Chapter 20
Il Muto’s opening night had sold out.
It stung more than I was ready to admit. Despite my triumph as Elissa, Carlotta’s return to the stage had been orchestrated with nary a public complaint. It was as though every opera patron had forgotten how I’d enchanted them. They’d forgotten how I’d shone.
And now, they filled every seat and every box in the house, hungry to witness La Carlotta all over again.
I bustled about the set, plumping pillows, dusting furniture, and swaying my hips with theatrical exaggeration as a group of chorus members delivered the backstory of the roving Don Attilio and his equally faithless bride.
Serafimo was a pants role, meaning a woman was cast as a male character.
Normally, this was because a mezzo could more easily tackle certain roles written in finicky keys, but as Serafimo was mute, I could only assume it was because patrons would rather watch two women climb into the ridiculously oversized bed together.
In this scene, the page boy had disguised himself as one of the countess’s maids so that he could sneak into her chamber and seduce her, with the count none the wiser.
I had on both my page boy livery and the maid’s skirt and frilled mobcap. The layers were scorchingly hot beneath the stage lights, and I felt as if my performance was just as limp and lackluster.
Though we played to a full house, the audience had been all but silent tonight.
Their applause after the overture had been tepid at best, and I wondered if they were as tired of seeing this style-galant chestnut as we were of performing it.
Even Maestro Messenger looked one basso continuo away from openly yawning.
The only thing which kept me going was that somewhere out there, in the sea of listless people, sat Raoul.
He’d promised to attend tonight before escorting me to the company after-party.
It would be the first time so many of his peers saw us together, and my heart was giddy with anticipation.
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but tonight felt important.
“Serafimo,” Carlotta trilled, drawing my attention back to the staging at hand.
She wore an elaborately full gown, with swagged skirts of pink satin so wide she had to go through the backstage doors sideways.
Her wig was a towering confection, bedecked with ribbons and bows, like a wedding cake.
A trio of heart-shaped velvet beauty patches formed a constellation across one cheek. Another set adorned her deep cleavage.
She spun me around and pulled at the tie at my skirt so that the whole dress fluttered off me in a twirl of ruffles, revealing the green striped breeches I wore beneath. From the darkened house, I heard a few murmurs of appreciation at the sight of my hose-covered calves.
“You cannot speak,” she continued and crossed to the bed at center stage, “but kiss me in my husband’s absence!”
As the orchestra began the intro to her aria, Carlotta turned upstage to pull out an atomizer the stagehands had secreted away under a mound of pillows.
It was filled with a mixture of ginger, honey, lemon, and a touch of slippery elm.
Carlotta had bottles of the spray hidden throughout every opera set and used them frequently throughout the performances, claiming to all who would listen that the concoction helped keep her throat well lubricated, allowing her to hit astronomically high notes during her coloratura.
Once, I’d seen a faceted bottle left behind after a performance and had curiously tried it out. It didn’t seem to do a thing for me, but it had at least made my breath smell sweet.
I could smell the lemons now as Carlotta turned back downstage to address the audience. “Poor fool, he makes me laugh,” she began, and went into a soaring fioritura of laughter.
I took her hand and began pantomiming ardent kisses up her fingers to her elbow.
Just as I reached her shoulder, when I was meant to drop her into a wild dip, the stage lights flickered and a voice boomed out over the auditorium, roaring as loud as thunder.
“Did I not instruct that Box Five was to be kept empty?”
Everyone in the theatre, including all of us onstage, instinctively glanced toward the box in question. I could just make out the shape of someone silhouetted against the dim sconce lighting. It was Raoul.
A chill swept through me. What was he doing there—in that box, of all places?
I knew exactly who had spoken.
I knew exactly whose fury Raoul had baited.
“It’s him,” I murmured sotto voce, breaking both character and the scene before I could stop myself.
“The Phantom of the Opera,” someone hissed, and I squinted backstage to see Meg, already dressed in her country nymph costume, peeking from behind one of the legs as she looked fearfully into the front of house.
More whispers followed as other company members dared to duck onstage, hiding in shadows, to see what was going on.
“He’s here,” I said.
Carlotta whipped toward me, her painted face a nightmare of indignation. “Your part is silent, little toad!”
“A toad, madame?” Erik’s voice rang out. I hadn’t heard it since the night he’d abandoned me in my dressing room so many weeks before, and for it to now be here, in front of so many others, felt wrong. “Perhaps it is you who are the toad.”
