Murder at the Opera

THREE

As eighteen GW law students listened to Professor Smith explore the subtleties of unlawful restraint and the use of writs of habeas corpus to prevent it, a class of a different sort of confinement was in session at the rehearsal facilities of the Washington National Opera Studio in Takoma Park, a funky suburban village straddling the upper northwest boundaries of D.C., and Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.

WNO had leased the former industrial building in the late 90s, renovated it, and opened its doors in 2000. With three separate rehearsal rooms, each the size of the Kennedy Center ’s main stage, multiple productions could be in rehearsal simultaneously, a distinct advantage. The building also housed the company’s vast costume design, manufacture and storage areas, wig collection, and the offices of the Washington National Opera Center for Education and Training. This was the home of the world-renowned Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program that brought many of the most promising singers, pianists, and directors from around the globe to Washington for intensive one-on-one training. On this afternoon, fourteen talented young men and women were immersed in a two-hour Italian lesson. The majority were American; since 9/11, obtaining visas for future opera stars from overseas had become torturous, causing the program’s administrators to concentrate on homegrown talent. But this crop did include a South Korean, two Canadians, and a Spanish baritone.

The instructor surveyed the class over half-glasses. “We’re missing someone,” he said. “Where is Ms. Lee?”

Shrugs all around.

Charise Lee, a promising soprano from Toronto, was not in her usual seat.

“Is she ill?” asked the instructor.

“I haven’t seen her all day,” another student replied, echoed by others.

The instructor wrote Lee’s name on a slip of paper, which he would turn in to the office following class. Unexcused absences were not taken lightly, although they happened with considerable frequency, particularly with the singers in the group.

“She told me yesterday that she was getting a cold,” a stage director offered.

The instructor smiled. Opera singers were always on the verge of getting colds, or so it seemed to them. “The voice,” they would say, referring to themselves, never “my voice,” as though it was an entity outside themselves. Someone should write an aria about hypochondria, he mused as he began the lesson, focusing on Italian words that were easy to sing, whose consonants didn’t pop, and whose vowels could be crooned.

In another part of the building, the company’s wardrobe director, Harriet McKay, who’d been with the company for fifteen years, was busy scheduling fittings for the cast, chorus, and supers who were to appear in Tosca. The soprano playing Tosca in the production was scheduled to fly in to Washington from Argentina the following day, her arrival preceded by a reputation for being late and especially demanding about what she was to wear onstage. And, Harriet knew, for good reason. Tosca’s costumes were heavy and confining, and seemed to gain weight, and heat, as the production proceeded. Ill-fitting gowns would only add to the soprano’s discomfort, which could manifest itself in a less than sterling performance. Besides, the perfect costume would help ensure her immersion into the role of Tosca. She had a right to be exacting, and Harriet McKay never resented being on the receiving end of what might seem to outsiders nothing more than the unreasonable whims of a persnickety diva.

Harriet and two of the costume department’s thirty volunteers sat at a desk in a corner of the wig room and went over the day’s schedule. Mackensie Smith and the president of George Washington University were slated to be fitted at four. An hour later, Christopher Warren-a pianist from Toronto-and the soprano Charise Lee, students from the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, were penciled in for fittings. They’d been pressed into service as supers for Tosca’s opening night due to a scheduling conflict with two of the regular supers that evening. Because the ranks of supernumeraries included men and women from all walks of life, many of them in demanding professions, such conflicts of timing were not uncommon, much to the chagrin of the woman in charge of finding-and keeping-the right bodies for each production’s run. The director of this production, Anthony Zambrano, was particularly concerned that Harriet provide all female supers with flat shoes consistent with the era, recounting for her the horror of a production he’d once seen of Tosca in which one of the female supers wore spiked heels and took a tumble down a set of stairs, disrupting the entire performance.

“They’re only appearing one night,” Harriet told the volunteers, referring to Warren and Charise. “We’ll need two extra costumes.”

“What we put on them won’t do for the regulars when they perform?” a volunteer asked.

“Afraid not,” Harriet said. “Better get with it. We’ll need the extra costumes by tomorrow morning.”

“What’s new with Andrea Chénier?” a volunteer asked. The Umberto Giordano opera was next on that season’s schedule.

“We’re renting the costumes from the San Francisco production,” Harriet replied. “They should be here in a day or two.” She checked her watch and stood. “I’m late for a meeting with Anthony. He’s unhappy with the designer’s costume for Cavaradossi, keeps changing his mind, one day he likes it, the next he doesn’t. Maybe we’ll finally get a definitive decision from him. Ciao. Bless you both. This place would fall apart without you.”

