The Last Aria

Imagine a soaring ceiling. Below it admirers crane their necks and marvel at the men who painted its wood. All fixate on its design – intricate and beautiful – that seems to sway as though cradled in the firmament. Its height is rivaled only by a long note, whose pitch strains the rafters.

The measure ends, yet still a women sings. Her art challenges the ceiling, and in a single, unbroken breath her voice triumphs in height and beauty. No one has sung like this before.

As the lights fall, her voice decays. Yet the lees of its final timbre reverberate, granting an ethereal encore. But nine hundred and ninety-six hands damper its last seconds. The hands mean to reward the singer, but their applause muffles the music.

When again the lights are lit, I navigate the aisles, dividing conversations and hindering the exits of sleepy spectators who hasten to their mundane lives. It is as though I alone know the power of the note, and I alone know that we have been graced by a muse of music, who now sits in solitude beyond the ignored curtain. I must have entrance there.

A young usher stands near the stage, searching for young ladies as the audience exits. From his aspect I see he is disappointed, and as I glance about I learn why. Age alone engenders the money for this place, and the age-worn faces of the women do little to excite him.

“The woman,” I begin, and he looks about as if uncertain I am speaking to him. “The woman who sang just now-Gretta Foresan-can you take me to her?”

His eyes are suspicious, though his oily voice disguises it well. “Who are you, sir? It is not the custom of Miss Foresan to grant an audience to her admirers after the curtain closes.”

“I am an opera critic of some renown-Maxwell Vorboter-perhaps you know me. In my years spent in opera houses I have never enjoyed a performance more. It would be my greatest honor if I could tell Miss Foresan personally what her performance has meant to me.”

“Please wait, sir,” the boy responds simply. “I shall return to you presently.”

The opera house has emptied quickly. For some, not even the best of art is matched by leaving it. I watch the multitudes talking amongst themselves, burying their conversations in matters scarcely appropriate anywhere, let alone at the opera where only matters of the greatest pitch are suitable. The doors of the opera house wave as people walk through, each person pressing hard upon their hinges to exit, then letting them fall again upon the next passersby. The opera house is purging itself of its one thousand nuisances, sending them into the sordid streets with a musical secret they cannot understand.

Through the door at the back right the usher reappears. “Miss Foresan will see you now,” he says. “Please come this way.”

He takes me to a hall backstage, where Miss Foresan waits. She is in divine form, wholly celestial. “Miss Foresan,” I begin.

“Mr. Vorboter,” the stage goddess interrupts tersely. She saunters toward me, running her eyes about me like a lawyer feeling for a weakness. They are beautiful, green eyes, that despite the darkness of the room seem to burn with a self-sustaining fuel. Sensing confrontation, the usher exits. “Your last column-or, at least, the last column I read-was profoundly unfriendly to my performance as Tosca. If you come to critique me now I should rather wait to read your padded prose in the morning paper than suffer my ears to hear it now. I fear that such unkind words would shatter my ears and render me incapable of the terrible performances you say I do.”

“One thousand apologies, Miss Foresan,” I stammer. “I did not know till now that your ability truly is unparalleled. If once I heard you sing a bad performance, why then the fault was in my ears and not in your voice.”

“Your words are graciously taken. Continue, I pray.”

“I know not how to tell you what I mean to say, so I shall say on, and hope that words will come to me. But no, there are no words that describe a performance that is in every way ineffable, no imperfect sentence that can do justice to perfection. But had I to condense my praises to a sole sentence, I should say it is the best performance I have ever seen.”

Her eyes are scintillating but opaque, so that no matter how I try, I cannot penetrate their fire. “Your words move me kindly,” she offers.

“And your music has moved me more kindly still,” I reply. “Forgive me for asking a question that might seem rather crass, but did you notice your performance tonight was-musically speaking-perfect?”

“You told me as much, Mr. Vorboter, when you said that it was ineffable.”

“No, when I said it was ineffable I was saying a great deal less than I am saying now. I am telling you that you have done what it is musically impossible to do. You have achieved perfection, such as I have till now discussed only in theory. Tonight theory and practice melded, and you are their union.”

Miss Foresan looks uncertain about my words, and more uncertain still how to follow them. Her lips open, and my ears brace to hear her voice soar again, yet she is interrupted. “Miss Foresan,” says the usher, who appeared again. “Someone else would like to see you.”

“Who?”

“Madam, I don’t know. He said something rather odd though, that he’s been waiting for ten years to see you. It struck me as rather peculiar, Miss Foresan, seeing that you’ve only been performing for five.”

