Haunted Tenor (Singers in Love Book 1)

by Irene Vartanoff

  I understood now that JC Vasquez was not the Don Carlo of my dreams, but I still couldn’t stop my irrational pursuit of him. The emotional dreams continued every night. Despite sensible intentions, three nights later, I found myself deliberately angling for a front row seat at the next performance of Don Carlo. The ticket office cut me a break because I was an employee. The other people my age in the pricey orchestra section tended to be relatives of season ticket holders or couples trying opera on for size. Up in the balconies the audience skewed younger. I wondered if my strange reaction to this opera would occur if I sat in the second or third balcony.

  My emotional turmoil and my powerful dreams were meaningless compared to the weirdness of that night. That night, I actually barged into the opera.

  Early in the second act, Don Carlo managed to see Queen Elisabetta alone and threw himself at her feet, begging for her love. It was a terrifying moment. The queen had everything to lose if she yielded to Carlo’s impetuous passion. She had to fight him off and deny her own secret feelings. Eventually, because Carlo fell in a faint, either going mad or dying of love, she revealed her pity for him. He revived and declared his love for her. Then he tried to embrace her. She beat him off with her hands and with condemning words, reminding him that she was married, and to his own father.

  That was how the scene went. I knew it well already. On this night, when Carlo was in a delusional state, lying on the stage and acting like a man in the throes of a nervous breakdown, instead of Elisabetta breaking her honorable silence and revealing her emotion, the young page boy, Tebaldo, intervened. I was Tebaldo.

  Seconds ago, I had been sitting in my seat, watching avidly. Suddenly I was playing the young boy—what was called a trouser role, typically played by a sweet-voiced young woman. I rushed from the wings of the theater and knelt at the prone body of Don Carlo. I begged him to come to his senses. Carlo revived, confusion in his eyes as I bent over him.

  “I beg you. This is very dangerous.” I spoke in English.

  Carlo replied in Italian as if the queen had sung her usual lines, but he looked at me. Me, who was suddenly on the opera stage. In a velvet costume. Wearing a plumed hat and with a tiny sword at my waist.

  I tried again. “Please, your highness, compose yourself. The king will soon be here. You cannot be found alone with the queen.”

  I grabbed his hand. I felt his warmth. JC Vasquez stared at me, confusion and shock in his eyes. Yet he sang his usual words and the scene continued. Except in tonight’s performance, he didn’t grab at the queen and try to embrace her. As the scene ended with Elisabetta’s dramatic reminder that he’d have to kill his father to have her, he cried out his regular line, “I am accursed.”

  I helped him up from his knees and led him away into the shadows, and then a second later, I was somehow back in my seat in the front row. Had I actually been in Tebaldo’s body? Had I taken over the body of a singer? Had I spoken or sung those lines? Don Carlo—no, JC—had seen me, had reacted to me. Queen Elisabetta had not seemed to notice me at all. She had concentrated on the torment of holding in her love for Carlo and acting honorably. No, she was a singer trying to remember her lines. Why didn’t the soprano bat an eyelash at me? Had I been on stage or not? Had I hallucinated my place in the scene?

  What about the prompter? The person who sat in a tiny box at the front of the stage facing the singers and spoke the next line if they needed it. Didn’t the prompter see me? Supposing it actually happened, how had I come to be on the stage? And in costume? Why was I in my seat now, wearing my one little black evening dress?

  Why, when I’d dreamed repeatedly I was the ill-fated Elisabetta, was I suddenly in a different role in this opera? Why the page? Weren’t most delusions centered on being the star of the show, not a minor player? Didn’t all people who thought they were reincarnated Egyptians claim they were pharaohs? If I was making this all up in my head, why hadn’t I given myself a starring role?

  How had it happened? Or did it? Had I experienced a psychotic break with reality? But I had no history of mental illness, and there was nothing in my family, either. We were all crushingly normal high achievers. I took no pills other than a morning multivitamin, and that only because my mother had nagged me into the habit.

