Becoming Figaro

Becoming Figaro

By Libby Sternberg

Prinzregententheater

Munich 1938

The Marriage of Figaro

“Marcus von Bergen,” he said, handing his credentials and music to the man at the door of the hall, who looked them over, then up at him, and ushered him in, on to the stage, giving his music to the accompanist, and then introducing him to the panel out in the dark hall.

He stood confidently, facing the two men and one woman sitting below, their faces indistinct in the silent theater. He smelled cigarette smoke, and that told him someone was arrogant, didn’t care about a singer’s fragile throat and vocal cords.

“Von Bergen? From Dusseldorf?” one of the panelists, the one with the cigarette, its tip a red glow in the dark, asked in an Austrian accent. “I knew some Bergens from Dusseldorf.”

Marcus eyed him warily. Would it be a good or bad thing to be from Dusseldorf, he wondered. Was that on his papers anywhere? He couldn’t remember.

He muttered something amicable, nein, not Dusseldorf, Koblenz. He was from Koblenz. He could speak of that city.

To keep other questions from coming his way, he nodded to the accompanist at the piano, who began the chords of Mozart’s “Non piu andrai,” an easy aria for him from The Marriage of Figaro that required more showmanship than musicality, with its teasing of the imp Cherubino about being sent off to join the army.

He needed this job, needed to keep moving up in the opera and concert world. Needed to keep moving, period.

He was something of a Marriage of Figaro expert. It was one of the few operas with a bass in the leading role, the hero at last.

If he couldn’t snag the bosomy sopranos onstage the way the tenors always did in the Puccini and Verdi greats, he could at least bedazzle them off-stage with his knowledge of one of the most wonderful jewel-box operas of all time, an opera that opened the door to all the others. Mozart had created characterizations in the ensembles as well as the arias, so that you need only look at the line on the page and you would know what character was singing it.

As he made his way through the marching tempo, his thoughts wandered.

How could this beautiful land of Goethe and Bach and Mozart be tramping into oblivion? Here in his homeland, the cut-time beats of a measure were now counted by goose-stepping monsters.

He finished, feeling he could hardly have sung better. There was no applause, just some murmuring he couldn’t hear, and then the woman asked, “You sang Figaro in Paris, I see?”

“Yes, a year ago.” He held his breath, hoping she’d not been there. He’d not been Marcus von Bergen then.

“Very good, very good,” the cigarette-smoker said. “We will start rehearsals the week after next. Ask for the schedule from the stage manager as you leave.”

That was it—he’d landed the role! Gott in Himmel, danke, danke, he thought as he ambled off the stage.

And there she was, Rachel. Beautiful, sweet Rachel, with lush dark curly hair he’d held in his hands, deep brown eyes that reminded him of molasses, pale white skin and rosebud mouth.

“Sing well,” he said. “I am the Figaro!”

She discarded her fur coat, letting the stage manager take it, and stood on tiptoes to kiss him.

“Meine Liebchen,” she whispered. “I will sing like a nightingale. I will be your Susanna.”

He waited in the wings, listening to her perform, her voice like honey, something between a spinto and a lyric, a warm but somehow asexual tone that could be boy or woman. She could sing Cherubino easily, he thought, the trousers role in the opera. The first Cherubino had also been the first Despina, the soprano maid in Cosi fan tutte. Nowadays conductors cast Despina as a light lyric and Cherubino as a mezzo.

He closed his eyes. When she sang “Vieni, vieni” he felt she was singing just to him—come, beloved.

Later, after they’d made love in his rented room, she got up and grabbed her music. “I have to study. It is the longest soprano part in opera. On stage all the time.”

He reached for her arm, pulled her back to him, bestowing on her lips a kiss he hoped would entice her to stay. But, no, she smiled and resisted and went to the upholstered chair, draping herself in a flowery Russian shawl, pulling the score onto her lap, preparing for the role she’d won that afternoon.

He made tea, and they had cookies with it, raspberry tarts later, and Rheinwein with dinner at a nearby café.

The evening of opening night, after the applause had died down, flowers were in her arms, and she looked every inch the virginal bride. The curtain closed, he turned to her, knelt, and asked her to marry him. She sadly shook her head no, her finger on his nose, saying she was not ready, she had so much to see and sing, and he should not be saddled with someone such as her.

The tenor who’d sung Basilio, an Italian named Franco Butolini, overheard. He clapped Marcus on the shoulder and offered his condolences.

“You will see her again. We all see each other in music many times.”

**

McGill University

Montreal, Spring 1941

The Magic Flute

“Marco Butolini?” an unnamed man asked Marcus. He nodded but said nothing. Since he’d shed his German name and adopted this Italian one, he’d learned to be careful how much he said.

