Operaland, p.25
OPERALAND, page 25
“But how? Those guys are booked years in advance.”
“Ach, they pay enough and they find one.”
“But I can sing Siegmund just as well as any of them.”
“You know this. I know this. Maybe now even Frau Richartz knows this. But you are still the little understudy.” He gives me one of his wise-guy looks. “Maybe not so little. But they do not want the understudy, they want the name.”
I wish I could say Otto was wrong--I mean, Siegmunds don’t grow on trees--but the rumor mill keeps churning out singers who aren’t me. I eventually get so crazed and hyper-anxious that when Herr Klauzer visits a Carmen rehearsal, I ask him flat out if he’s got some good news for me.
“About what?”
“Siegmund.”
“I assume you are well aware that you are the understudy.”
“Yeah, but I’d really like to know if I’ll be singing it.”
“Are you able to sing it?”
“Yes, absolutely. I’m even taking extra coaching with Herr Greissle and paying for it myself.”
“You do not expect us to pay, do you?”
“No, no, of course not, I’m just saying I got the role in tip-top shape and Herr Greissle thinks so too.”
“You pay him. Of course, he thinks that,” he says and turns to go. Then he adds, over his shoulder, “You are the understudy, Herr Verdun, ready to step in at a moment’s notice, exactly as in your contract. And that’s that.”
Another few days go by, and they still haven’t found a Siegmund. That morning, I don’t have any rehearsals, so I’m sleeping in when the phone jangles me awake.
“Herr Verdun, good morning. I hope I do not disturb. It’s Frau Kasel, Herr Klauzer’s assistant.” I mumble something or other and she goes, “I am calling to inform you that we have to cancel your release next month.”
“You mean, at the end of November?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But that’s when I’m going back home. It’s Thanksgiving, a big family holiday.”
“I’m sorry, Frau Richartz absolutely insists that you be present for all the rehearsals of Die Walkuere. After all, you are the understudy for Siegmund.”
“But I need to go home to my family.”
“The end of November is the final week of stage rehearsals. Frau Richartz has to have her Siegmund.”
That does it. Everything finally clicks. “Fantastic,” I go, “I actually got the part!”
“No, no, not at all. I do not say this. All I say is we cancel your release--force majeure, we call it. We try to make it up to you next spring.”
“But I’ll be singing all the shows, right?”
“Sorry, it is not my place to say.”
“Then let me speak to Herr Klauzer.”
“Unfortunately, he is in Paris.”
“Then give me the number of his hotel.”
“You know he never allows this.”
“Honey, sorry, but does Herr Klauzer really think I’m about to give up a chance to see my family at Thanksgiving while he plays his silly games? I’m calling my agent. I refuse to be treated like shit.” I slam down the phone, too riled up to go back to bed, and start pacing. I got a lot of time to kill before I can call Erich in New York.
The phone rings again. I dash back to answer it.
“Herr Verdun, Reinbert Klauzer here. I trust it’s not too early.”
“What the hell is going on,” I say. “Am I singing Siegmund or not?”
“Patience, patience, my friend—”
“No! Now! I’ve waited long enough.”
“I know, and I do apologize. You have to appreciate that I am sometimes under extreme pressure to do things I really do not want to do and in this case, alas, it has also affected you.”
“It sure as hell has.”
“You see, once Herr Kuehn had eliminated himself from the cast, Frau Richartz told me she very much wanted to work with a certain singer, whose name we all know and whose name I shall not utter. As you probably realize by now, la Richartz can be very insistent, very obstinate. She forced me to embark on a complex and difficult negotiation with this dreadful man and his impossible agent, which prevented me from doing what I had wanted to do in the first place, which was, of course, to ask you to sing all six performances of Die Walkuere.”
This is, of course, a gigantic deal, the fulfillment of my wildest dreams, but I know Herr Eel well enough to keep the cheering to myself. “So,” I ask warily, “I’ll be doing the entire run?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, this also means that you need to be in Frankfurt throughout November. How can we rehearse a new production without its leading man?”
“My family’s gonna take it real hard. Thanksgiving’s a major deal for us.”
“I know. I’ll try to make it up to you as soon as possible.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
“One other thing. You may not know that we are required to make an additional payment each time a company understudy steps in to perform. It’s a modest fee, five hundred Deutschmarks, but in this case, since it’s such an important role, I’m raising it to a thousand. That means you’ll have six thousand extra Deutschmarks before the end of the year. You can be extremely generous with your Christmas presents.”
The moment he says it, I realize I could also use the money to bring the whole family over to Frankfurt. What a great way to celebrate Thanksgiving.
“In any case, Herr Verdun, I feel extremely fortunate to have such an exceptional artist in my house and thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
It’s another four or five hours before I can get Erich Hirschmann on the horn. When I finally reach him, his reaction is completely bizarre.
“Of course, you do not accept his offer.”
“I have to. I’m the understudy.”
“With a one-year contract. They pay you a few extra marks and kick you out the door.”
“Actually, they’re paying me a whole lot of extra marks, a thousand for every performance.”