  Why had I leapt into a scene? Or hallucinated doing so? Which was the truth?

  ***

  The rest of the act washed over me. Finally it ended, the applause was over, and the audience members slowly stood and left the auditorium. It was intermission, but I still sat, frozen in utter confusion.

  What had happened? Had I fantasized I was the young page, Tebaldo? Imagined I had intruded into the intimate scene between Carlo and Elisabetta? Had I gotten so caught up in the story that my mind had deceived me into thinking I had done the impossible, and taken over another body briefly?

  The wrongness of the story—the father stealing the son’s fiancée—may have gotten to me emotionally, but it was only a story.

  An usher came up to me with a note. He waited while I opened the envelope and read the contents.

  Come backstage at once.

  JC Vasquez

  Imperious of him. Maybe playing a prince went to a singer’s head. On the other hand, perhaps he wanted to apologize for being so abrupt the other night. I followed the usher, idly wondering why I had been summoned. I was led to a small room right off the long corridor. It must have been a rehearsal room or storeroom. It had a wooden floor, stacked folding chairs, and some tables. Fluorescent ceiling lighting completed the utilitarian look. I glanced about. JC Vasquez wasn’t there. The usher stood in the doorway and signaled me to wait. JC arrived. He discreetly slipped the usher a tip and closed the door. We were alone.

  “What were you doing in my opera?” he demanded.

  “You saw me?” My jaw dropped.

  “You practically wrecked the scene.” His expression contorted with anger. “Thank God Karen didn’t break character to ask what the hell was going on.”

  “It really happened,” I said out loud, wonder in my voice. “Did she see me, too?”

  He shook his head. “Not only did you interfere in the scene, but you touched me on the hand.”

  “You felt that? It was real?” I couldn’t keep from repeating myself. “I was actually on stage?”

  “You must have had a duplicate costume made. You have been planning this for weeks.”

  “No, that’s not true—” My fingers went to my hair, pushing the strands back distractedly as I tried to explain what made no sense. “Please, listen.”

  I attempted to compose myself. I shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, overly aware that I was alone with a large, angry, and very attractive man. Finally, I spoke in a rush. “I don’t know what happened. I was sitting in the audience, watching, wearing my own clothes. Then suddenly I was the page.”

  “Why did you plan to disrupt us?”

  “I didn’t.” My eyes filled with tears. “Whatever happened was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  The genuineness of my distress must have gotten through to him. Some of the anger left his expression. “Luckily, no harm done. But don’t do it again.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Stay out of my way from now on.”

  “I’m sorry.” I practically cringed.

  “If you do it again, if you follow me, or wait for me, or any weird stuff like that, I have enough influence here to have you fired. Don’t make me.” He bent a stern look on me. His British accent merely underlined his authoritarian attitude.

  I wanted to promise him that I would ignore him from now on, but how could I be certain? I tried to convey my sincerity with my pleading expression. I carefully backed away from him, feeling with my hand for the door to the corridor. He stared at me the whole time, his frowning face conveying suspicion. And perhaps something more? But what?

  I turned and bolted down the corridor. I didn’t stop until I was through the door to the public hallway. What kind
of hysteria had come over me? I’d always been a reasonable, rational person. I knew that JC Vasquez was not Don Carlo, a young prince in danger from his emotions in 1568. JC Vasquez was an opera singer playing a role. It was only a dramatic performance. Yet something inside me could not separate illusion from reality.

  I practically fell into the outer hallway. I was grateful to be away from JC’s accusing eyes, back in the familiar red velvet surroundings. Well-dressed middle-aged and elderly people stood around chatting outside the restrooms. Only at the Nat would there be large television screens and couches in such a potentially utilitarian area. Obviously, none of the people socializing had noticed anything new or unusual during the act. I skulked back to my seat, thoroughly chastened by my meeting with JC. Utterly confused because he’d seen me on stage. It hadn’t been all in my head.

