Don Juan Rehearsed
Another week's rehearsals, another week of disaster. The orchestra had been close to mutiny since they'd seen their music, half the chorus were claiming to have sore throats, and even when the notes were supposedly correct the new production at the Opera Populaire left a great deal to be desired in all directions. The reluctance of the leading soprano to fully inhabit her rôle was not helping matters.
Her arms were as slender as carved ivory in her partner's embrace, and almost as unyielding. Ubaldo Piangi adjusted his hold, sighing, as Signor Reyer flung down his stick in frustration.
"From the top. Again. And act, girl, act! This is 'Don Juan', not 'The Vestal Virgin'. You're being seduced by the biggest lover in history—" An unkind ripple of giggles from the wings died beneath Reyer's glare, and he directed an apologetic look at the tenor, who shrugged off the wording with an expansive gesture.
"You're being seduced by the greatest lover in history, Miss Daaé, so do try to show a little response... and don't just stand there gawping like a country innocent who's stumbled across an orgy!"
More giggles, and a distinct snigger from the back of the orchestra. The Daaé girl's eyes filled with tears. "Monsieur, I— I—"
With a sob, she pulled her wrists free from Ubaldo's enveloping grasp, hands flying up to cover her face, and fled the stage.
Ubaldo, left alone and foolish in the centre of the boards, cast a wounded glance around him and sat down with ponderous resignation on the rehearsal bench to await results. Even in a company so disorganised as this one had become, someone would go after her. Meanwhile there was no work for him to do.
But the sound of muffled weeping drifted back from behind the curtains, and Reyer's acid tongue was fully engaged upon his insubordinate orchestra and in any case would only make matters worse... With a further sigh Ubaldo heaved himself to his feet, cursing a soft heart.
"Signor Reyer, you permit—? I have some experience with temperament, you understand."
La Carlotta with her vivid rage and her passion: now there was a woman, he thought, a full-figured creature with a voice of brazen honey and the fire to match, all copper and claret and luscious cream where the lace plunged from her broad shoulders... Oh, Carlotta should have had this role, they were all agreed on that. How well she would have played it! But Carlotta in all her glory had been put aside for shrinking little Christine Daaé, with the girl as unwilling as the rest of them. One could not help feeling sorry for her, after all.
Ubaldo found her curled up on the prompter's stool, huddled into herself in her drab rehearsal dress and resolutely not crying. She raised swollen eyes at the sound of his footsteps and made a brave attempt at a smile.
"I'm sorry, Signor Piangi. It's just this scene... these words, this music... Oh, I can't play this as seduction, I can't!"
Ubaldo found another stool and eased himself down beside her, possessing himself of one of her hands in his own large paw and patting it consolingly.
"You help me with the notes. Now I help you. Yes? You listen to old Piangi — yes, old enough to be your father, back in my village. So you listen to him and you learn." He got another watery smile from her in answer.
"It is hard for you, I think, to be so closely in a man's arms. You do not embrace then with your young Vicomte?"
To judge from the lovely wild-rose colour that brightened her cheeks, she was — if he knew women at all — far from averse to the idea. Perhaps someone should hint to that young man that he should pay less heed to what his tutors had told him and rather more to what every peasant lad knew...
"But to play on stage, you understand, we must make the act. For the great roles a singer must play at love. It is not romantic, not at all. Sometimes the lady, she has bad breath. Sometimes, as you say, she perspire. Sometimes she is too tall, or she try to steal the stage and sing always louder, always longer, always in front. And this Don Juan too, he is not real, mademoiselle. He is only Ubaldo Piangi, and he will not come to your house at night or chase you in the street."
"I know." Her hand moved under his a little, slim fingers curling around his own and returning a gentle pressure before being withdrawn. She looked down at her hands folded in her lap. "I do know that — and I know I'm being foolish. It's strange for me, that's true, but... I don't suspect you of any ill-intent, I promise, and in any other opera I would be eager to learn. But—"
She broke off again, fingers pleating together in unspoken distress.
