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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Art / Music / Theater / Dance
- Published: 05/15/2014
BREAKING THE MOLD
Born 1969, M, from Herten, NRW, GermanyThe picture posted here to the right is of Charles E.J. Moulton playing the part of Barbavano in the 1996 production of Jacques Offenbach's "The Bandits" at the Vienna Chamber Opera.
This story takes place in an opera house.
BREAKING THE MOLD
A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton
James sighed a deep and bitter sigh of desperation, scratching his nose and closing his eyes in awe. Four hours of gruelling torture with a screaming director can do this to you, he thought to himself, especially if the director screams at you in front of a hundred colleagues. The more James had tried to get it right, the longer he held his note and the tougher and the more adamant he had become in his acting, the more negative did the reaction of the director seem to become. Finally, James had given up and the director had ended the rehearsal.
Four colleagues were before him here in the cantine waiting line. Five were behind him. Six of the choristers looked at him with pity, such pity, in fact, that he wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. Yapping. The never stopped yapping. Ever. Even when he sang, they yapped. He even had to plead for them to stop joking around for one moment while he sang, at least while he sang.
In truth, he wondered why he was thinking these things.
The problem was not the yapping. It was him. Franco Urbani. The dictator director.
“What’s the matter, big guy?”
James turned around, facing the head that produced the voice that spoke to him, smiling. What met him were the nearsighted eyes of one of his chorister colleagues. One choral tenor that seemed to be professional enough to come on time, learn his text and not stumble over the furniture any more than he did.
James shrugged, glancing back at the line in front of him. Potatoe sallad and green beans, brown sauce and beef. Looked good enough to endure. It felt awful, though, to have to gobble down food when his stomach felt like exploding. Just the thought of having that director scream at him made James want to puke. Why was James here? Because he needed to speak to someone. Anyone.
“My brain is full of mush,” James half-smiled, “and my voice is in shambles.”
“Huh?”
James looked back at his colleague and smiled. “Forget it.”
“Our director is an asshole,” the chorister finally said. “I feel sorry for you. I mean, he didn’t even give you a chance to defend yourself.”
James nodded, trudging a few steps toward the beef and the beans.
“That’s not the worst thing,” James sniggered, whistling and making a gesture with one hand, passing it half way into his one ear and the other hand touching the other ear. “You know what I mean? In one ear, out the other. That is not the problem.”
His choral colleague nodded. “Yeah. I know. The disrespect, right?”
James turned around again and looked into the wincing eyes of his short and much younger friend. Suddenly, he realized that he had been wrong all these years. There were no differences between choristers and soloists, between workers and bosses, pharaohs and slaves. My God, all singers had the same education, didn’t they? Everyone had sung big parts in the academy, hadn’t they? So, where did that attitude come from? Arrogance.
“Yes,” James smiled, recognizing his friend’s twinkle, that little cynical edge in his glance, as something he himself would be doing. God, maybe they had more in common than he thought. Maybe the solistic fear of choristers was just a fear grounding in not making it themselves. Of becoming one of the masses. But the masses, what was that? An illusion. Everyone was unique, right? Individuality ruled the world. Masses of people were just a collection of individuals, who were unique, anyway. Ordinary, no way. “Disrespect.”
That one moment amazingly prevailed in the hearts of two individuals, a moment where the two men looked at each other and realized they were just mirror images of each other. Colleagues, both tenors, both able to sing the same parts, the one singing the parts live of stage, the other singer just studying to sing them live and hoping that he would be able to get the chance to do so one day.
“What’s your name again?”
“Roger,” the young chorister said. “Second tenor, third from the left.”
James laughed at this comment, seeing that he was almost at the counter now and that the beans and the beef looked more promising from this angle, now that he found a friend. “I know that very well. I was second tenor in the opera school and I had a teacher that told me I would never become a soloist.”
“So how come you became such a famous guy? Such a fantastic star? So aloof?”
James threw his head in Roger’s direction. “What?”
Maybe the guy was an asshole after all.