“Where is this man? I will not grant him an audience.” She had looked flustered before, but now that has dissipated. Her visage reads nothing but composure and adamancy. Her voice has lowered too, so that I struggle to reconcile hers with the soprano’s of a few minutes before.

“Madam, he insists that he knows you.”

“I will not! Have I not made myself clear? Will you not kindly run along and tell this man to leave?” It is as though Miss Foresan has sung again. In the wake of her words, there remains a presence-an urgency-that makes me ponder as the boy runs off.

“Mr. Vorboter, I don’t have the time to be anything but frank with you. I have long despised you, even when your reviews were favorable to me. Even now-though your praises appear sincere-I still harbor resentment toward you that no kind words can fully undo. But enough about you. I do not know with certainty whom the boy is talking about, yet I know enough to be concerned. I would be much obliged if you would stay with me until I know that the man is no longer in the building.”

Fighting a thousand different responses, I answer simply, “I shall.”

“Of course you shall.” She paces the hallway. I marvel that even now she walks with a grandeur that distinguishes her from ordinary women. Not just her voice, but her posture make Greta Foresan the goddess of music. In her paces she is distant, and although she has asked me to stay, she appears unaware I am here.

“Miss Foresan, I am happy to stay with you, but I could assist you better if you tell me about this man.”

“Mr. Vorboter, I hardly know you.”

“Yet you asked me to help you.”

She ceases pacing to look at me. “I expect none of this to enter your review.”

I smile and say, “Nothing but your genius shall be read there.”

“I have to preface this by saying I don’t know whether this is the man I fear, and-if it is-I know neither his name nor his profession. You might be wondering then, how such uncertainty could breed such fear in me, a fear I showcase by having tactlessly mentioned it before you at all. But, alas, I have no option.

“You might recall, Mr. Vorboter, my first performance here five years ago. I was MimÃҬ in La BohÃҨme . You were here-which is not surprising as you seem to be everywhere-and afterward you wrote about my performance favorably. You said, if I remember correctly, that I showed ‘great composure and presence for a first performance.’ Indeed, I remember having neither. I was petrified, and for the entire half of the first act I was backstage concerned that when I began to sing, no sound would come out.

“When I made my entrance, I remember seeing a thousand seats before me. I don’t know whether you’ve been onstage, Mr. Vorboter, but if you ever have then you’ll know that no fear equals it. I felt as though I was entrapped in a moment in history, and the fate of all depended on my singing correctly. If I succeeded, then all was well. But if I failed, then the world would be thrown into chaos.

“There was, however, an anodyne to my paranoia. I saw in the first row a seat-not far from where you sat-that was empty. Though I couldn’t read it from the stage at the time, I knew that the red sign hanging over it signified that it was reserved for someone. For some reason unknown to me, I saw myself there in that seat, and someone else in my place on the stage. For the rest of the performance, it was as though I was watching myself-or some version of myself-easily gracing the notes I had labored for years to achieve.

“Afterward, the owner of the opera house, Mr. Onorato, came to praise my performance. I in turn asked about the seat, about whom it was reserved for and why he hadn’t come. He mentioned a name, but against the din of people gossiping and leaving, I never heard it exactly. I did hear him say, however, that it was reserved for a young man who had paid a large enough sum to guarantee that seat for every performance for the next eighty years. The man was twenty at the time, and apparently believed he had procured a seat until his death. Unfortunately he died in an accident shortly thereafter, rendering the seat eternally vacant. When I asked Mr. Onorato why he insisted on keeping the seat empty, he said it felt improper to rescind a prize won through so great a purchase. He continued that as the man had paid enough money there was little need to fret about financial loss. It was among the largest donations ever received, and therefore Mr. Onorato was content to house his empty seat as a testament of his generosity.

“Every time I’ve performed since, I’ve received comfort from that seat. It pacifies me, and it stands as a monument to the love that people have for my art.” She breaks off for a moment, and appears to meditate on her love of the opera. A few candles massage the young curves on her jaw and temple, and as I look at the texture of her cheek and eyes I know I have never seen a woman more beautiful. I try to read her operatic reveries in her blinks and glances, but I become lost in the curves of her lips instead, and am surprised when they suddenly speak to me: “Therefore you must understand my surprise, Mr. Vorboter, when I saw that seat occupied tonight. And I fear it is he who is coming now.”

“Miss Foresan,” I reply, “I’m sure that Mr. Onorato simply decided to dispense of his pact with the deceased young man. A new opera-goer has his seat and someone else- like me – now wants to congratulate you on your performance. You mustn’t let your mind get the better of you.”