“Do you know how much they pay any Siegmund, even the most insignificant? 10,000 Deutschmarks per performance. 10,000. And that does not include the air fare and the hotel and the per diem. Herr Klauzer has found for himself a bargain.”
“Yes, and I get a terrific opportunity.”
“And make no career!” Crazy, no? I get a giant break and my agent’s yelling at me. “You think I let them keep you on this ridiculous one-year contract when you save for them the Ring? Nein, niemals! They go all over the world looking for a Siegmund. They even have the nerve to call me to see if Brent Cavendish can do it.”
“But he’s a baritone.”
“And never has any free time. I tell Herr Klauzer he has already Verdun in his house, the perfect Siegmund, and he says, ‘I easily find someone much better.’”
“He actually said that?”
“Of course. He takes you completely for granted. For him you are the understudy, the nobody.”
“Okay, but I don’t want to lose my big chance.”
“Herr Verdun, let me do my job. I know very well how to make this Klauzer thank god he has in his company the remarkable Richard Verdun.”
“Do it carefully, okay?”
This gets him even angrier. “You tell me what to do when you very nearly ruin everything, when you say yes, instead of sorry, please call my agent, he makes for me all decisions. Now I have to come in and say wait, wait, my client is not your slave, you must pay him the proper amount and make the proper contract.”
“But I’m the understudy.”
“You are the star! You save the show! Either they treat you properly or they have no performance.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
Chapter Twelve
TJ
Dad had been over there only a few weeks, when out of the blue he called me from Frankfurt and said he’d buy me the ticket if I could visit him around Columbus Day. Carol was too busy at work and Billy had just started senior year high school and actually had to study and Mom has this thing about flying, so I was the lucky one and, frankly, I was thrilled. I mean, how cool is that? I’d never been to Europe, none of my friends back in Graystone had either, but I knew from travel shows that it was pretty amazing, so of course I said yes, I’d take off in the middle of fall semester, but then Dad got all Dad and said maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, I’d get behind in my studies, and I said the term’s just getting started and my course load’s pretty light and I can easily cut my Thursday ethics class so I’d have four full days there- which really was pretty crazy since I never dreamed I’d ever do something so wild and adventurous.
Long story short, I organized everything and flew over to Frankfurt the second week of October and there was Dad waiting for me at the airport, looking just like Dad, except he was wearing a brand-new long (and I mean way long, like flopping-round-his-ankles long) black leather coat, which he bought because all the guys at the opera house told him it keeps out rain and cold better than fleece or wool and that’s pretty important over there, because if you think the weather’s bad in Graystone, it’s way worse in Frankfurt. I gotta admit that, even though Dad was real proud of his new purchase, he looked pretty ridiculous in it.
If you’re gonna ask me what Frankfurt’s like, I’m sorry to say I really can’t tell you because just about the only thing I ever got to see was Dad’s tiny apartment a few blocks from the theater and the opera house itself. I mean, the weather totally sucked. It rained every day, usually pretty hard, and that made sightseeing kinda unpleasant – okay, very unpleasant – and then when I did take a few walks around the town center, all I saw were these weird old buildings that looked totally new, which made the whole place seem like a German Disneyland and then I learned from Dad that they were brand-new reproductions of very old buildings which were bombed out during World War Two, which still seems to be going on there in some weird way, even though no one ever mentions it, like, duh, what war? Anyhow, when I strolled down the main drag of Frankfurt, it sure seemed boring, nothing much was going on. I don’t speak German, so I couldn’t strike up conversations with people on the street and that was unfortunate, since some of the ladies striding around looked pretty hot in a leather kind of way. I still regret I never got up the courage to speak to any of them, though in the end it’s probably just as well, since Dad would have gone ballistic if he knew I’d been propositioning ladies out on the street. He was always very cool and easy about most guy things, like sports and cars. But when it came to women, he got totally uptight, “Respect your woman, boys, no sex before marriage.” Yeah, Dad, as if.
Not speaking German was kind of a drag, but lots of people at the theater spoke English, which really helped, though I gotta say it wasn’t the English I’m used to, kinda flat and British, with lots of mispronunciations, but, hey, who am I to talk? I still can’t say three words of Spanish without my buddy Luis cracking up. Anyway, on the language front, Dad’s got his own problems; he barely speaks German and he’s working in this German opera house, where they expect him to speak the language, so he’s studying like crazy, not that it does much good. We’d bump into some buddy of his on the street and the guy would be talking at him a mile a minute and Dad would be nodding and smiling, and after the guy left, I’d ask what the man had said and he’d go, “Beats the hell outta me.”
Anyhow, my visit rolled along in a low-key way until the last day, when Dad was gonna perform. I’d never been with him on a day when he had to sing. I didn’t know he turned into an entirely different being. He basically slept the whole time and wouldn’t say a word because he was saving his voice for the show. I mean, come on, he wouldn’t even tell me where he kept the coffee, he just pointed. As luck would have it, it poured all day long, so I was stuck inside Dad’s grim little apartment while he went mute and all I could get on his tiny black and white TV were programs in German about parrots and recycling and other exciting shit. I got so desperate I decided to start on my ethics paper, which meant I had to wade through Plato’s Republic, which pretty much finished me off. As the day dragged on, I felt pretty stupid for having asked Dad to spring all that cash to fly me over to Germany. Some glamorous European getaway, him snoozing on the couch, me stuck with my Plato, while the rain slammed down outside.