Mac Smith fielded questions during the last thirty minutes of his class. Most of them were intelligent and on-point, a few weren’t, especially the final one: “Are you really going to be in the opera at the Kennedy Center, Professor Smith?”

“Where did you hear that?” Smith countered.

“People are talking about it. You and President Burns.”

“Well,” Smith said, “what you hear is correct. Yes, President Burns and I, along with professors from American University and Georgetown, will be supernumeraries in Tosca. That’s supernumerárius in Latin, but of course you already know that, being the scholars that you are. I suggest you buy tickets and expand your cultural universe beyond video games and MTV. That’s it for today.”

He packed his briefcase and left the lecture hall, a satisfied smile on his face. The lesson had gone nicely, although his mind had wandered at times to what was in store for him. While he’d expressed obligatory dismay at agreeing to appear in Tosca, he was surprised that there were moments, interspersed with dread, in which he found himself, at once, and privately, looking forward to the experience.

He’d appeared in two plays while an undergraduate, The Man Who Came to Dinner and A Streetcar Named Desire, both directed by a favorite professor, Joseph Stockdale. Mac had never harbored any desire to become an actor. His aspiration since high school had been the law, particularly trial advocacy, fueled by countless courtroom dramas he’d watched in movie theaters and on television. Stockdale had known this when he cast Mac in the plays, and made the point with the young student that acting experience would hold him in good stead when having to capture and sway a jury. The director had been right, and Mac often thought back to those experiences onstage when crafting a summation to twelve men and women.

Besides, he reminded himself, it was all for a worthwhile cause, three, actually. It was good for the university, good for the Washington National Opera, and good for his relationship with Annabel. He packed up materials to read at home that night; wished the secretary he shared with John Renwick a pleasant evening; retrieved his car, a seven-year-old blue Ford in pristine condition, from his reserved parking slot; and took 16th Street straight up until turning off onto local roads leading to the WNO facility at Takoma Park. He was early, and after finding street parking he killed time strolling the neighborhood. He and Annabel had enjoyed leisurely weekend forays to the village for its Saturday organic farmer’s market, considered the best in the D.C. area. Takoma Park was sometimes called “the Azalea City,” or “the People’s Republic of Takoma Park ” by conservatives unhappy with its well-known leftist political culture. In the 1980s it, along with Berkeley, California, and Madison, Wisconsin, had declared itself a nuclear-free zone, bestowed legal status on nonmarital partnerships, and continued to attempt to ban gas-powered lawn mowers. Takoma Park had long provided an eclectic alternative to dark-suit D.C. to its south, and the Opera was a natural and welcome addition.

The receptionist signed him in and paged Harriet McKay, who appeared almost instantaneously, welcomed him, and led Mac back through a maze of corridors and doors.

“Quite a well-dressed setup you have here,” Mac said, taking in room after room of costumes, wigs, props, and passing through one of the three rehearsal areas, where a young blond woman practiced a score on an ebony grand piano.

“It’s a wonderful facility and we’re fortunate to have it,” McKay said pleasantly. “We’re also delighted that you and President Burns have agreed to take part.”

“Is he here yet?”

“His office called. He’s running late. We’ll get you fitted first and on your way. It’s always a problem with the supers.”

They entered a relatively small room with two mirrored walls. An attractive young woman and a middle-aged man sitting in yellow director’s chairs stood at their entrance. Harriet introduced them as two of her fitters. She pointed to one of four doors. “You can use that room over there to get undressed.”

“Just my jacket and tie?” he asked.

“You’ll need to take off more than that,” she said. “You can leave on your shorts and socks. We’ll be fitting you for sandals, too. There’s a robe in there if you’ll be more comfortable.”

Mac returned wearing the robe.

McKay consulted notes on a clipboard. “You’ll be appearing in the first and third acts, a monk in Act I, a member of the firing squad in Act III, two different costumes. We’ll start with, nicely enough, Act I.”

The male fitter draped a heavy burlap robe over Mac’s shoulders and pinned it to better conform to his body. A pair of sandals with thin straps that wrapped around his calves up to his knees was next. “Comfortable?” the fitter asked.

Smith said, “No. I can still feel my feet.”