“I am sorry,” Roger said, throwing his hand against his face in an effeminate gesture, revealing his obviously grande dame nature. “I had to say that. That was bullshit, by the way. You never speak up. That director treated you like shit. I felt really sorry for you.”
James giggled. “I have spent the last ten years playing every damn part I can get my hands on. That bloody director pushed me into the ground, man.”
Roger put his hand on James’ shoulder.
“You are such a great artist, James,” Roger said. “Don’t let some stupid tyrant ruin your day.”
James smiled at Roger. “That’s nice. Thanks.”
“I know how difficult it is. Sensitivity doesn’t protect you against assholes that call themselves directors. But they are dust beneath your chariot wheel,” Roger said, giving James a playful punch on the arm.
James upnodded the beef, aiming his perspective at Roger’s comment.
“You’re right,” James sighed. “Who the hell does he think I am?”
“You’re a great artist.”
James held up his hand. “I would’ve been happy to have been in the chorus today. That swine of a director turned my existance into a farce.”
There was a very awkward silence, when Roger obviously didn’t know if he should respond or not. James ordered his food, ordered an after evening-rehearsal beer and proceeded to the check-out line. Roger did the same and so the two men ended up paying the same price for the same things at the same counter and sitting at the same table in the same theatre, munching on the same supper.
Now, while James sat there enjoying his food as much as Roger enjoyed his, James looked about and saw that the technicians sat among the technicians, the choristers sat among the choristers, the costume people sat among the costume people and the soloist sat among the soloists. James smiled to himself. That must’ve triggered something or other inside Roger, because he looked up at James, stopped chewing. Roger shook his head and uttered that famous word, that infamous word, known only among the oblivious:
“What?”
“I just realized that we are breaking the mold.”
Roger looked around, tried to understand or at least deciphre what his solistic friend meant. It occurred to him just as he looked around what James meant, recognizing everyone that he had spent the last year working with. No one mingled outside of their department.
As James met Roger’s gaze, a smile appeared on both of their faces simultaneously. The sensation of actually doing something unique must’ve appeared in their minds at the same time. “Why do people categorize themselves as being a part of a club or a level in society? Rich and famous or small and unsuccessful, sort of thing? Is that cool? What is that?”
Roger gave James a half-smile, thought about it for a bit and then answered with some tidbits of trivial pursuit information that he had read in an article recently.
“Joan Collins was collecting unemployment money between filming The Stud and getting the part in Dynasty,” he said. “Grandma Moses was a normal housewife her entire life before she became a famous painter at 78 years of age. But they were no less people when they were not famous. Heck, even Queen Elizabeth puts salt on her morning eggs. It ain’t gold on those chickies.”
James leaned forward, whispering at Roger, feeling very mischievious. “Our director just came in through the cantine door.”
Roger snapped his head toward the entrance of the place, looking over and eyeing heavenward.
“Mr. Loudmouth?”
James and Roger looked over at the man, following the choleric man with their eyes as he walked toward the beans and the beef and the potatoe sallad. Somewhere behind the beerstand, he stopped short. No one knew why he stopped, but it must’ve been because the buggar really felt that James sat just a few paces away from him. He scratched his frizzy grey hairdo, pretending to choose a drink, letting his assistant wait with his pencil and pad, shaking his head. One short look later, the director looked up at James, the sides of his mouth twitching as if coming alive.
The director suddenly made a split second decision, obviously, and James, the tenor, the star of the show, felt his heart skip a beat. The dictator took a few steps over toward James, stopped at the tenor’s table and smiled.
“Can I talk to you in private, away from this table?”
“Away from this table? Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
James’ heart dropped three levels. He looked at Roger, realized that he had been in the chorus himself and that Roger probably had as many solo roles to his name as him and still did concerts like crazy. James shook his head.
“Tell me right here what you have to tell me,” he answered.
“In front of ...?”
The director stopped half-way and waited for James’ reply.
James nodded.
“In front of ...!”
There was no response, just an empty gaze and an assistant that shifted in his step a few paces away.
