CURTAIN

(Age Ten)

Pop stars and rockers get nodes—calluses on the vocal cords, usually from overuse, usually because they are not paying attention and/or think they can push through. Opera singers do not push through.

Opera singers know that, unless they are superstars, they can be replaced in two seconds flat, and therefore have their throats scoped regularly to make sure they are not developing nodes or polyps, and at the slightest hint of them, everything stops. All singing, all talking, all sound, dunzo. Out come the extra humidifiers, the cups of tea, the voice therapists.

Opera singers work hard, work tirelessly, but when it comes to their voices, they do not push through.

Except . . .

Maybe . . .

When they are in the middle of a career breakthrough run at Covent Garden, and they get a little hoarse, just a little tiny bit hoarse . . .

And, because they can’t bear the thought of taking time off in the middle of such an important role, tell themselves it’s just a cold, and fail to go to the ENT, and keep going to the theater and singing because not performing might mean losing all the momentum, months and years of building to this, all to be shoved back down to the bottom of the heap. . . .

I was in the audience on the night it happened. At first, it was just a pause where there wasn’t supposed to be one. Only someone who’d heard her rehearsing this part thousands of times would have heard it. Still, I squirmed in my seat.

Then there were a couple of funny notes. I whipped out my opera glasses, zoomed in on her, and stared. Up close she still seemed . . . fine . . . but normally she was better than fine. I started to sweat, my heart beating too quickly. She could get booed for this. Opera audiences are passionate, vocal, and unforgiving.

Then, during the second aria, her voice went crazy, zooming from the notes she was supposed to be singing to other notes way up or down the scale. Wrong notes. Screechingly, undeniably wrong notes that rose and fell in what felt like slow motion, each long second worse than the last.

The final time she opened her mouth to sing, nothing came out.

I sat there in the dark, insides shredded. It was just her voice, but it seemed to me like she was literally dying up there.

Everything stopped for a long, excruciating moment as hundreds of people held their breath at the same time. Even the orchestra paused. And then my mom, Margot-Sophia Lalonde, face flushed, eyes bright with terrified, unshed tears, made a dramatic, in-character gesture with her arms, and the conductor sprang back into action. The music started back up, faster than before, and Mom moved to the marks she was supposed to and did all her choreographed actions, and essentially mimed the rest of the piece, finishing on her knees in the spotlight, agony streaming down her face.

And then the curtain, blood red and edged with gold, fell.

Mom’s friends converged upon us in London.

Everyone had heard; the drama of Margot-Sophia Lalonde losing her voice partway through a performance had even made the papers. Her cover, which is what they call understudies in opera, had arrived at the theater within the fifteen minutes specified by her contract (that’s how fast you can actually be replaced in opera—fifteen minutes) and sung from the wings while Mom walked the rest of the part. I had watched in anguish from the back, unable to stay in my seat, equally unable to turn away.

Now our flat was full, with doctors coming and going, visitors arriving with gifts of specialty teas, honey cakes, scentless bouquets of flowers, bits of amusing gossip. Mom communicated via signals and signs, or with paper and pen, in a pretty silk-covered notebook someone had brought her.

There were trips to the hospital, examinations, consultations, and always Mom told me everything would be fine, but that she needed more rest. She did not get sad and go to bed; she continued to take obsessively good care of herself and stayed positive.

The run of the show ended.

The tour began . . . without us.

Mom remained positive.

But fewer and fewer people came to visit as the weeks turned into months, and those who did come started to seem awkward, apologetic. Pretty soon no one came except the vocal therapists, yoga teacher, and ENT.

I went between hovering over my mother and hiding out at my friend Emily’s.

Finally there was surgery. She’d hoped to avoid it, because of cost, because of the recovery time, and because there was no guarantee it would work. But now it was time to try. She didn’t say it, didn’t act it, but I felt it: this was the last chance.

Recovery was slow, more days and weeks passing and then came the attempts to sing, carefully at first and supervised by the doctor. Her lower register was fine, sounded beautiful. But the upper register . . . didn’t sound good.

And it didn’t improve with further attempts.

I will never forget the sorrowful face of Mom’s handsome ENT when he told us what we already suspected: Mom’s singing voice was destroyed. It was over.

“The good news,” he said, “is your speaking voice, and the lower part of your register . . . both are fine. And you may use them as much as you like.”

“Yes. Thank you.” She was so dignified, so strong, her speaking voice still so rich and nuanced, her articulation clear and perfect from all the years of classical training.

He could be wrong, I thought. This was too painful to be real. We’ll keep trying. We’ll try again tomorrow.

But tomorrow came, and Margot-Sophia Lalonde, grim-faced but with perfect composure, began to sell the furniture.

She never cried, so neither did I.

The curtain was falling. Had fallen.

And we were out of magic.