I was overseeing the costumes for the incoming singers.
It would be an honour:
La Bohème
was my favourite opera of all time. A love story that managed to be both beautiful and devastating, unfolding against a musical score that (to me at least) had no equal.
Mimi and Rodolfo’s duet in the first act, in spite of being one of the most famous and overplayed in the world, was utterly perfect. As Barry had once pointed out, ‘It’s bollockin’ mental, the idea of two people meeting in a sitting room and declarin’ their undyin’. Unnatural, Chicken. Unnatural.’ But the melody of that duet somehow made it believable. Made it totally acceptable for two people to meet and say,
Oh, hello, I’m Mimi, I’m Rodolfo, oh, your hands are cold, sit down, you pretty little thing, and tell me about your life … Oh! What the hell is this? I’m in love with you! I will love you for ever! And you’ll love me for ever! Awesome!
When you heard the music, it just made sense. Listening to that duet was the best way to use six minutes that I knew.
As I’d progressed through my twenties my ability to sing it had improved and, as I’d gone about my work in the workshop yesterday morning, I had found myself humming it.
Normally I didn’t let myself so much as whisper opera when at work. It would have been mortifying if someonehad heard me and concluded that I was some frustrated out-of-work singer.
But nobody was due in for hours; it couldn’t have been
But it did. It mattered more than anything else.
The worst of it was that it was
my fault
that the other person – Brian the baritone – knew about my singing. My stupid, clumsy, self-indulgent fault.
I had gone to work at seven thirty yesterday morning to make sure I got everything finished before leaving for America. It had been a beautiful day and the air was milky when I got off the 38 bus at Holborn. Walking along Drury Lane I felt as if I’d been suspended in a pleasant sepia bubble. Things moved calmly, gently; even the vansdisgorging coffee beans, wooden boxes of lettuce, stacks of croissants seemed to belong to another time when people moved slowly and worried less.
As I often did when I got to work super-early, I headed for the empty auditorium. Even now – after all these years – it gave me a greater high than any drug I could imagine.
The front-of-house door shut softly behind me and the red, velvety silence reached around and hugged me. I exhaled happily, looking up at tier after tier of boxes, exquisite little treasure chests of gold, red velvet and marble. The candle lamps were dimmed and the beautiful gold roof arched up away from me, like a great shell, staggeringly high above the stalls.
I sat in a seat and closed my eyes, breathing gently, imagining this same air tonight: warm and swollen with hundreds of voices, thick with the smells of old-fashioned powder and the sharper, sexier perfumes of the young. I imagined the orchestra tuning up in their pit, all long, low blasts and high-pitched squeaks, like a ship’s dockyard. The stage managers buzzing around with their headsets and tiny Maglites; the makeup team pinning wigs and powdering faces, my wardrobe colleagues sliding things off hangers with the quiet, unfussy efficiency on which we prided ourselves.
And finally I allowed myself to imagine the singers waiting behind the safety curtain. Dressed in a hundred different colours; warmed up and ready; simultaneously relieved and frustrated not to be in the spotlight tonight. Somewhere among them would be the two stars, still nervous after all these years, breathing, stretching, humming. Ready.
‘Keith!’ someone yelled offstage. ‘They’re craning the
La Bohème
set out of the workshop. Move your fat arse.’
Smiling, I slipped out of the auditorium and took the lift up to Wardrobe, thinking about
La Bohème
. This coming autumn, once I was back from New York, we had a cast change and I was overseeing the costumes for the incoming singers.
It would be an honour:
La Bohème
was my favourite opera of all time. A love story that managed to be both beautiful and devastating, unfolding against a musical score that (to me at least) had no equal.
Mimi and Rodolfo’s duet in the first act, in spite of being one of the most famous and overplayed in the world, was utterly perfect. As Barry had once pointed out, ‘It’s bollockin’ mental, the idea of two people meeting in a sitting room and declarin’ their undyin’. Unnatural, Chicken. Unnatural.’ But the melody of that duet somehow made it believable. Made it totally acceptable for two people to meet and say,
Oh, hello, I’m Mimi, I’m Rodolfo, oh, your hands are cold, sit down, you pretty little thing, and tell me about your life … Oh! What the hell is this? I’m in love with you! I will love you for ever! And you’ll love me for ever! Awesome!
When you heard the music, it just made sense. Listening to that duet was the best way to use six minutes that I knew.
As I’d progressed through my twenties my ability to sing it had improved and, as I’d gone about my work in the workshop yesterday morning, I had found myself humming it.
Normally I didn’t let myself so much as whisper opera when at work. It would have been mortifying if someonehad heard me and concluded that I was some frustrated out-of-work singer.
But nobody was due in for hours; it couldn’t have been
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