“Sir,” James began. “We are all human beings and we are all artists, just like we all have souls, regardless if we are successful or not, rich or not, sing in groups or sing alone. We have all studied to become musicians and artists, we are all educated professionals, whatever we do. What you demonstrated there on stage just now was an example of desastrously low professional esteem. You pushed me beyond the limit just like you have pushed so many colleagues before me. What did you call a chorister the other day?”
James looked at Roger, who searched for words, looked right and left and up and down and at the tables filled with their various non-communicating departments.
Roger looked at the director, felt the strength of his soloist colleague supporting him.
“Choral vermine!”
James gave the director a nasty look.
“I have a very good rapore with the boss of this theatre,” James finally said. “If you ever make a scene like that again or call anyone choral vermine again I shall personally march up to the office of the head of the theatre and see that you are excommunicated from this place forever.”
The director opened his mouth, closed it, began speaking, but stopped half-way-through. He looked at his assistant, who shrugged and then looked away. He then gave James a quiet and rather shy look, realizing that the head of the theatre now stood paces away from him. The director, his name was Franco Urbani, turned around and faced his own boss, giving the man a very insecure smile.
“James is right,” the big boss said. “Here, in this theatre, everyone should be treated with respect.”
The head of the theatre now clapped his hands three times and got everyone’s attention. He spoke of professionalism and everyone listened. He spoke of art, he spoke of a better communication between the departments, he spoke of demanding that the leading team treat their artists well and that the chorus had a right to be respected as equals to the soloists.
Within minutes, something amazing happened.
People started switching tables, communicating, speaking to each other.
Franco Urbani, the crazy tyrant who had turned James’ day into a living hell, now listened intently and politely to everyone’s conversation.
The next day of rehearsal was a polite one.
The most amazing thing was that Roger, the near-sighted chorister, got the offer to understudy James’ tenor part in the opera. Would Roger sing the role live? Maybe. Maybe not. The main thing was, though, that the head of the theatre had set a sign for his workers to respect each other more.
And that was worth a great deal.
BREAKING THE MOLD(Charles E.J. Moulton)
The picture posted here to the right is of Charles E.J. Moulton playing the part of Barbavano in the 1996 production of Jacques Offenbach's "The Bandits" at the Vienna Chamber Opera.
This story takes place in an opera house.
BREAKING THE MOLD
A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton
James sighed a deep and bitter sigh of desperation, scratching his nose and closing his eyes in awe. Four hours of gruelling torture with a screaming director can do this to you, he thought to himself, especially if the director screams at you in front of a hundred colleagues. The more James had tried to get it right, the longer he held his note and the tougher and the more adamant he had become in his acting, the more negative did the reaction of the director seem to become. Finally, James had given up and the director had ended the rehearsal.
Four colleagues were before him here in the cantine waiting line. Five were behind him. Six of the choristers looked at him with pity, such pity, in fact, that he wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. Yapping. The never stopped yapping. Ever. Even when he sang, they yapped. He even had to plead for them to stop joking around for one moment while he sang, at least while he sang.
In truth, he wondered why he was thinking these things.
The problem was not the yapping. It was him. Franco Urbani. The dictator director.
“What’s the matter, big guy?”
James turned around, facing the head that produced the voice that spoke to him, smiling. What met him were the nearsighted eyes of one of his chorister colleagues. One choral tenor that seemed to be professional enough to come on time, learn his text and not stumble over the furniture any more than he did.
James shrugged, glancing back at the line in front of him. Potatoe sallad and green beans, brown sauce and beef. Looked good enough to endure. It felt awful, though, to have to gobble down food when his stomach felt like exploding. Just the thought of having that director scream at him made James want to puke. Why was James here? Because he needed to speak to someone. Anyone.
“My brain is full of mush,” James half-smiled, “and my voice is in shambles.”
“Huh?”
James looked back at his colleague and smiled. “Forget it.”
“Our director is an asshole,” the chorister finally said. “I feel sorry for you. I mean, he didn’t even give you a chance to defend yourself.”