His speaking Italian was rusty, and the story he’d made up about his background—a German mother and northern Italian father—could lead to complications if he encountered anyone from the areas of his fictional history. On the ship to Halifax, a man from Milan had dogged him, wanting to talk to him about his favorite eateries there.

He sighed. Who knew how long this identity would last? People were sympathetic to Italians up until the Tripartite Pact signed last year. He would have to change again, he was sure, as Italy, too, went dark.

He sang Papageno’s “Der Vogelfanger bin ich ja,” the higher notes a bit of a strain for him, but as he suspected, the panel before him, three men and a woman this time, were mightily impressed by his German.

“Wunderbar!” the woman declared.

They were doing Die Zauberflote in its original language, which Marco should have liked, but he thought it was a bit pretentious. The opera was a Singspiel, a combination of song and spoken word, a more popular type of entertainment, despite its operatic demands on the soprano who sang the Queen of the Night.

He needed this job desperately. He’d arrived in Canada just two months ago and had sung concerts and recitals almost nonstop, his throat sore from so many little jobs that barely kept him in food and lodgings.

This opera could be the prelude to a teaching position at the university, steady work. They were using students for the chorus and small parts and professionals for the big roles.

“Just wait in the hall, if you don’t mind,” one of the gentlemen said.

He thanked them and left, wrapping a scarf around his neck as he paced a chilly hallway, listening to other auditioners come and go. No one sang the Queen of the Night, he noticed, the incredibly difficult soprano aria with its high F above high C, so he assumed the woman in the room would take that role.

He leaned against the wall, closing his eyes.

Rachel could sing it. Even though her voice wasn’t dark enough for the part, she had the range and the coloratura ability. She used to tell him that was the harder skill to master, the fast runs that needed to be clear and accurate yet swift as the wind. She said the high note was just a matter of physical exercise, pushing your vocal muscles beyond what was called for in the aria so that you could easily hit the highest note. Besides, she’d told him, you only touch it.

How he longed to touch her. They had seen each other again, just as the tenor had said they would, in Marseille, singing in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto. Each note had been a knife to his heart as he’d remembered Rachel’s response to his proposal.

By then, he’d devised his plan to get out of Europe. He’d begged her, actually gotten down on his knees after the program backstage, implored her to go with him, told her he’d pay for her ticket.

She’d stood there, her lily-white hand at her throat, tears in her eyes.

“I will be all right, beloved,” she’d whispered. “I want to keep singing. I will go to Switzerland. We will just be burdens to each other.”

“No, no, you cannot go to Switzerland. It is too difficult. Go with me.”

She’d smiled. “With you? I have a visa for Switzerland. We will meet again. I’m sure.”

He’d looked at her through watery eyes. He’d grabbed her hands, glanced back and forth to make sure no one was listening. “I will come for you tonight. I will get you on the boat!” He knew where she was staying. They’d already had an assignation there.

His plan had been to see a friend in town, borrow money, and slip it into her pocket before he got her on the boat, and then he’d hit the gangplank at the last minute, letting her have his berth.

But when he’d gone to her room later, all he’d found was a note. She wouldn’t let him play the hero, she’d written, and cost him his own passage. She’d known what he’d do.

A voice called him, but it still took him a moment to respond to the unfamiliar name.

“Mr. Butolini!” The woman from the panel stood by the door. “We’d love to have you join our production.”

**

Peabody Conservatory

Baltimore, Maryland, December 1941

Cosi fan tutte

“Mr. Boston?” A student stood at the huge open doors to North Hall, a cavernous space on the second floor of the conservatory.

“Yes,” he said simply. He’d Anglicized his name to Mark Boston since making his way to America months ago and landing a position coaching singers in this conservatory’s opera department. It was only part-time, but it paid enough for a rented room near the school and meager meals, and the Canadian job had not panned out.

“I was wondering if I could go over my part,” the student said, a young man so thin and nervous that Mark wondered how on earth he’d convey the manliness of Ferrando, let alone his intelligence. “Before the others show up, that is.”

They were having a rare Sunday rehearsal, but the production was in such poor shape Mark felt he had to call them in for extra hours. If he could show the deans and other teachers what a good job he could do, he’d talk to them about bringing him on full-time.

“The accompanist is not here yet, but let’s see what I can do,” Mark said, walking to the piano from the table where he’d been writing a letter. He’d arrived early to go over rehearsal notes, but had found himself too distracted with anxiety.

