When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9) - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,81
greet the gifted South African soprano who would be singing Aida.
She was no longer comfortable singing Amneris opposite a white Aida. Having a black artist singing the enslaved Ethiopian princess added complexity and dimension to the production for modern audiences, and Sarah Mabunda was one of the best. But as Olivia reached out to hug her, Sarah drew away, and her tight smile had an off-putting brittleness to it.
Olivia was taken aback. She and Sarah were friends. They’d performed Aida together before, once in Sydney and once at the Staatsoper in Vienna, where they’d spent free afternoons exploring the city’s museums and where Sarah had told her about her life growing up in Soweto before she’d made her way first to Cape Town Opera School and then on to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. They’d established an immediate connection, and the only part of today she’d been looking forward to was seeing Sarah again.
Olivia searched her mind for what she could have done to offend her but couldn’t think of anything. Maybe Sarah was simply having a bad day? “How have you been?” she asked uncertainly.
“Very well.” With a formal nod, Sarah swept past Olivia.
Olivia stared after her. Stunned, she entered the rehearsal stage. Lena Hodiak, the Polish mezzo who had been covering for her during the early rehearsals, greeted her enthusiastically. “Ms. Shore!” She rushed forward with a wide smile. “It’s such a privilege to be working with you.”
Lena, a statuesque blonde with lush features, regarded Olivia with the adoring eyes of a young singer meeting her idol. Olivia thought how excited Lena would be if she knew she had a real chance of performing in Olivia’s place. But she couldn’t think that way. “Please. Call me Olivia. Rachel Cullen speaks highly of you.”
Olivia remembered her own days covering for bigger artists. The work had given her a steady paycheck when she’d badly needed it, and since covers had to attend every rehearsal, she’d learned from watching the best. But the frustration of perfecting a role, yet not having the chance to perform it, had been real. Still, although stories abounded of a young understudy stepping in at the last minute for the incapacitated star and soaring to instant fame, that seldom happened. In reality, covers spent most of their time stuck in a room offstage playing games on their phones.
“Let me know if I can help in any way,” Lena said.
“Thanks. I will.”
“Someone wants you to stop singing.”
That was Thad’s opinion, and Olivia rejected it. Lena was immensely talented or she couldn’t be here, and taking over a role as important as Amneris—especially on opening night when critics would be present—could advance her career immeasurably. But her welcoming manner hardly marked her as an understudy planning to sabotage the leading lady.
“Olivia, I’m so glad you’re here.” Gary Vallin, the director, came over to greet her. Opera directors, unlike musical conductors, generally weren’t musicians, but the best of them brought a fresh perspective to a piece, seeing it as a work of theater and not just a musical score. Gary was one of those.
As he familiarized Olivia with the staging, Lena sat off to the side keeping a close eye on the rehearsal and making notes exactly as she was supposed to.
By the time the day ended, Olivia was exhausted from the strain of pretending everything was normal. She needed to hear a friendly voice, and as soon as she got to her dressing room, she called Rachel.
It didn’t take her friend long to get to the point. “How are you really doing?”
Olivia hedged. “Okay. I’m not where I want to be, but . . .”
“You’ll get there. You will!”
“Sure, I will.” But Olivia wasn’t sure of anything right now.
When their conversation ended, she stowed her phone in her tote and gathered up the rest of her things. As she came out of her dressing room, she glimpsed a figure ducking around the corner. The shadowy light at the end of the corridor made it impossible to see whether it was a man or a woman, but something about the way the person moved seemed furtive. Still, too many things seemed furtive these days, and she no longer trusted herself to judge what was real and what wasn’t.
She passed Sarah Mabunda on her way out of the building. The Muni’s current Aida walked by without a word.
* * *
“Let me see your driver’s license,” she told Thad as she slipped into the front seat of a very