James nodded, trudging a few steps toward the beef and the beans.
“That’s not the worst thing,” James sniggered, whistling and making a gesture with one hand, passing it half way into his one ear and the other hand touching the other ear. “You know what I mean? In one ear, out the other. That is not the problem.”
His choral colleague nodded. “Yeah. I know. The disrespect, right?”
James turned around again and looked into the wincing eyes of his short and much younger friend. Suddenly, he realized that he had been wrong all these years. There were no differences between choristers and soloists, between workers and bosses, pharaohs and slaves. My God, all singers had the same education, didn’t they? Everyone had sung big parts in the academy, hadn’t they? So, where did that attitude come from? Arrogance.
“Yes,” James smiled, recognizing his friend’s twinkle, that little cynical edge in his glance, as something he himself would be doing. God, maybe they had more in common than he thought. Maybe the solistic fear of choristers was just a fear grounding in not making it themselves. Of becoming one of the masses. But the masses, what was that? An illusion. Everyone was unique, right? Individuality ruled the world. Masses of people were just a collection of individuals, who were unique, anyway. Ordinary, no way. “Disrespect.”
That one moment amazingly prevailed in the hearts of two individuals, a moment where the two men looked at each other and realized they were just mirror images of each other. Colleagues, both tenors, both able to sing the same parts, the one singing the parts live of stage, the other singer just studying to sing them live and hoping that he would be able to get the chance to do so one day.
“What’s your name again?”
“Roger,” the young chorister said. “Second tenor, third from the left.”
James laughed at this comment, seeing that he was almost at the counter now and that the beans and the beef looked more promising from this angle, now that he found a friend. “I know that very well. I was second tenor in the opera school and I had a teacher that told me I would never become a soloist.”
“So how come you became such a famous guy? Such a fantastic star? So aloof?”
James threw his head in Roger’s direction. “What?”
Maybe the guy was an asshole after all.
“I am sorry,” Roger said, throwing his hand against his face in an effeminate gesture, revealing his obviously grande dame nature. “I had to say that. That was bullshit, by the way. You never speak up. That director treated you like shit. I felt really sorry for you.”
James giggled. “I have spent the last ten years playing every damn part I can get my hands on. That bloody director pushed me into the ground, man.”
Roger put his hand on James’ shoulder.
“You are such a great artist, James,” Roger said. “Don’t let some stupid tyrant ruin your day.”
James smiled at Roger. “That’s nice. Thanks.”
“I know how difficult it is. Sensitivity doesn’t protect you against assholes that call themselves directors. But they are dust beneath your chariot wheel,” Roger said, giving James a playful punch on the arm.
James upnodded the beef, aiming his perspective at Roger’s comment.
“You’re right,” James sighed. “Who the hell does he think I am?”
“You’re a great artist.”
James held up his hand. “I would’ve been happy to have been in the chorus today. That swine of a director turned my existance into a farce.”
There was a very awkward silence, when Roger obviously didn’t know if he should respond or not. James ordered his food, ordered an after evening-rehearsal beer and proceeded to the check-out line. Roger did the same and so the two men ended up paying the same price for the same things at the same counter and sitting at the same table in the same theatre, munching on the same supper.
Now, while James sat there enjoying his food as much as Roger enjoyed his, James looked about and saw that the technicians sat among the technicians, the choristers sat among the choristers, the costume people sat among the costume people and the soloist sat among the soloists. James smiled to himself. That must’ve triggered something or other inside Roger, because he looked up at James, stopped chewing. Roger shook his head and uttered that famous word, that infamous word, known only among the oblivious:
“What?”
“I just realized that we are breaking the mold.”
Roger looked around, tried to understand or at least deciphre what his solistic friend meant. It occurred to him just as he looked around what James meant, recognizing everyone that he had spent the last year working with. No one mingled outside of their department.