That outfit removed and labeled with Smith’s name and the act number, the female fitter brought out the costume for Act III, decidedly more elaborate than the monk’s burlap and sandals. Mac stood patiently as both male and female fitters fussed with breeches, leggings, a heavy jacket, clodhopper black shoes, and a bandoleer that crisscrossed his chest. There was much marking with a tailor’s chalk and pinning until the costumers were satisfied. The final item to be fitted was a red-and-gold cocked hat.

“You look splendid,” Harriet said.

Mac turned to examine himself in the large mirror. “That’s me?” he asked playfully.

“You’ll make a wonderful member of the firing squad,” Harriet said.

“I know a few people I wouldn’t mind having stand in front of a firing squad,” he said. “Thanks. This was less painful than I anticipated.”

As he said it, the president of the university, Wilfred Burns, was escorted into the room. “My, my,” he said, taking in Mac in his costume. “I’m seeing a while new side of you, Smith. Several, in fact.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Mac said. “But I do kind of like it.” He indicated his full-length image in one of the mirrors. “I might wear this to my classes, shake my students out of their lethargy.”

“Whatever works,” Burns said. “I must say that you’re a trouper, Mac.”

“And the same might be said for you,” Smith replied. “Your turn to be stuck with pins.”

Smith dressed quickly and was ready to leave before his boss emerged. Accompanied by Harriet McKay, he returned to the reception area, thanked her for her courtesies, and went to his car, where he used his cell phone.

“How did it go?” Annabel asked, a hint of suppressed mirth in her voice.

“Fine. Like being in a hospital. Strip to your shorts and put on a robe. At least it didn’t open in the back like hospital gowns. I’m fitted, Annie. I’m ready for my close-up.”

“Good. I’ll meet you at the 600 at six. We’ll grab something to eat there before your meeting at the Kennedy Center.”

“Okay. By the way, I was fitted by a very attractive young woman. I think she was impressed with my physique.”

“Uh-huh. Six at the 600-hunk!”

Smith went home before meeting up with Annabel, to feed and walk Rufus, their blue Great Dane. As he prepared to leave for the restaurant, directly across from the Center and a popular hangout for people working at that sprawling monument to JFK, Harriet McKay was on the phone in Takoma Park trying to find out why Charise Lee hadn’t shown up for her five o’clock fitting. Christopher Warren had arrived on time, but there was no sign of Ms. Lee.

“She wasn’t in Italian class today,” Warren told Harriet. “Yesterday, she said she was getting a cold.”

“She could have at least called,” Harriet said, not attempting to hide her pique.

“If our agents are in town, they might know what happened,” the pianist offered.

Many in the class had already hired agents, and Charise and Warren ’s reps had accompanied them to Washington from Toronto. Agents accompanying young artists to the WNO program were viewed with a certain disdain, seemingly always in the way, demanding things for their young clients, hovering over their chicks like mother hens. Of course, there was no way to banish them. They came on their own and paid their own way.

Charise and Warren ’s agents, Philip Melincamp and Zöe Baltsa, had seen to it that their promising young stars were properly settled in a secure, two-bedroom apartment they shared, with a pullout couch for guests. When the agents weren’t in D.C., they were back in Toronto at the agency bearing their names, their client roster a mixed bag of young, somewhat talented opera singers with potential fame and fortune on the horizon and second-tier veterans whose better singing days were behind them, yet who still managed to land supporting roles with companies around the globe.

Naturally, there was some resentment of Warren and Lee’s situation. Most of the other students were expected to pay their own rent and buy their own food out of their $1,900 monthly stipend. It wasn’t a secret that Melincamp and Baltsa were picking up their two clients’ tabs, which left the young Canadians with spare cash with which to enjoy the city’s abundant nightlife.

“There’s no answer at the apartment,” Harriet said. “Thanks for being on time,” she told Warren. “If you see or hear from Ms. Lee, please urge her to call me. I’m under enough pressure without having to deal with no-shows.”

Later that night, as she sat in her living room with her husband, Harriet felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning.

“Something wrong?” he asked, noticing that she’d wrapped her arms about herself.

“No,” she said. “I just have a bad feeling.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.”

Her husband frowned. Over the twenty-three years of their marriage, Harriet had displayed occasional moments of what she called “visions,” premonitions of misfortune befalling others, family members, friends. She’d been right on at least two occasions, awaking in the middle of the night with a vision, then receiving a call the following morning confirming it.

“Like a little brandy?” he asked, touching her hair as he passed on the way to the kitchen.

She grabbed his hand, looked up, and smiled. Her husband’s answer to almost everything was a little brandy.

“That would be nice,” she said.

He continued into the kitchen, leaving her alone with her chilling vision.