Ten Years Ago…
His voice soared to the rafters, reverberating from the sides of the hall, filling the room with such palpable emotion that the woman before him sank to her knees, tears streaming down her face.
"I love you, Lizzie. I've been such a fool to deny it."
He took her hand and knelt down to kiss it. Silence fell as the piano whispered the opening chords of the grand finale, a duet for the star crossed lovers which would crescendo into a bold and infinitely moving declaration of passion.
In the third row from the back, a young girl watched on, her eyes wide. She felt her heart rise with the music, and her lips parted ever so slightly as she imagined herself calling in answer the man on the stage, herself a part of the wonderful story, the fragile world built up so believably from a plain and empty stage.
As the curtain fell amidst rapturous applause, the girl caught sight of Lizzie through a crack in the drapes – she was wiping off her makeup, taking off her wig…
"Mummy," the girl tugged on her mother's sleeve. "Was Lizzie a man?"
Her mother gave an ebullient laugh, her cheeks rosy with the excitement of the opera. "Of course, dear. They were all men."
"But why?" she pouted. "Wouldn't it be even better with a woman?"
Her mother's laugh caught and strained. "Don't be silly, Rosalind. Illusion and deception, those are a man's job. Us girls just come along for the show."
"I could do it," Rosalind said defiantly. "I want to try."
Her mother let out an exasperated sigh. The child was ruining her mood. She came here to be entertained, distracted, taken away. Not to think about the state of the real world.
"What do you want a stale job like that for?" she responded tersely, trying not to let her irritation show. "Spending all day pretending to be someone else. You don't need that when you're perfect the way you are."
Her mother pulled her face into a reassuring smile, and quickly turned away with a peal of laughter, joining her friends' gossip about the play.
Rosalind's first time at the opera, age ten. She gazed with tumultuously mixed feelings past the knots of spectators, to the quiet stage which she now knew could be brought to such unlikely and spectacular life.
A sparrow flittered in the corner of the platform, a lively and heartfelt dance. It was shooed away by the caretaker's broom, and Rosalind thought then that she knew how it must feel…
