Paris
March 1964
The baron and I had dinner with Lee and Stas,” Maggie van Zuylen told Maria over afternoon tea, “and I guarantee you’ve got nothing to fear from Lee. She has no interesting conversation and her personality can best be described as brittle.”
“Yes, but her sister is the world’s most famous grieving widow, and Ari positively salivates in the presence of fame.” Maria stirred her tea, pressing the back of her teaspoon against the slice of lemon.
“Do you think the affair is still going on?”
Maria shrugged. “I haven’t caught them in flagrante. As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t seen her since JFK’s funeral. When he came to London with me recently, her name wasn’t mentioned.”
Maggie looked thoughtful. “He’s the kind of man who loves the pursuit and gets bored after conquest. He had his one-night stand with Lee and paid her with a bracelet. ‘Dearest, sweetest love’ is what you say to a favorite niece, not a lover.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I never told you this,” Maggie continued, “but Ari once paid Eva Perón ten thousand dollars to spend the night with him. That’s all he wanted—just to be able to say he’d had her.”
To Maria the story was sleazy. She didn’t like to hear about that side of him.
Maggie touched her arm. “Ari told me the other day that he thinks he has finally been accepted by European society through being with you. For a long time they held him at arm’s length because of his business reputation, but you bring him class, he said.”
“Did he really?” Maria flushed. She would treasure that compliment.
“So, what are you singing next?” Maggie asked. “And when can I come and hear you?”
“Zeffirelli has asked me to sing Norma at the Paris Opéra in May . . .”
“How exciting!” Maggie cried.
Maria made a face. “I haven’t given him my answer yet. It’s more technically challenging than Tosca and, frankly, I don’t know if my voice is up to it. I’ve had an operation on my sinuses since the last time I sang Norma and it’s affected my resonance. Besides, I haven’t been practicing as much as I should.”
“You are the woman who learned Wagner’s Isolde in two months,” Maggie remonstrated. “And you’ve sung Norma many times before.”
“You sound like Ari,” she said. “He wants me to accept so he can invite all our Parisian friends to watch.”
“It’s a good plan,” Maggie said. “Hammer home that you are a much bigger trophy than Lee. Remind him how proud he should be to have you on his arm.”
MARIA LAUNCHED HERSELF into a program of intensive practice and sessions with vocal coaches to get ready for Norma. She would nail this. She had to!
Rehearsals began in April, and she loved Zeffirelli’s design for the enchanted forest, which changed color as the seasons progressed. She loved her multicolored costumes in flowing silk and chiffon that swayed like leaves in a breeze. And she adored the child performers, feeling a maternal protectiveness toward them. She made sure they were given plenty of rest breaks, and always kept a stock of candy and soft drinks in her dressing room, remembering how tough it had been when she was forced to perform at their age.
All that was fine, but vocally she was still struggling in her upper register as opening night drew near.
“Skip some of the high notes,” Zeffirelli advised. “Few in the audience will be any the wiser.”
“I can’t do that. It would be cheating.” She would never compromise her art if she could help it. Instead she worked harder than ever, pushing herself to control the pulsation on her top notes, practicing long hours every day.
Ari decided to invite their friends to the fourth night, once the critics had attended and the production had settled into its stride. He asked Princess Grace, the Aga Khan, Charlie and Oona Chaplin, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Maggie van Zuylen and her husband, and many others. He arranged a champagne reception for the intermission, and his excitement mounted as the evening drew near.
On opening night, Maria managed all the high notes and cadenzas, but without the power she used to bring to the role of the Druid priestess. She knew the critics realized this, but their reviews were kind, commenting on her “sublime” acting and the “subtlety” of her musical phrasing. The second and third nights followed the same pattern, but she awoke on the morning of the fourth feeling nervous about Ari’s high expectations. Her throat was a little constricted, perhaps because of nerves, so she spent the day doing relaxation exercises and focusing on the music, before going through her preperformance rituals.
The applause was thunderous when she stepped onstage, but from the opening notes she knew she was going to struggle. The vocal cords were not responding cleanly. She had no choice but to skip some high notes and give a softer, toned-down performance. All that would have been acceptable—just—but in the final scene she reached for C5 and her voice cracked on the note. There was no disguising it, even for those who were not opera fans; her failure was clear.
A few audience members hissed their disapproval, and the hisses were soon accompanied by a scattering of boos. Maria raised her arm to the conductor, indicating that she wanted to try again. There was a pause, the orchestra returned to the start of the aria, and Maria summoned all her vocal training to sing a perfectly placed, sustained C5. Most of the crowd applauded, but there was still some grumbling, and she felt humiliated. Why tonight, of all nights?
At the end, she took a few cursory curtain calls, then rushed to her dressing room, where she slammed the door, wishing she could be invisible. She felt terrible for letting Ari down. He had been dying for the evening to be a success.
The dressing-room door opened and he burst in with a bottle of champagne.
“Magnifico!” he cried. “I have never been prouder of you than I was when you sang that high note the second time. That’s my Maria! That’s what I love about you: you never accept defeat.”
She shook her head. “I was terrible. Of all nights for my top C to desert me!”
“Your friends are singing your praises. They’re in the restaurant now. Come and join us. Shall I open this bottle to get you in the mood?”
“I can’t face anyone.” She shook her head firmly. “I couldn’t bear to listen to their tactfully worded congratulations. You go if you like, but I’m heading home.”
“You were splendid and everyone loved you,” he said. “But if you want to go home, then I will accompany you.”
His Rolls-Royce whisked them back to the Avenue Foch apartment, where his chef prepared a light supper, but Maria couldn’t eat. She sipped a glass of Dom Pérignon, still overcome with humiliation.
“I can’t sing onstage anymore,” she announced. “That’s it. It’s not fair to risk letting down my fellow musicians and my audiences.” Thank goodness Ari’s attempts to make her the figurehead of a Monte Carlo opera company had foundered. She wasn’t worthy of the honor.
“I don’t think you let anyone down,” Ari insisted. “But if you don’t want the pressure of performing, perhaps you could concentrate on films and recordings.”
“Perhaps . . .”
She couldn’t think about that tonight. There were only four more performances in Paris, and then they would fly to Athens to board the Christina for a long summer cruise. They’d go to Milan for the fourth anniversary of Omero’s birth in June, then the rest of the summer would be about swimming, sunbathing, and resting, trying to scrub the memory of tonight’s performance from her mind.
So much for showing Ari that she was a more glittering prize than Lee. That plan had backfired spectacularly.