As James met Roger’s gaze, a smile appeared on both of their faces simultaneously. The sensation of actually doing something unique must’ve appeared in their minds at the same time. “Why do people categorize themselves as being a part of a club or a level in society? Rich and famous or small and unsuccessful, sort of thing? Is that cool? What is that?”
Roger gave James a half-smile, thought about it for a bit and then answered with some tidbits of trivial pursuit information that he had read in an article recently.
“Joan Collins was collecting unemployment money between filming The Stud and getting the part in Dynasty,” he said. “Grandma Moses was a normal housewife her entire life before she became a famous painter at 78 years of age. But they were no less people when they were not famous. Heck, even Queen Elizabeth puts salt on her morning eggs. It ain’t gold on those chickies.”
James leaned forward, whispering at Roger, feeling very mischievious. “Our director just came in through the cantine door.”
Roger snapped his head toward the entrance of the place, looking over and eyeing heavenward.
“Mr. Loudmouth?”
James and Roger looked over at the man, following the choleric man with their eyes as he walked toward the beans and the beef and the potatoe sallad. Somewhere behind the beerstand, he stopped short. No one knew why he stopped, but it must’ve been because the buggar really felt that James sat just a few paces away from him. He scratched his frizzy grey hairdo, pretending to choose a drink, letting his assistant wait with his pencil and pad, shaking his head. One short look later, the director looked up at James, the sides of his mouth twitching as if coming alive.
The director suddenly made a split second decision, obviously, and James, the tenor, the star of the show, felt his heart skip a beat. The dictator took a few steps over toward James, stopped at the tenor’s table and smiled.
“Can I talk to you in private, away from this table?”
“Away from this table? Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
James’ heart dropped three levels. He looked at Roger, realized that he had been in the chorus himself and that Roger probably had as many solo roles to his name as him and still did concerts like crazy. James shook his head.
“Tell me right here what you have to tell me,” he answered.
“In front of ...?”
The director stopped half-way and waited for James’ reply.
James nodded.
“In front of ...!”
There was no response, just an empty gaze and an assistant that shifted in his step a few paces away.
“Sir,” James began. “We are all human beings and we are all artists, just like we all have souls, regardless if we are successful or not, rich or not, sing in groups or sing alone. We have all studied to become musicians and artists, we are all educated professionals, whatever we do. What you demonstrated there on stage just now was an example of desastrously low professional esteem. You pushed me beyond the limit just like you have pushed so many colleagues before me. What did you call a chorister the other day?”
James looked at Roger, who searched for words, looked right and left and up and down and at the tables filled with their various non-communicating departments.
Roger looked at the director, felt the strength of his soloist colleague supporting him.
“Choral vermine!”
James gave the director a nasty look.
“I have a very good rapore with the boss of this theatre,” James finally said. “If you ever make a scene like that again or call anyone choral vermine again I shall personally march up to the office of the head of the theatre and see that you are excommunicated from this place forever.”
The director opened his mouth, closed it, began speaking, but stopped half-way-through. He looked at his assistant, who shrugged and then looked away. He then gave James a quiet and rather shy look, realizing that the head of the theatre now stood paces away from him. The director, his name was Franco Urbani, turned around and faced his own boss, giving the man a very insecure smile.
“James is right,” the big boss said. “Here, in this theatre, everyone should be treated with respect.”
The head of the theatre now clapped his hands three times and got everyone’s attention. He spoke of professionalism and everyone listened. He spoke of art, he spoke of a better communication between the departments, he spoke of demanding that the leading team treat their artists well and that the chorus had a right to be respected as equals to the soloists.
Within minutes, something amazing happened.
People started switching tables, communicating, speaking to each other.
Franco Urbani, the crazy tyrant who had turned James’ day into a living hell, now listened intently and politely to everyone’s conversation.
The next day of rehearsal was a polite one.
The most amazing thing was that Roger, the near-sighted chorister, got the offer to understudy James’ tenor part in the opera. Would Roger sing the role live? Maybe. Maybe not. The main thing was, though, that the head of the theatre had set a sign for his workers to respect each other more.
And that was worth a great deal.
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