My friend Roy Stevens drove me into San Francisco Sunday. I'm performing here in Modesto for a couple of weeks, and Sunday was my only day off. Roy had a rehearsal with Jonathan Khuner, a conductor for the Berkeley Opera and San Francisco Opera. Roy is an international opera singer, a heldentenor (a heroic tenor, ideally suited for singing Wagnerian Opera, which he does wonderfully, along with his wife, Annalisa), and was preparing to spend four hours rehearsing moments from Siegfried and Gotterdamerung with Jonathan at the piano.
We parked, lunched, then walked to the Opera House. Roy's world is one of giant sets, full orchestras, and large, talented casts of amazing singers. Mine is just me, with instruments, no sets, but quite a few characters, admittedly. I like it, but was still dazzled by the Opera House. It is an immense building, housing a giant 3,000 seat hall. Ornate stone facade. Marble floors and columns. It looms just across the square from City Hall. A performance of La Bohemme, I was told, was taking place. We didn't enter the hall, but rather took the back elevator up to the 6th Floor, to a ballet rehearsal room, with mirrors along the wall. There sat a grand piano, and Jonathan.
I found a chair and listened. I can be quite loud on occasion, but not loud the way an opera singer has been trained to be. At times my eardrums actually crackled, so immense and clear was Roy's voice, and a lovely soprano with whom he was rehearsing, Christine. Midway through their rehearsal, Jonathan got up and asked me, "Would you like to listen to some of La Bohemme? I can take you to the catwalk above the stage, where the snow machine is. It's probably the third act by now."
I smiled and rose. He led Roy and me down a warren of hallways and staircases, through doors that read, "Authorized Personnel Only" and at last past a door. It led into a dark corridor that looked out over hundreds of set cables, scrims and huge painted canvases, high above the lit stage. The railing was dimly illuminated by blue work lights. We walked to the end of metal catwalk. Forty feet below, singers were performing. The orchestra's music floated up to my secret observation spot.
"What if someone comes along and asks me what I'm doing here?" I asked. Roy slapped me on the shoulder. "Just pretend you belong," he said in his booming voice. He is always filled with joie de vivre. "Have fun," he said. He and Jonathan left me there, alone in the dark, pretending to belong.
I leaned over and looked down. A tenor and a baritone were singing. The music was gorgeous. I moved along the shadowy catwalk, trying to find the best vantage point. "I'm the Phantom of the Opera," I smiled to myself. "No one knows I'm up here."
The third act ended. The curtain dropped. Immediately, a small army of black-clad stage hands swarmed onto the stage. The heavy looking churchyard gates and barrels that had been the set, some covered with flakes of paper snow, were effortlessly rolled offstage and replaced with the two halves of the artist's garret. Stage hands hammered them together, while gaffers connected giant stage cables into the set. Other's swept up the extra snow and shoveled it into a white plastic barrel. And in a few minutes, act four was ready.
I moved along the catwalk, watching, unseen, from above. Thinking I should go back and listen to Roy and Jonathan collaborate, I left before the orchestra struck up again, and found my way back to the ballet studio. They were still hard at work, adjusting notes and tempos, scratching their music manuscripts with pencils.
Roy's voice was as hale as ever. I, the Phantom of the Opera, sat back down to listen.
But I'd had a little bit of magic. It stuck with me, as you can tell.
The world of the opera is a rarefied place. I belong to the world of the storyteller. Still, for at least a few minutes, up there in the dark, I felt as if I belonged, if only as a phantom.
