A Couple Of Singers
by
How could they help falling in love? Handsome and famous as they both were, singing in the same operas, living each night during five whole acts the same artificial and passionate existence. You cannot play with fire without being burnt. You cannot say twenty times a month: “I love you!” to the sighing of a flute or the tremolos of a violin, without at last being caught by the emotion of your own voice. In course of time, passion awoke in the surrounding harmonies, the rhythmical surprises, the gorgeousness of costume and scenery. It was wafted to them through the window that Elsa and Lohengrin threw wide open on a night vibrating with sound and luminousness:
“Come let us breathe the intoxicating perfumes.”
It slipped in between the white columns of the Capulets’ balcony, where Romeo and Juliet linger in the dawning light of day:
“It was the nightingale, and not the lark.”
And softly it caught Faust and Marguerite in a ray of moonlight, that rose from the rustic bench to the shutters of their little chamber, amid the entangled ivy and blossoming roses:
“Let me once more gaze upon thy face.”
Soon all Paris knew their love and became interested in it. It was the wonder of the season. The world came to admire the two splendid stars gently gravitating towards each other in the musical firmament of the Opera House. At last one evening, after an enthusiastic recall, as the curtain fell, separating the house full of noisy applause and the stage littered with bouquets, where the white gown of Juliet swept over scattered camellia blossoms, the two singers were seized with an irresistible impulse, as though their love, a shade artificial, had but awaited the emotion of a splendid success to reveal itself.
Hands were clasped, vows exchanged, vows consecrated by the distant and persistent plaudits of the house. The two stars had made their conjunction.
After the wedding, some time passed before they were again seen on the stage. Then, when their holiday was ended, they reappeared in the same piece. This reappearance was a revelation. Until then, of the two singers, the man had been the most prized. Older and more accustomed to the public, whose foibles and preferences he had studied, he held the pit and boxes under the spell of his voice. Beside him, the other one seemed but an admirably gifted pupil, the promise of a future genius; but her voice was young and had angles in it, just as her shoulders were too slight and thin. And when on her return she appeared in one of her former parts, and the full rich, powerful sound poured out in the very first notes, abundant and pure, like the water of some sparkling spring, there ran through the house such a thrill of delight and surprise, that all the interest of the evening was concentrated on her. For the young woman, it was one of those happy days, in which the ambient atmosphere becomes limpid, light and vibrating, wafting towards one all the radiance and adulations of success. As for the husband, they almost forgot to applaud him, and as a dazzling light ever seems to make the shade around it darker, so he, found himself relegated, as it were, to the most insignificant part of the stage, as if he were neither more nor less than a mere walking gentleman.
After all, the passion that was revealed in the songstress’s acting, in her voice full of charm and tenderness, was inspired by him. He alone lent fire to the glances of those deep eyes, and that idea ought to have made him proud, but the comedian’s vanity proved stronger. At the end of the performance he sent for the leader of the claque and rated him soundly. They had missed his entry and his exit, forgotten the recall at the third act; he would complain to the manager, etc.