Birth and Death of a Conductor, Part Three: Burial

     Since my Elixir of Love performances went so well, I was asked to conduct second cast subscription performances of Carmen the following season. "Subscription" refers to those performances open to subscribers and the general public. There are also student matinées (usually two), for which the show is cut down to a length suitable for children's attention spans, and high school night, for which the show is performed in its entirety; the matinées are not open to the general public. High school night is always a fun night in the theatre, as the students dress as if going to the prom and try to behave as sophisticated and nonchalant as possible.

     So I was to conduct the second cast subscription shows; my colleague Jim Lowe (who was my prompter on Elixir ) would lead the student matinées and high school night. This was to be Jim's conducting debut. He has since enjoyed quite a bit of success with the baton, including the Tony®
award-winning Broadway revival of Anything Goes.

     Unlike my experience with Elixir, for which I was impeccably prepared by Patrick Summers (not to mention coddled and protected and generally made to feel cosily safe), I was pretty much on my own with Carmen. The conductor for the first cast, the imposing Alain Lombard, did not, of course, give me private coachings in his spare time, though he sometimes handed me the baton in his stagings, after I told him that neither I nor Jim were to have any rehearsals with the orchestra. Both of us simply had to plunge into performance, as I had to do with Elixir. Maestro was appalled at this, but I assured him it was the norm, at least at HGO.

     Despite Maestro's kindness, I felt lost at sea without Patrick to guide me. This did not bode well for my future as Maestra Austria. Jim and I practiced a great deal together, each of us taking turns waving baton and playing piano. We forged a great alliance for which we were both grateful.

     The night of my first performance, I asked Jim and my friend/colleague Carol Anderson, who was one of the coaches on Carmen, to keep me company (hold my hand) before curtain and also during the intermissions. I just knew I couldn't bear to be alone, prey to my own nerves. Carol and I did the same for Jim—in fact, we were all there for each other in this way for all the performances. (Music buddies are the BEST.) Also, the afternoon of my opening, I received a message on my answering machine at home from Maestro, wishing me luck, which I thought was very kind of him.

     When I heard the stage manager's announcement over the speakers, "Maestra Austria to the pit, please; Maestra Austria to the pit," I wobbled my way to the pit door and up the stairs where another stage management person waited to cue me in. While she waited, telephone to ear, I asked her, "Do I have to do this?" She gave me a half-sympathetic, half-rueful smile. My cue came, and I walked in, following the cramped and jagged route to the podium that had been shown to me earlier. The next thing I knew, I was face to face with the cello section, and several of the orchestra players were pointing frantically to the podium behind me. In my nervous daze, I had passed it by completely! (Afterwards, Jim told me he was watching the "maestro monitor," saw the top of my head cross the screen, and thought, "Where's Leticia going?" I told him my subconscious was telling me to enter the pit, exit through the other side, and keep walking till I was back safe in my apartment.) Realizing what I'd done, I couldn't help laughing. I climbed onto the podium, bowed to the audience, turned back to the orchestra, and heard the principal violist quip heartily, "Well, that was a good start!" I was still laughing as I picked up my baton and gave a vigorous upbeat to start the show.

     There were two very scary moments in the first act. First, our children's chorus, usually so spot-on, decided to take their own (faster) tempo and I nearly couldn't get them back on, but finally did somehow. Then, at the end of the recit before the "Habanera" the flute player missed a very crucial solo cue, which caused my Carmen, brand-spanking-new to the role, to stare at me like a deer in headlights. It seemed like a full five minutes before she finally sang her next line of recit, but it was probably in reality only five seconds. Still, these two minor glitches were enough to send me back to my dressing room at intermission badly shaken. Thank goodness for Jim and Carol, who assured me that what I thought were near-disasters were hardly noticeable. In fact, they were smiling broadly—and sincerely—when I came weeping through my dressing room door.

     The rest of that performance, and my subsequent three performances, went amazingly well, aside from only one slightly rocky Act II quintet. Jim's shows, too, went very well, despite a tuxedo malfunction during high school night, when his baton nearly became hopelessly entangled in his vest. But at least he managed to find the podium.

     Came my last performance. I had decided by then, in fact, I had decided at the end of my opening night, that I would retire my baton for good. I just coudn't take the stress. It was a different kind of stress from what I was used to: it was knowing that I was responsible for the entire musical welfare of a show that was performed for 2500 people at a time, many of whom had paid a great deal of money to see it. Performing as a pianist was another thing entirely; that kind of stress, if I can indeed call it that, I could handle. As a pianist, the music came directly out of my hands, and I could control it directly. If a flutist missed an important cue while I was conducting, I couldn't play it for him; if the children's chorus ran away with the tempo, I couldn't sing it for them. Therein lies the difference. All right, maybe if I had persevered, garnered more experience, I eventually might have known how to prevent/fix such things. But I simply didn't want to find out if I could, going through in the meantime what was near torture for me.

     So that last performance, when I gave the final cut off, it was all I could do to keep from throwing my baton into the air. Instead, I fairly danced my way out of the pit and onto the stage, where, with a broad smile of relief, I took my final bow as Maestra Austria.

Walking onstage for my bow. This was not taken at my final performance. You can tell, because I'm not dancing.