  Opera intermissions at the Nat were long. The singers had to rest their voices. The sets were enormous and complex to move. I spent nearly half an hour thinking about what had happened. Not that my circular thoughts got me anywhere. Once the lights dimmed again and the music resumed, I suddenly realized I should have gone home. What if I somehow interfered with another scene?

  I was trapped in the middle of a row, nowhere near an aisle. Since my seat was in the first row, there also was a possibility that if I squeezed by a dozen people to exit, the singers might see me and be thrown off their balance. Come to think of it, how had JC Vasquez known where I sat? Anyway, no one entered or left the middle of a row during a performance unless it was a dire emergency.

  Ralph had warned me. “Arrive on time and then stay in your seat until the intermission. Operas are special,” he intoned. “They’re not like movies, where you can walk in and out as you please. If you duck out for a few minutes, you can’t go back inside. And never arrive late to the opera. You will find the doors shut.”

  “You’re kidding.” I resisted rolling my eyes, but barely. These opera people thought they were awfully special.

  “No, it’s the absolute rule. If you’re late, unless there is a convenient break, such as between the overture and the curtain going up, you have to watch the whole first scene or first act—which could be over an hour—on a television screen outside.”

  “How can they get away with it? People pay hundreds of dollars per ticket. Why don’t the customers revolt?”

  “It’s how opera presentation has evolved. The only exception at the Nat is the parterre boxes because they’re small and private,” he replied. His eyes lit up. He had another secret behind the opera to impart. “In the past, sometimes people have behaved in a risqué manner in those boxes. They each have a private anteroom.”

  Too bad I wasn’t seated in a parterre box tonight, where I could retreat to an anteroom and keep safe from the siren call of the drama on stage. I was sorry I had tuned out the rest of what Ralph told me that day. Maybe he knew something that would explain my weird obsession with this opera.

  Meanwhile, I was stuck in my seat, remembering when I’d thought operas were laughable old geezer entertainment. If only I still could laugh. I prayed to remain in my seat from now on and not find myself on the stage again tonight.

  When Don Carlo had the fatal garden scene with Princess Eboli, the hair on my arms literally rose. My body strained to get onstage with Carlo, to save him from his mistaken avowal of love to a powerful woman who could be his enemy. I squirmed as Carlo sank to his knees and told of his deep love, and Eboli lapped it up. The vain witch. When he backed away in horror after she lifted her veil, she became enraged. Within a few seconds, she was warning him that he was in mortal danger and only she could save him. Eboli threw it all in his face. Something within me struggled to move. I could feel an eerie possession fighting to control me. This time, I actively fought the feeling of wanting to intervene. I had surreptitiously tied my bag strap around my ankles, so if I physically moved, I would trip. Maybe falling into the orchestra pit would disturb the opera, but better that than me being transported onto the stage again.

  Even as I felt myself trying to get to Carlo and help him, his best friend, Rodrigo di Posa, arrived. Posa pulled out his knife—with a foot-long blade—to silence her. Carlo, tenderhearted, dear Carlo, restrained him. The imminent threat of the scene subsided. My body stopped trying to move. The danger was over.

  Or was it? I tensed up all over again in the next scene. Don Carlo’s situation got worse. He interrupted the auto da fé, the ritual religious slaughter of so-called sinners. One of the Spanish Inquisition’s most revolting practices. Right in the middle of the grand ceremony, the prince made a poorly timed plea to be allowed to govern part of the kingdom. The king refused. Frustrated, Don Carlo made a foolish, fateful decision and drew his sword on his father. In public. My body again struggled with my mind, but my mind won. I did not leap through a hole in reality and land on the stage again. The act ended with Carlo on his way to prison, and heretics being burned to death in the auto da fé. By some bizarre irony, the auto da fé music was the cheeriest tune so far in this miserable opera.

  Too much for me. At the next intermission, I left the theater, afraid of the strong feelings I had for Don Carlo and baffled by my behavior. Also sorry that JC, a singer and actor even I could recognize as superior, not to mention sexy, thought I was a nutcase weirdo.

