Chapter 44

The limo took us to the opera house, and Cam and I headed in the stage door with Marilyn and Sam giving us the "break a leg" stuff. I know it's traditional theater, but that's one saying I've never warmed up to. I mean, suppose you really did? I'm not much on wishing people things I don't seriously want to happen to them.

We both made it into our dressing rooms with both legs intact, though, and I could hear her starting her final, now-it's-for-real warmup as she changed into her costume and wig and contact lenses. Yep, contact lenses; the libretto makes a huge point in the first act about how Tosca's a brunette with black eyes, and while the audience is too far away to pick up eye color, the video cameras for tonight's opening wouldn't be. So she'd insisted on colored contacts; it was yet another measure of how seriously she was taking this.

I delayed my own warm-up a bit longer; Scarpia doesn't come in until late in the act and I wanted to be as fresh as possible. But finally, with about fifteen minutes to go before curtain, I had to get into it, I couldn't do it once they'd started. I cut it pretty short, though, just enough to wake the vocal cords up; I didn't want to leave my performance in the dressing room. I finished, as Cam had suggested back in my cabin, with some leaps, and felt satisfied.

When I was done I walked out to find her, and there she was, pacing around a bit but looking really fine as a black-eyed brunette. I went over and gave her a careful kiss that wouldn't smear her make-up. "Go get 'em, girl," I said softly.

"You too, darling," she told me. She already knew my dislike for the more traditional wish. And we just stood there holding hands through the usual opening-night delays. Mario walked past us and bumped fists with me and blew a kiss at Camilla, the bass singing Angelotti took his place for his entrance, the buffo doing the Sacristan lined up behind him, we heard the silence as the house lights went down and the applause as Gerry walked onto the podium, the first chords rang out, and we were under way.

I stayed with Camilla until her time came. Tosca starts from the wings; she gave my hand a last squeeze, and began singing: "Mario, Mario!"—amusingly his character's first name was the same as our tenor's—and she made her entrance. There was a quick burst of applause as she did, but Gerry refused to defer to it and it quickly subsided.

My God, I thought idly, suppose opera audiences started to adopt the same etiquette, or lack of it, as rock audiences. They'd scream and scream for her and every note she sang would be unheard. Opera by now is the only form of professional theater that doesn't mike the performers, you hear the voices themselves, not their digitized reproductions. And audiences know that and keep respectfully silent for the most part.

I still had a good ten minutes or more before it would be my time, and for a minute or two, with Cam no longer beside me, I started feeling pretty edgy myself. But then I told myself to just listen to the beautiful duet Mario and Cam were brewing up on the stage, and I actually got lost in it. Cam and Gerry were making sure Mario stuck right to the score, and it was as gorgeous as I'd ever heard it done. Which, unfortunately, wasn't often; there are no comprimario baritone roles in Tosca, and I'd never done the opera before.

Then Cam came off-stage, hurried over to give me a quick kiss, the Sacristan and the choristers went into their little dance, and I was on. Waiting until the last second I strode on singing my entrance line, and for me the performance was at last under way.

From there I had no idea how it went until I saw the video much later. Cam came back on, we tore each other to shreds, she finally ran off again and I did my monologue and then joined in with the chorus for the "Te Deum" that ends the act. And when the curtain came down I joined everyone for our first call, and then Mario and Cam and I came out alone for the second, and there was even a third for the three of us when the audience wouldn't quiet down, and then it was intermission and I felt exhausted already. I'd put a lot into that duet with Cam.

But Act I is only the warm-up for Scarpia; it's in Act II that he has to really shine. Cam came over to me and threw her arms around me, and for a minute or two I hugged her back. Then I leaned over, gave her a quick kiss, and motioned her away. I needed the time that was left to gather myself back together, rekindle my energy for what was to come.

Scarpia's on stage to begin Act II, and I took my place as the house lights dimmed along with another of the comprimari basses with which Tosca seems to abound. Mindful of my own recent status, I reached over to knock fists with the basso, to, I think, his considerable surprise. And the curtain went up and we were off again.

I did another monologue—it's the closest Puccini ever came to writing a baritone aria, but it still falls well short—and my dialogues with first the bass and then with Mario, holding him to the meter as Cam had taught me, and then Camilla was back and we started in beating up on each other again. And it was really there, I could feel it. We got all the way to her aria, and I disappeared as she'd asked and just listened.

I all but broke into tears. If I'd ever heard anything more beautiful, more touching, I couldn't remember it. That glowing, limpid voice simply overwhelmed the entire house, reaching every note with utter ease and conveying the desperation of her plight. When she at last reached the culmination, where she asks God why he's repaid her good works with the misery she now confronts, the audience burst out in a chorus of "brava" and more applause than I could ever remember hearing in an opera house. All I wanted was to join in. In fact I actually whispered "brava" myself under my breath, though I knew she couldn't hear me.