Finally, after what felt like twenty years, Dad had to go off to the theater. He gave me my ticket, sketched a little map to get me there and left. Great, now what? I tried killing time by dressing for the opera very slowly, piece by piece, till I looked neat and tidy, not my usual sloppy Joe, because Dad said they dress for the opera. I brushed my hair over and over till it stood up just right and buffed and rebuffed my shoes and tied and retied my necktie until the dimple of the knot was exactly in the middle, right where it belongs, then I borrowed one of Dad’s umbrellas and went outside into the rain, which hit me like a machine gun, and ran down the empty streets till I reached a crowd of wet unhappy Germans standing outside this big boxy building where the opera was.
I tried to go to my seat but they wouldn’t let me in till I checked my coat and umbrella, so I went downstairs to this giant coatroom and left my soaking stuff with a lady who looked like my first-grade teacher Miss Masterson, only angrier. Then I went back upstairs and took a program and the lady held out her hand for money. I guess they charge over there for programs and not just ten cents. I decided not to buy one, since it wasn’t even in English. Then I entered this tall gray cement room filled with old men wearing dark suits and women with harsh makeup and tight-fitting dresses, too tight for the shape they were in. Everything felt gloomy and businesslike– nothing like what we had back home, nothing open, lively or fun, everything serious, severe and solemn. Even the way they talked sounded different. No laughs or giggles, no highs or lows, just a steady even hum, like the dull sound of a low flying plane or a car in first gear. Finally, the house lights dimmed and I heard the short, sharp slaps of a thousand people clapping together almost in unison, very tight, very rigid, then it cut off sharply and the opera began.
It was the first I’d ever seen, so of course I was very curious. This was what my Dad had dreamed of for so many years, this was what he wanted to do. The audience seemed totally into it, really concentrating. The atmosphere was more like a church than a theater. The guy next to me would glare or shush me every time I shifted even a little in my seat, until I got so uptight and paranoid I felt I could barely breathe.
I almost didn’t recognize Dad when he finally came out on stage. His costume and makeup made him look and feel so different, so new and unfamiliar, he just couldn’t be the man I knew. And then he started to sing. Obviously, I’m no judge, but Dad was mighty impressive. He sounded really powerful, like he could rip us out of our seats. He did the action pretty well too, though I got kind of squirmy at some of the make-out sessions. I mean, there was my Dad all over the lady who sang Carmen, feeling her up and pumping it into her and I’m thinking come on, man, this is gross.
Anyway, after a while, Dad had a big solo and really laid into it. He socked it and rocked it and the public gave him a good hand. I did too, of course, though I didn’t do much of anything at first, since I found it so freaking odd to see the guy who’s been part of my life since forever up there on stage with this giant audience staring at him, judging him. But he didn’t care, he batted the music out to us full force and it couldn’t have been easy, hell, it probably isn’t even natural for any human being to make so much sound, and yet he did and it was really something, almost heroic, to see him make that gigantic effort. Good for you, Dad. Way to go.
By the end, everyone seemed totally lost in the opera, in this incredibly mean and depressing story, and when Carmen suddenly spit at her jerky lover boy just before the end, everyone gasped, me included. I mean, come on, lady, that’s my Dad you’re spitting at. Finally, Dad got his own back and did Carmen in and I felt this insane release of tension, like I’d been trapped in a cage and suddenly set free. Then came the applause, strong and steady, and while I gotta admit the lady doing Carmen got most of it, Dad did pretty well too. Some people even shouted bravo, so I did likewise, which caused the guy sitting next to me to glare once again. I didn’t care. He was my Dad and he was great and now the show was over and we could finally go out and get some food like normal folk, because, frankly, I was starving. My metabolism’s pretty intense and for me to hold off dinner until after 10 P.M. is really tough, if not downright excruciating, so I sprinted backstage and went past room after room filled with singers taking off wigs and costumes, until I finally got to a closed door with this sign Herr Verdun. I entered and found my Dad stripped down to his shorts, which wasn’t a pretty sight. I’m sorry to say he’d gained twenty or thirty pounds since last summer, too much potatoes and wurst, I figure. Anyway, there he was dripping with sweat, toweling off, talking to this elegant slim guy in dark jeans and a black turtleneck who was reading from a tiny notebook.
Dad beamed when I came in. “Toni, this is my son Timmy.” We shook hands. “Toni’s the assistant director. He’s the guy who keeps me in line.”
“Sounds like a tough job.”
“My son’s a kidder, just like his dad.”
“I see. Then I watch myself very carefully.” Toni smiled at me in a tense kind of way. Everything about him was immaculate, like he’d been dressed by some kind of super chic robot. “What happened with the blood tonight?”
“You missed the best part, son. After I knife her, there’s usually a bloodbath on stage. Takes me half an hour to shower the stuff off.”
“We need this stuff, we want this.”
“I know. Germans love the sight of blood.”
Toni got all excited. “Nein, we do not. We are a pacifist country.”