"I'm not playing Gounod's heroine, or Verdi's, or Mozart's. These words, these notes — I know the man who wrote them, and he knows me. He taught me. He played games with my mind, with my voice, and now with this opera he makes a puppet of me on stage for his own pleasure, controlling every move, playing out the seduction of his dreams with music in my mouth—"
Her voice was rising into hysteria, and long experience told Ubaldo it would be best to intervene before she could work herself up into a real scene. A scene, for example, of the china-throwing variety.
"Music? Hah!" He brought one fist down on his thigh with a ringing thwack that made a satisfying meaty sound. "This tutor of yours — I do not call what he writes 'music'. When you are older, now, when you have years under your belt and flesh on your bones, then you will sing the great roles of Verdi and you will be sublime. Then you will win hearts, mademoiselle, then you will make puppets of men. But this? This jangle of his is nothing to fear. We will sing then this little play-scene of Don Juan and the maiden, and we will be Christine Daaé and Ubaldo Piangi only. Two artistes together who must warble foolish notes. That is all. Is it agreed?"
He sent a hopeful glance in her direction, and saw her head come up and her shoulders brace straighter. She jumped to her feet.
"Thank you. Thank you, really." Her sudden smile was like sunshine, and he basked in the approval, expanding to his feet with generous impulse.
"So. We go now to rehearse — yes? And I find a way to help you, so that you do not stand stiff as wood. Or shrink from poor Piangi in the corridor outside, to make your young man give him the look of a rooster."
"The look of a—" She couldn't hold back a choke of laughter. "A rooster? Raoul? He does not!"
"He give me the look," Ubaldo insisted. "A most hot and jealous look — so."
With a flick of the hand that sent a tuft of hair upward in precise mimicry of the Vicomte's unthinking habit, he posed and glared with jutting elbows, the very image of an indignant young game-cock, until the Daaé girl dissolved into helpless giggles and the guffaws that spilled from him in turn had closed his eyes with tears of mirth. He wiped moisture from his cheeks at last, belly still shaking with gusts of laughter. "Now I show you. Come here."
She came without hesitation this time, and stiffened only a little with shyness when he moved behind her to wrap her in his arms. "So. This is the closest we must stand... not too tight, for the chest, he need to expand. Yours also. You see?"
She nodded, still awkward but willing, and Ubaldo chuckled.
"In my village, you know, we have naughty little boys... and when they see a girl's hair, they do this!" He wound a finger through the soft locks at the nape of her neck, and tweaked, not hard. The yelp he got in return was one of pure indignation.
"That— that's not—"
"Not funny, no." He laid a big hand on her shoulder in a soothing gesture as she twisted round to glare at him. "And not romantic, I think. So when I hold you close, like so, and touch your hair, like so, I always tug onto it a little... and then you know that beneath the cloak you are playing only a game with a naughty little boy from the hills of Umbria. And so we can be friends. Yes?"
Christine Daaé nodded slowly, eyes too full for words. In the next moment she had turned suddenly and buried her face against his shirt, arms flung around him as far as she could reach.
She was a scrawny little thing, and she was hugging him rather too tight. But Ubaldo was a good-natured man, and she had done her best to help him with that abominable music, after all... so he permitted himself to be squeezed in an excess of gratitude, and even patted her benevolently on the head as she clung.
She released him at last, somewhat to his relief, and busied herself in setting her hair and dress in order while Ubaldo hastened to straighten his waistcoat.
"I'll remember, Signor Piangi. Truly I will. And if... if it gets too real, then when we come to that part I'll always know it's you."
Ubaldo beamed at her in reassurance, holding out his arm to escort her back to their rehearsal. He allowed himself the complacent thought that Signor Reyer owed him a great debt. But then he had always known how to handle temperament.
"You can always feel safe, my child. The wicked Don, he will only ever be me."