Flurries of conversation broke out across the auditorium as the audience became more animated than they had been all evening. From the back of the stalls, one young man stood and yelled “Ribbit!” before collapsing in a fit of drunken laughter as his companions tried to hush him.
Carlotta studied the crowd with growing reproach. I could see the bows on her wig dance from the force of her barely checked rage. She was moments away from erupting into a monstrous tantrum.
From his position in the pit, Maestro Messenger gently tapped his baton against the music stand before him, drawing the diva’s attention. He offered her a small, pained smile.
“Perhaps from the da capo, my lady?”
Carlotta blinked, pulling herself back into the role, back into the music, and nodded.
“Maestro, per favore.” She took another spray from the atomizer, making no show of hiding it as she usually would, then fell back into an overwrought pose.
“Serafimo, away with this pretense,” she sang again, and I rushed over to her side, already late for my blocking.
“You cannot speak, but kiss me in my husband’s—”
A horrible noise exploded from her, landing with all the croaking ungainliness of a toad.
We stared at each other, struck dumb by what had just happened. It hadn’t been a slipped note or even a vocal crack—the most feared ailment to strike an improperly warmed-up singer.
No.
This had been…
This had been something far worse.
Carlotta’s hand shot to her throat, feeling the long, flexing column of muscles. She massaged the skin, searching for anything which could explain away that appalling sound.
Unbelievably, Maestro Messenger had continued and was now holding the orchestra in an impatient vamp as he waited for Carlotta.
Glancing from him to the audience to all of the company members now gathered in the wings, she grabbed my hand, improvising the blocking. Her grip was painfully tight, squeezing the blood from my fingers. Her eyes were dark with terror, but she held her chin aloft and took a long, steadying breath.
“Poor fool, he makes me laugh. Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha—”
Another croak burst from her, like a hiccup. Like a belch. She sounded like a drunkard stumbling home after last call while struggling to contain the urge to retch.
Again and again, the ghastly sound squelched from her.
She hunched over, unable to stop the noises from escaping, and I feared she might become sick onstage, hacking up whatever it was that had caused this distress.
I tried to help her, but her skirts were too voluminous, and I could barely feel her body within them.
We both fell to the ground in a tangle of satin and hooped caning.
The audience tittered heartlessly as her wig toppled off, revealing the knit cap holding back her own chestnut curls.
There was a commotion in the managers’ box, and I could just make out the shape of Monsieur André hurrying into the hall.
High above us, in the great painted dome of the house’s plastered ceiling, came laughter. It rained down like a summer storm, vicious and maniacal.
“Behold!” Erik cried. “She’s singing to bring down the chandelier!”
As if compelled by his voice, the chandelier began to sway, rocking back and forth with so much force I feared it would snap the velvet-covered chain holding it aloft. Its gas-lamp globes flickered worryingly as Erik began to laugh again.
What was he doing?
I knew how angry he’d been when the managers had ignored his notes and cast the show as they saw fit. But to do this…to threaten not only them, but all of us onstage…It wasn’t Carlotta’s fault. It wasn’t any of our—
Carlotta released her hold on me, casting aside my hand so hard I felt my shoulder nearly wrench out of its joint.
“Non posso più!” she screeched around the croaks. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, causing the heavy stage makeup to run in grotesque rivers of color.
Ubaldo rushed onstage and pulled Carlotta to her feet. She collapsed in his arms, wailing. “I cannot go on! I cannot—” Her final croak ripped free, and she floundered offstage, sobbing.
The audience was aghast. Whispers turned to murmurs, which turned to all-out chaos.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Monsieur Firmin shouted from his box. A spotlight shifted to him and he covered his eyes, wincing around his momentary blindness. “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize. The performance will continue in…in ten minutes’ time.”
It was such an absurd statement I nearly laughed. Then I looked to Maestro Messenger. He looked as every bit as horrified and bewildered as I felt. There wasn’t a chance in the world Carlotta would be back to sing. Not in ten minutes. Not ever.
Monsieur Firmin seemed to come to the same conclusion as Carlotta’s whimpers from backstage rose over the audience’s din.
She sounded like a wounded animal. “Uh…yes,” he said.
“The…the performance will continue, with the role of the Countess now sung by…” I felt his eyes land upon me.
His mouth twisted with grim resignation. “Miss Christine Daaé.”