The Diva Strikes Back

Three musical scenarios of a Diva who takes control of a bad situation.

Performing on stage and my accompanist has forgotten a page of music, so she tries to improvise chords in the wrong Key.

I sound amazing. This is awesome.  Look at everyone looking at me; look at their faces, they love me! I’m gonna rock this next section of music, it’ll be even better than…oh, crap. She just played a wrong chord.  That’s ok, we’ll keep going, no one noticed.  Hey! Another one, she almost made me sound flat there.  Oh my god, I can hear the sheets of music fumbling, is she lost!? What the hell is happening…I can’t find my note, the tempo is all screwed up.  People are going to think I don’t know what I’m doing! What? Ooohhh no no no no no!! She STOPPED playing!!!

I turned to her with eyes full of rage, judging the short distance between us and accounting for the grand piano to my right.  I took two long strides and flew over the piano landing directly on top of her with my hands around her throat.  A crazy, wild roar came out of me and I threw my head into the air screaming “No one stops me in the middle of Puccini!!”  I realized that if she were unconscious it would be very difficult to continue the piece, so I backed off a little and gauged her pulse to be acceptable enough for her to keep playing.  Amidst my assault on this under prepared and unconscionably rude pianist, someone had thought it wise to acquire a complete copy of our music, and placed it on the piano.  I straightened my gown and hair, then turned and hissed to her “If you screw up this time you’ll find yourself in a basement tied up to a steam pipe”.  Hoping that was enough encouragement, I smiled at the audience and focused myself to begin again.  Needless to say, I never worked with her again.

Pianist taking an inhumanly fast tempo and giving me the stink-eye for not being able to sing Handel at mach 20.

Ahhhh, I love Handel.  I mean really, he wrote for my voice so beautifully.  I just love this intro and the way it surges with energy and passion.  Hmmm, that’s a little quick but I guess I can work with it.  Here we go, feels pretty good…wow he’s really playing quickly.  I haven’t done the runs this fast before but let’s see how it goes.  Eeek, I got that one out but it was tough…holy crap is he serious? Faster!? He knows I’m human right? I need to breathe! Great, the really fantastic coach I’m singing for right now thinks I’m an idiot, he thinks this is MY fault all the pitches are smushing together, not this ridiculous speed of a tempo.  Ok, I need to take control; I’ll just slow it down….or maybe not, if this freakin’ masochistic pianist won’t listen to me!  If I can’t get my high C out I’ll lose it…here we gooooooooo…..

The look on the coach’s face is undeniable.  He hated it. That was my one chance in life to impress him!  With amazing strength and impressively agile like movement, I lifted up the piano and threw it at the pianist.  It landed right on his legs, crushing those useless appendages of his that couldn’t play the pedal correctly if his life depended on it.  With my hair wildly streaming down my face I galloped over and pinned him to the floor.  I sat on top of him repeatedly poking his forehead with my finger screaming…“Faster! Faster! Let’s play faster!!”

After an ambulance came and took the pianist away, the really fantastic coach thought it best if he played for me the rest of our lesson.

A Director asking me to sing an incredibly difficult aria whilst hanging upside down and channeling a rabbit.

This show is so wonderful, the music is like magic and I get to sing the most beautiful aria in the whole piece.  I mean it’s really hard, but I seriously sing the crap  out of it.  I bet everyone just loves watching me sing it.  This director has some weird ideas, but I’m sure I’ll be able to handle it.  Ok here comes my entrance…oh, wow its hard to see the conductor with my body upside down.  This ¾ tempo sort of looks funny from here.  Wait…was that the downbeat? No, maybe that was it?  I’ll have to really impress everyone now to make up for that missed queue, but…crap! I just missed another entrance while he made me steam-roll across the floor. Ok, at least I’m right side up again.  Oh no, here comes the bouncing around part…don’t you dare look at me like that! Yes, its SUPER easy to sing legato and beautiful while I’m hopping around the stage like a freakin’ rabbit!

I could hear my peers laughing at me; I could see the smirks on their faces.  No one makes me look, let alone SOUND, like an idiot and gets away with it! I ripped the bunny ears from my head, hiked up the floor length tutu harnessed around my waist and ran towards the director.  Unfortunately he saw me coming and was able to raise his arms in protection before I got there.  Re-assessing my strategy, I roundhouse kicked his torso and sent him flying into the orchestra pit.  I lunged forward and landed like a ninja beside him, laughing hysterically at the half conscious expression on his face.  Seizing the conductor’s baton, I quickly inserted it up the director’s ass and asked him politely to “conduct now, bitch!”  Needless to say I wasn’t hired back, but I never had to sing Mozart like a rabbit again, either.