“It’s not my mind I’m afraid of, Mr. Vorboter,” she whispers. I attribute her low voice to her emotions, but then recall that she has been incredibly emotionless throughout our whole conversation. Then a distant crescendo – a rhythmic pounding – uncovers the cause of her silence; she is eavesdropping. The reason for the crescendo is made apparent.

“He will not leave, madam,” says the usher as he appears. “He says he will wait as long as is necessary, but he cannot leave.”

“Will you not persist in your instructions?” exclaims Miss Foresan. “Have I not made it abundantly clear that I will not grant him an audience?”

“I said precisely that, Miss Foresan. And he said to remind you that as he was kind enough to grant you an audience once, so should you return the favor.”

“I will not. I owe him no favors, nor no man else!” Though she remains adamant, her latent emotions have broken out across her face. Her concern engenders wildness and roughness in her appearance, but they serve only to highlight her finest features. Now, she is more alluring than ever.

“Miss Foresan,” the usher continues, “it is really best to keep your voice down. He’s just outside.”

“What have you done?” she cries. “What have you done?”

There is a noise beyond the door, rather like a knock, but weaker. It has the impression of someone stroking the wood, enjoying its texture for his own sake, unaware that the noise is heard by anyone else. It is like a violinist feeling the groves of his instrument, massaging the crevices through which his notes are expelled.

I near the door and motion for Miss Foresan to slip away at the exit where she made her angelic entrance. As she exits, her affect is as silent as her feet that creep across the well-traveled ground. She is a woman born to grace the stage, but her exit is so silent, so insignificant, that after she is gone I ponder whether she had ever been there at all. Yet there is no time for thoughts; I open the door.

“Hello?” I offer, but only darkness stares back. It must have been wind playing in the grooves of the wood, for there is no man anywhere nearby. I look to the usher.

“He was just there,” he claims. “I don’t know where he’s run to.”

“Then find him!” I am surprised by the temper of my voice. Despite Miss Foresan’s protestations, I want to believe that the man is perfectly benign, and entirely unaware that he has been mistaken for Miss Foresan’s elusive nemesis. Yet I wonder.

“Boy,” I say to the usher, though-upon further scrutiny-he appears to be about seventeen. He says nothing but approaches me. I hold out my arm and move him nearer still, and as I do so I speak in a whispering voice, “I do not know who this man is, but I fear for Miss Foresan. You must promise to help me.” The boy looks uncertain. “What is your name?” I ask.

“Antonio, sir.”

“Antonio. I want you take this. Do not be afraid, for I doubt you will need it, but I want us both to be prepared. Between you and I no harm can befall Miss Foresan.” As I speak, I press the handle of my revolver into his palm, and wait for his fingers to close upon it.

“I cannot, Mr. Vorboter.”

“Just take it. Please.” I feel the boy gingerly moving his fingers as though he is waking them up from being asleep. Slowly, carefully, they close upon the leather handle, and I see him drop the revolver into his pocket.

“Thank you,” I whisper. I turn to Miss Foresan’s exit, and as I pass the door I quickly learn the reasons for her quiet departure. The wood groans under my step, and I am amazed at the delicacy with which Miss Foresan navigated the floorboards.

The sounds of my feet hitting the wood and the wood crying under its pats echo about the dark hall, building to a cacophonous and discordant symphony. Soon, a vertical sliver of light strides against the body of darkness. It is the crack of the door; and I know the main chamber lies beyond.

I am at the foot of the stage, squashed between it and the myriad seats. I call out; there is no response. I espy the thousand seats, searching for her, but there is nothing there. There is neither noise nor breath of anyone or anything, for the place is silent. “Miss Foresan,” I repeat. “Where are you?”

In the corner opposite mine, I feel a presence. As I near it, I learn that it was not superstition, but rather a faint whispering that drew me. I hear an argument just beyond the curtain, ensconced in the darkness from which I have just escaped. In one motion, I leap onto the stage, pull back the curtain, and enter.

Miss Foresan is here, her arms akimbo, and her legs straddling a dark shape like a perverse colossus. As I near her, she offers me a perfunctory nod; otherwise she ignores me, and resumes a bellowing conversation that I had heard only as whispers.

“Ten years ago?” she screams to the dark shape, “Ten years ago my mother was shipping me off to a women’s conservatory! I didn’t so much as see a man that entire year and you want me to believe that I met you then?”

The dark shape quivers and utters a few phrases of recondite jabberwocky.

“I’ve survived a hell of a lot in my career,” she scolds, “from the empty platitudes of my directors to the idiocy of my critics. I’ve wasted my best years hiding behind my voice, giving life to characters I don’t like and breathing sound into notes that I didn’t write. Sometimes I despise it, but still I sing because despite it all I love it. And now you appear and tell me that I have to stop because of some invented agreement.”

