XIX Trio—Amoroso

Katherina sat nervously at her dressing room table waiting for the cue for her final entry on stage. Opening night was going splendidly. The Great Festspielhaus was full. Every aspect, musical and dramatic, flowed along perfectly; and Anastasia’s Octavian swept through each scene like a randy angel.

A loudspeaker broadcast the opera into her dressing room and she could hear that Act III had just begun. Octavian and the Baron were just sitting down at the table in the long tavern scene, and poor Anastasia was playing in double disguise, a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman. How she managed the complex comedy of a twice-faked voice was astonishing. Hans too proved masterfully comic as his Baron was gradually made a fool of. There had been no snags or soft spots, and all boded well for the great final trio, the tour de force that was the musical heart and climax of the opera. Half the people in the audience, she knew, attended only to hear that trio, and every opera critic in Austria would certainly scrutinize it.

She checked her costume in the mirror, the one that Anne had adapted. It fit comfortably around the chest but still allowed for the deep inhalations. Detlev’s wig was also perfect, the loose curl at her ear giving her a faint disheveled look that suited Sophie’s distress.

The clock on the makeup table told her she had ten minutes to go. Next to the clock were the contract and the open libretto to Walpurgisnacht. To pass the time, she glanced through them both.

The libretto, if one could call it that, was clever: a parade of seductions by the seven deadly sins, not onstage, but of the public itself. The medieval setting reminded her of Carmina Burana. The music itself was built more on rhythm than on melody and seemed derivative, a sort of combination of Stravinsky and Orff. But the melodies were flashy and held no excessively high notes.

It was, like Salome, a single-act opera. The soprano was on stage almost throughout and, aside from the recitatives of the drama, had several duets and a final aria. It was musically undemanding and all well within her range. There was no indication of staging, though, which worried her. For new works especially, so much depended on the visual presentation.

A brief but firm knock at the door was followed by, “Miss Marow, five minutes until call. ”

“Thank you, ” she called back, and opened the contract again. It was boilerplate standard, listing dates, location, rehearsal obligations, and fee. A very generous fee. The only disquieting thing was that the producer, the entity to which she would be contracted, was Gregory Raspin himself.

Katherina’s agent had assured her that morning that Raspin was a real presence on the musical scene. The engagement—a world premiere, Charlotte reminded her—would be good for her. It would generate a lot of publicity, even if the composer was anonymous, perhaps because he was anonymous. The very oddities of the engagement made it attractive, Charlotte said. Still, something about it made her uncomfortable.

Another brief knock. “Miss Marow. Two minutes until call. ”

She brushed aside the contract and stood up. Humming a scale, she felt her wig to make sure it sat firmly. Pacing herself to stay calm, she wound her way quietly along the corridors to the stage rear. Then she took her place in the wings, waiting for her cue to enter the scene.

“Mein Gott, Es war nur eine Farce. ” She sang her entry lines from the far right side of the darkened tavern, then slowly crept in, beginning the deliciously provocative back and forth of the three lovesick women. The opulent staging, together with the long tradition of travesty comedy, obscured the raw fact that emotionally and erotically excited women were negotiating sexual ownership, and not a man in sight. But the audience sensed the titillation, not the least because Strauss had charged every musical moment. Who had claim to the beautiful, sexually ambiguous, and permanently tumescent Octavian? The Marschallin, in full imperial splendor, a regal dominatrix in crinolines and pearls, who had held the cavalier between her legs two hours earlier? Or the appetizing Sophie in the bloom of youth, who offered her first passion and maidenhead? The whole stage was electric with sex.

Yet the competing lovers did not fight, but were generous in their love, each one recognizing the worth of the other. The Marschallin told Octavian, “Go, make love to her. ” Sophie sent him back, sighing, “Her Highness calls. Go to her. ” Octavian, befuddled, pledged obedience to the one, passion to the other. Then the two rivals faced one another. Sophie curtsied, pliant to the powerful Marschallin, who bore no rancor, only tenderness. “Your cheek so pale…you’re pretty enough. ” And Sophie, sweetly responsive, “Your highness is graciousness itself…”

As the tender scene unfolded, the three of them moved gradually into place for the climactic trio, Sophie at stage right, Octavian in the center, the Marschallin stage left, a step above the others.

The transition chord, the diminished B, floated up from the strings, drawing away from the E major and coming to rest in E-flat major. For three full seconds, the house was completely still; every person in the theater had waited for this moment and the audience seemed to hold its collective breath.

Then the Marschallin began, seraphic, in E flat, with her warm golden thread: “Hab mir’s gelobt…” Ten measures later Octavian entered, “Es ist was ’kommen, ” and a moment after, Sophie added the brightest thread, “Mir ist wie in der Kirche…” Unrelated soliloquies that streamed around each other so that the melodies hooked and snagged as they passed. The lines wove in and out in a spiral of musical phrases, polyphony as ingenious as a Gregorian chant, and yet profane, perverse. Three women sang of love, fidelity, reverence, mixing silver and gold, meandering in and out of keys. Pieces of melody tantalized like kisses and forbidden touches as the vocal lines merged and separated and then joined again until the tension was unbearable.

Then the orchestra modulated upward from D flat to E major, bright, thrilling. The Marschallin held herself vocally aloof, sustaining her long high C while the two young lovers carried the exchange, shimmering vocally against each other.

Octavian had crossed the stage now to stand next to Sophie, and their three voices flowed upward like a column of water catching sunlight. Katherina swam together with conductor, orchestra, Octavian, Marschallin, all moving perfectly in the ecstatic culmination of the ensemble.

The three women faced outward toward the audience throughout the trio, keeping tempo with the orchestra, but on the final three measures, as the dazzling fountain of sound fell and the voices united in a harmonic chord, Octavian moved. The Marschallin sang her final word of renunciation, “understanding, ” gazing upward, while the two young lovers joined together on the word “love. ”

Then, unrehearsed, Anastasia turned and gazed at Katherina. Held captive by mist-gray eyes, Katherina held her note, ending with the others, but electricity went through her and warmth spread outward like a fluid from the center of her body.

After the final stage business, when all but the two young lovers had exited the scene, she sang the final duet as if in a dream.

A simple melody in thirds told of the simplicity of their love. Katherina’s final pianissimo note was close to the top of her range, but she sustained it effortlessly for eight beats, drawing out the last glimmering filament of sound. Then, silence, and Anastasia kissed her delicately on the side of the mouth. The kiss had been carefully rehearsed, but it seemed personal this time. For two beats, Katherina heard or felt Anastasia’s breath on her cheek, and then it was over. The rose cavalier offered her arm and they exited together through the door at stage center.

The applause began the moment the orchestra stopped and increased in volume as the large spotlight illuminated the curtain. Two stagehands took position and, at a nod from the stage director, drew the curtain back to form a corridor for the singers to take their curtain calls.

The secondary singers went out, first as a group and then each alone, from the smallest role to the largest. Then the three women, Marschallin, Octavian, Sophie, swept out onto the stage together. The audience roared. The two in dresses curtsied deeply, and Anastasia, in breeches and riding boots, bowed from the waist.

Breathless, moving in front of the curtain and into the waves of ovation and then back again, Katherina was close to tears. It was not the joy and relief she usually felt after a performance. Something extraordinary had happened, something attached to the music but outside of it as well. Though drenched in perspiration, she swam in a golden euphoria. It was an afterglow she recognized, but not from the stage.

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