  After five performances, I ought to know why Don Carlo affected me so. I ticked off the various elements that might have influenced me. The visuals were convincing. From my background in Renaissance history I knew the sets and the costumes in this production were extremely accurate for the period. Even the small white ruff of lace at Don Carlo’s brown neck was correct. The grand sets dwarfed and oppressed the royal characters in the story. Elisabetta’s rich robes imprisoned her. Her role as queen was a cruel fate for anyone. Don Carlo was a tragic story without any winners.

  The opera merely touched on the fierce religious differences of the time. The auto da fé scene with its happy music also had a creepy undertone of a machine repeating itself. The crowd came to watch heretics being hideously burned to death, and to celebrate the belief that those heretical souls were going to heaven. Repulsive to my modern eyes.

  As a young teenager I had cried over Romeo and Juliet, but no drama ever affected me like the opera Don Carlo. I’d known opera existed, but never cared anything about it. I always thought opera was for old people, by old people. And my older brother.

  JC was youthful and attractive, with flashing dark eyes and beautifully molded lips. I’d like to get to know JC. An unrealistic hope, given the circumstances.

  Yet, somehow, JC was the only one who saw me when I became Tebaldo and interfered on stage. He also felt my touch on his hand. Did we have some kind of link?

  What could have caused it? How could I be in two places at once? If I was. When I watched that scene, my yearning to save and comfort Don Carlo had been intense. Very intense. Where it came from, I didn’t know. Of course JC himself was a handsome man—and he knew it, too. He carried himself with confidence in the opera and at other times.

  There was so much tragedy and repression in the opera. Even the opening scene shed only a tiny ray of happiness in a gloomy forest. The best the lovers could do was sing one lousy song of happiness before brutal reality tore them apart.

  Was that it? The tragedy spoke to me? Why would the sad story of a long-dead prince, hyped up by a long-dead playwright and a long-dead composer, bring me to such heights of delusion?

  Even if I was going nuts and having a psychotic break, how could JC see me on the stage and feel my hand—yet no one else did? What kind of strange connection did he and I have? Or was it a connection between Don Carlo and me?

  Another thought. Was my entry into the Don Carlo tragedy out of altruism, or something more selfish? During my impossible moment of presence on the stage, I was not the queen, although I’d had multiple vivid dreams in which I was her. No, I was her page. What was up with that? Surely, if my spirit left my body in order to save Don Carlo, it wou
ld have gone into the body of the soprano playing the queen, who secretly still loved him. Instead, it manufactured a whole new body, a duplicate of the page’s, complete with costume. The duplicate had my face, otherwise, how could JC Vasquez have recognized me? And yet I was invisible to others. None of it made sense.

  Safely away from the trigger for my obsessive behavior, I now had plenty of time to think about this logically. Even better, the Don Carlo cycle was over for this part of the opera season. There was no way I’d be pulled into seeing it again.

  I was limp and confused, but soon I was sleeping better. No unusual dreams. If there had been another performance, I don’t know if I could have stopped myself from seeing it. Or, perhaps, from being in it again, somehow.

  Chapter 3

  As the days passed, I found myself thinking about JC often. Now that I had a personality and face to go with a name, I noticed that he was constantly being mentioned in the media. He was a rising star in the opera world. I should have realized that from the crowd outside the stage door. I had been too caught up in my emotions.

  Ralph raved happily about him. “We are very lucky to have him here so much this season. He is an international phenomenon. In the future, he’ll only do a few days here at most. Many opera houses want him.”

  “I don’t understand. Why is he singing two operas at the Nat this year?”

  “Ah,” Ralph’s face lit up. He enjoyed imparting another secret of the opera. “The schedules are made up and the contracts are signed five years in advance.”

  “So, five years ago JC Vasquez was not a big star?” I guessed.

  “Exactly,” Ralph nodded his pleasure. “He was on his way, which is why the Nat signed him, and why he was eager to take anything we offered. Since then, he has achieved star status.”