“Yes,” the darkness coughs.

“Miss Foresan,” I interrupt, as I scan my eyes against the dark bundle between her legs, “Why don’t you leave the man and follow me?”

“Leave him?” she exclaims, “He sought me! It’s he who should leave!”

“That may be, Miss Foresan, however it seems the man is in no position to do much of anything at the moment.”

The darkness stirs again. Two limbs – which I take to be arms – protrude from one side of the mass and they help to erect the rest of it into a structure that looks more or less like a sitting human. “That’s not right, Mr. Vorboter,” it murmurs. “I can do quite a lot; she’s right to stand beside me.”

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m what you should have been, seeing as your surname is just an unfortunate irony,” he sighed.

“He always talks like this,” Miss Foresan explains. “I haven’t been able to make sense of anything he’s said except that – apparently – I met him when I was thirteen at my conservatory, where he prevised that I would be a famous opera-singer, except that I was never to perform Helena. Having broken the concocted agreement, I am now supposed to retire from opera.”

” Helena was completed only last year,” I contend, “How could he have told you that ten years ago?”

” Exactly, Mr. Vorboter. The man is entirely unaware of himself. I would have pity on the lump, except that he’s lured me into the darkness to tell me strange things, which exceeds the limit of my compassion. Oh, and there’s one other thing Mr. Vorboter. He claims to be dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, dead. Tot. Morto. As you can see,” (she kicks him three times, and the man yells each time), “he is not.”

“Whether I’m dead or alive is really quite beside the point. I’m afraid you’ll have to contend with me either way.”

“I’ve been trying to understand you,” I say. “But if Miss Foresan has accurately represented what you’ve said, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do. Now please, the exit is just behind me. We can walk out together.”

“That role was not for you to sing,” he sighs.

“Sir, I apologize for any misunderstanding. I followed the politics leading up to the performance of Helena quite closely. Miss Foresan was pegged for that role from a very early point; Emilio has even suggested that he wrote the role for her.”

The man laughs. “You still think that Emilio wrote Helena , do you?”

I pause. “Well, yes.”

“Tell me what you thought of the performance tonight. And then tell me – in your ‘professional’, erudite opinion – whether or not Emilio could have possibly penned it.”

“Who else could have composed it?”

The man laughs. “Does Emilio have anything to rival it?”

“Well, no. But no one does. It is wholly unparalleled.”

“Mr. Vorboter, stop humoring yourself. Emilio did not write that opera and – at some level – you know it as well as I.”

“Then who did?” I ask.

My eyes have begun to adjust to the darkness, and – for the first time – I see the outline of a face. It is square, and – were there more light – I would imagine it handsome. A dim glow trickles in from beyond the curtain, revealing a pale softness as it saunters across his cheeks. His skin appears fragile and young, as though blades of hair have not yet broken its surface, though by the timbre of his voice it seems unlikely. “I did,” it says.

His voice is stable. The two words are neither too soft nor too loud, but at the exact pitch one would use when answering any trivial question. This composure makes me believe him; it is clear that he sought not to persuade, but simply to answer what I had demanded of him.

“Dead men write operas?” Miss Foresan says sarcastically, though I know she is insincere for the same reason I believe the man. Unlike her soprano’s pitch, this voice was variable, oscillating. She is conflicted.

The man continues, “I tried to persuade you, Miss Foresan. I told you that you would rise to greatness in opera, but that you must never perform this role. Because of turns unforeseen, I could only meet you that once; it is a shame you don’t remember. I wish that my efforts then would let me feel exonerated now, but alas, it is still so difficult.”

“Exonerated how?”

“Miss Foresan,” the man sighs. “When I told you to retire from the opera I was not being entirely truthful. While it is true, it was incomplete. If you wish, you may cross the curtain and stand alone on the stage for a time. When you are ready, you may sing one aria – any you choose. After your bow, you must return here, and prepare to go away.”

As I turn to Miss Foresan, it appears she is angry. Lines on her face seem to deepen as though exposing the first breaks in the prism of her youth. Yet as I stare further I learn that the prism remains whole and pure, so pure that it only reflects my own frustration. Beyond its glass I see there no anger, but only sympathy and resolve.

“Of course you wrote it,” she cries. “I remember. Whenever I sang that role I felt connected to a friend in my youth whom I could only scarcely recall. When I become Helena, all the pain commensurate with age dissipated. For the first time it wasn’t about my voice but about something deeper within, the thing I sought to contact when I began singing all those years ago. When I was Helena I was happy.”

“You can be Helena again,” the man whispers.

