Poor Butterfly Read Online Free PDF Page A

pit in front of the stage.
    Lundeen moved ahead of me toward the front row. The white-haired man paid no attention to us. The woman glanced in our direction. The similarity to Anne was still there, but there were differences. This woman was probably still in her twenties. Her eyes were blue and her face smooth and childlike.
    “Vulnerability,” the white-haired man was saying. Actually, he said “vool-newr-abiliry.” “If you fail to project vulnerability with determination and underlying strength,” he told the woman, “you will give the character no depth. Your voice is an instrument like a fine violin. That you know. But you must coax more from it than perfect notes. This is opera. Performance. You comprehend?”
    “Yes,” she said, glancing at Lundeen and me as we sat. The seats were covered with some soft stuffed material.
    Stokowski stepped back from the woman and looked at us for the first time. He was about six feet tall and stood erect, his eyes unblinking, finding my face. I smiled at him. He didn’t smile back.
    “I have a rehearsal this afternoon,” he said over his shoulder to the young woman. “You work with Giancarlo and the tenor …”
    “Martin Passacaglia,” she muttered softly.
    “… if he arrives for rehearsal this afternoon,” Stokowski concluded.
    “Yes,” she said dutifully.
    “It’s getting better,” he said, his eyes still on me.
    “Thank you,” she said. She didn’t seem sure whether she should stand there and wait for an escort or make her exit. A woman suddenly appeared from stage left, where she had probably been waiting, and beckoned to her. The woman was thin, dressed in a black suit, and of no clear age. She held a small white dog in her arms. I tagged her for Lorna Bartholomew and the mutt for Miguelito. I watched the two women exit.
    Stokowski moved to the front of the stage, looked down at the orchestra for a moment, and pointed at a violinist.
    “You,” he said. “Do you have another instrument?”
    “No,” said the man.
    “Leave,” said Stokowski, walking to the end of the stage and coming down the stairs. “An inferior instrument cuts through my heart like the knife of a Prague butcher.”
    The violinist got up. He was about fifty and wore rimless glasses. He made his way out with as much dignity as he could muster while his fellow musicians looked at their own instruments, hoping they would not prove inferior, too.
    “Overture,” Stokowski said, stepping to the podium a few feet in front of where Lundeen and I were sitting. The Maestro raised his hands and began to conduct He didn’t use a baton. He didn’t need one. His hands flowed. His fingers pointed. His lips moved.
    There was no music in front of him. We sat silently and listened. It sounded great but I needed a coffee. I was afraid I’d fall asleep and he’d point his finger at me and tell me to take my inferior instrument home.
    The overture ended. Stokowski sighed, shook his head, and said, “Oboe. You, oboe.”
    The oboe player, a very old man, looked up, ready to accept the ax.
    “When I coax you with my hand like this,” said Stokowski, demonstrating the hand movement “I want you to play, to help. The flutes were lost. They have improved in quality in the last ten minutes but lost in volume.”
    “But,” said the bewildered oboe player, his instrument cradled lovingly in his arms, “there was no music when you pointed at me to play.”
    “I am the conductor,” said Stokowski. “If I point at you, coax you, it is because I need you, and you will play even if there is no part for you.”
    “You want me to improvise on Puccini?” asked the stunned old man, looking in the general direction of the string section.
    “Yes,” said Stokowski. “Yes. Yes if I need it.”
    “You want me to play … jazz?”
    “I don’t care what you call it,” said Stokowski. “Just do it. Can you do it?”
    “Yes,” said the old man.
    “Good,” said Stokowski. “Practice.”
    “Practice