The letter was to Rachel, even though he was unsure if she would get it. The last one from her had been postmarked Paris. She was still in France, and he knew her visa for Switzerland had a limited time on it. If she didn’t make it there soon…

Everything he’d heard, from the occasional refugee he came across, was bad. Worst of all for Jews. Why wouldn’t the United States do anything? He seethed inwardly. How could he work on a cream puff of an opera about women’s infidelity when he was worried about his own true love? Why hadn’t she married him? Had he thought he couldn’t take care of her, be her hero?

He hardly had time to go over a few lines of the student’s aria when other singers arrived, along with the accompanist. Mark gratefully scooted off the bench to allow the pianist to sit down, then looked at his ragged ensemble.

“Where is Guglielmo?” he asked, naming one of the bass lead roles, impatience notching his voice up.

No one answered.

“All right, then we start with the trio, ‘Soave sia il vento,’” he said, flipping his score to the end of the first scene where Dorabella and Fiordiligi bid farewell to their lovers, asking for calm seas and all good things to accompany their sweethearts, while Don Alfonso, the old philosopher, joins in.

It was another transcendent piece of Mozart’s music, with the undulating accompaniment creating the sound of lapping waves, and the soaring voices, each having their moment of emotional expression, hanging in the air like silken flags gently waving.

Again, he had trouble focusing. He knew the Fiordilgi was too shrill, the Dorabella too soft, the Alfonso flat. But he didn’t have the energy to fix it, and besides, Mozart was so skillful that his artistry salved these mistakes, covering over all of them with sweet serenity.

Still no Guglielmo, fifteen minutes into their rehearsal, and by then Mark had a headache, probably from not eating enough, and couldn’t find the energy to sing the part himself.

“I think we should give up,” he started to say, when the door banged open, and there he was, the young bass singing the other male role.

But instead of apologizing and joining them in practice, he breathlessly shouted out the news: “Pear Harbor’s been hit.”

The world changed that night for all of them.

Mark didn’t return to the conservatory after that. He enlisted.

**

The Mann Auditorium

Tel Aviv, 1957

Mozart’s Requiem

He sat on stage, awaiting the maestro’s entrance. The audience was humming with chatter, the orchestra members playing a note, a line, now and then, and, from the chorus in back came the occasional cough.

Though no one knew it, this would be his farewell concert. He found breath control harder and harder as bronchitis afflicted him too often over the years. His singing days were ending, just as Mozart’s composing days had dwindled as he wrote this magnificent funeral Mass.

He would continue teaching, tending his little garden in Baltimore, seeing to his cats, reading, studying. Thinking about the past, tamping down regrets.

A hush descended as everyone sensed the concert would soon start. He glanced down at his music folder, cleared his throat, patted his pocket to make sure his lozenges were still there, and looked up into the hall, which was brightly lit.

His heart pounded.

He dropped his music.

Was it her?

On the end of the aisle, midway back.

Movement backstage meant the conductor was about to arrive, but his mind processed nothing but her image. He couldn’t let her get away. Not this time. No, not this time. Not after all this time. Not after searching for her in Europe during those horrible, dark days at the end of the war, finding out what they—his people!—had done.

As the maestro started on stage, he stood, and the audience seemed to think that was a cue and began clapping, but he rushed past the other soloists, into the wings, the stage manager grabbing his sleeve. “Where are you going? Are you ill?”

He shook him free.

The audience applauded the conductor, not understanding or caring why the bass soloist had left. He was aware of a hum of noise from the stage, a rustling, and a quick glance showed that the stage manger was talking to the conductor, and they stepped offstage together.

He paid no mind. He hurried up the aisle, was she still there? She was alive? Was she…

“Rachel,” he said, kneeling down by her seat, reaching for her hand. “Oh, Rachel, meine liebchen, meine susse liebchen.” He wept into her hand and saw on her arm the awful tattoo, enumerating her suffering, and he looked up at her haunted eyes. “I came for you,” he blathered in German. “I came back. I looked…” His voice shook. “I looked for you.”

She placed her hand on his head as if in benediction, and said, in that pure, lyrical voice, “My darling.”

She let him sweep her into his arms. How light she was, how fragile, as he led her to the lobby. Despite her thinness, her sadness, she was still beautiful.

The stage manager burst through the doors.

“Mr. Butolini,” he said. “Are you able to perform or not?”

To his delight, she laughed. “You are Butolini now?”

Yes, he’d opted for the Italian name after the war since it was the language of so much opera, at least the ones he would sing.

Through blurred eyes, he stared at her as if glancing away would mean she’d disappear.

Then, proudly, he said, “No. I am not Butolini again. Or ever. I am Moshe. Moshe Bergenstein.” Tears flowed down his cheeks as he proclaimed his name. His real name at last.

THE END