She walks away from him and gently touches the curtain I had so nearly torn during my search for her. As she passes through it, she holds its velvet in her palm for a moment and caresses its fabric, then makes a final glance toward her nemesis-turned-friend. She smiles and -in the light from the open curtain-I see a young face return it. ” Grazie ,” she says, and she crosses the threshold from the darkness and into the light of the stage. The curtain doesn’t fully close behind her, so that I can see her motion to the empty orchestra pit as though asking it to play the first chords.

I know the notes she will sing before they sings them, and I feel a warmth spread through my body as the first notes leave her lips. She begins:

” Posso cantar’, ora che stai qui .”

As she sings, the man passes through the small opening left in the velvet curtain, slowly saunters across the stage and takes his seat in the front row. For the first time I can see him clearly. Yes, as I suspected he is very young, and yet he appears tired-too tired for a man of so few years. In the tautness of his jaw, the darkness of his eyes, and the unnatural whiteness of his hair I learn the secrets of his despondency.

” SÃҬ, partirÃҲ teco, nel buio di notte io partirÃҲ .”

At the moments designed to please the crowd-during a section of particularly high notes, for instance-he appears to lose interest in the music and concentrate on Foresan. At other moments-when the measures grow so dense with power that they threaten to break-his eyes narrow, his jaw rests, and he meditates on the astonishing accomplishments in the music. All seats are empty save his, yet I know-as Foresan sings the masterpiece again-that we were the only three who really heard it when the theater was full. And as I watch the man-who appears to follow the aria even at its most impenetrable moments of musical enigma-I concede. This man is the composer.

I brace for her last note-so precise, so pure-and when she sings it, I ride upon the most beautiful melody and am lost in the most sublime manifestation of the human voice.

Her voice fades to silence, and as she swallows the note’s final dregs her lips close upon it as a seal upon a letter. Neither the man nor I clap, but Foresan knows that is because we understand and respect the music, and that we are too stunned to respond with so mundane a habit as applause. The man stands from his chair, pulls himself up to the stage, embraces Foresan, and whispers in her ear, ” Bravo. Molto Bravo. “

“Miss Foresan, Miss Foresan!” says another voice of one just entered the main auditorium through a door I am unaware of. “Are you all right?” She does not answer Antonio, but remains folded in the man’s arms, crying softly as he caresses her. Even as after he jumps on the stage, she knows nothing but the softness of the maestro’s arms.

“Miss Foresan,” he repeats, “Miss Foresan!” He positions himself behind the man, and attempts to move him away from Greta Foresan. I move in to part them, but am detained by a loud noise that appears to occur from everywhere at once. I near the scene, just in time to catch Miss Foresan as her bloody figure falls to the stage.

Her voice makes no sound as she lands in my arms, and I realize-in the emptiness of her eyes and the paleness of her cheek-that it never will again. The boy stands a distance off, holding my pistol in his palm. His expression is impenetrable. Our eyes meet briefly, and in that exchange I learn definitively that Antonio never fired it. He mouths what I interpret to be, “How is she?”

As the blood pours from her in impressive swirls-drenching my arms and drowning my feet and knees-I do not know how to answer except to caress Miss Foresan’s hair as something latent in its dark hue could hope to revive her. The boy repeats himself again, this time louder, ” Where is he ?”

With Miss Foresan’s soul still ascending over our heads, I fail to understand him. Then I look about the stage-incarnadine with the departed genius-and note an important absence.

“He disappeared as soon as the gun was shot,” he says. “I don’t understand.”

There are no red tracks that lead from the stage to the audience, and none that lead from the stage to behind the curtain, where-but a moment before-Gretta’s fortune was so nearly reversed. As the boy has said, the man has disappeared altogether.

As I hold Gretta’s head, I begin to understand that her voice is gone forever, and that in all the world there are but two chapters, one with her voice and one without. In these the first sentences of the chapter of silence, I struggle to find words that can like the wind above the deep foster in the new world. I sink my head into the roots of her hair, and let my silent tears water them, as though their salt bore the antidote for her terrible fate. Finding no other words, I hum quietly:

” Posso cantar’, ora che stai qui .”

Already my poor rendering makes me miss her perfect rendition, and I struggle to remember the timber of her voice. I find that I am unable to remember any of the particulars, and find myself awaking as though from a wonderful dream, in which each passing moment more of her precious voice fades into the cavern of obscurity. I cry knowing that in a few short hours I shall be able to remember only the bare skeleton of the masterpiece. Through my tears I hum-for what I know if the last time any ears will hear it-the haunting melody:

” SÃҬ, partirÃҲ teco, nel buio di notte io partirÃҲ .”


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