Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou [59]
They took no notice of me, but I couldn't do the same with them. I had never been so close to trained singers and the reverberations shook in my ears. I left the room and walked down the corridor to find my place in the wings. Sounds came out of each door I passed. One baritone roared like a wounded moose, another wailed like a freight train on a stormy night. The tenors yelped in high screeches. There were whines and growls and the siren of an engine on its way to a four-alarm fire. Grunts overlapped the high-pitched “ha ha ho ho's” and the total cacophony tickled me; I could have laughed outright. These exquisite singers who would soon stand on the stage delivering the most lovely and liquid tones had first to creak like rusty scissors and wail like banshees. I remembered that before I could lift my torso and allow my arms to wave as if suspended in water, I had to bend up and down, sticking my behind in the air, plié and relevé until my muscles ached, arch-roll and contract and release until my body begged for deliverance. The singers were not funny They were working. Preparation is rarely easy and never beautiful. That was the first of many lessons Porgy and Bess taught me.
I sat on a stool in the wings and watched the singers respond to the stage manager's shouted “Places, please. Places.” They moved directly to their positions in Porgy's world. There were a few whispers as the lights began their slow descent to black.
There was applause from in front of the curtain and the lively overture of Gershwin's opera swelled onto the stage. The curtain began sliding open and pastel lights illuminated the set. A group of men, downstage left, were involved in a crap game; some knelt, others mimed throwing dice. Then Ned Wright, as Robbins, threw the dice and sang “Nine to Make, Come Nine.” The pure tenor line lifted and held in the air for a second, and in a rush the pageant began.
The sopranos and tenors, bassos and baritones, acted as if they were indeed the poverty-stricken Southern Negroes whose lives revolved around the dirt road encampment of Catfish Row. They sang and listened, then harmonized with each other's tones so closely that the stage became a wall of music without a single opening unfilled.
Their self-hypnotism affected the audience and overwhelmed me. I cried for Robbins' poor widow, Serena, who sang the mournful aria “My Man's Gone Now.” Helen Thigpen, a neat little quail of a woman, sang the role with a conviction that burdened the soul. Irene Williams sang Bess, sassily tossing her hips as effortlessly as she flung the notes into the music of the orchestra. Leslie Scott, handsome and as private as an African mask, sang Porgy and in a full, rich baritone. When the first act was over, the audience applauded long and loudly, and I found myself drenched with perspiration and exhausted.
The singers, on the other hand, seemed to step out of the roles as easily as one kicks off too large slippers. They passed me in the wings on their way to the dressing rooms chattering about packing and whether they ought to buy more clothes in Montreal for the European trip.
I didn't like their frivolity. It seemed as if they were being disloyal to the great emotions they had sung about and aroused in me. It wasn't pleasant to discover they were only playing parts. I wanted them to walk offstage wrapped in drama, trailing wisps of tragedy. Instead, Martha came through a parting in the backdrop curtain. Her dark face split in a smile.
“Hey, girl. How do you like it?”
She would not have understood had I said I loved the singing but felt betrayed by the singers.
I said, “I love it.”
“Is this the first time you've watched an opera from backstage?” I told her it was.
The final act was more astounding than the first. I knew now that the actors were not wholly involved in their roles because I had seen the alacrity with