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  CONTENTS

  Cast

  Synopsis of Scenes

  Overture

  Act I

  Act I, Scene 1: Hansel and Gretel

  Act I, Scene 2: Antonia

  Act I, Scene 3: Violetta

  Entr’acte

  Act II

  Act II, Scene 1: Amina

  Act II, Scene 2: Norma

  Act II, Scene 3: Leonora

  Act III

  Act III, Scene 1: Philine

  Act III, Scene 2: Tatyana

  Act III, Scene 3: Adriana

  Encore

  Curtain Call

  About the Author

  For Annette Marie,

  The mother who gave me life

  And for Flora,

  The mother who gave me breath

  This is my story. Imagination has a way of melding with memory and feelings can alter reminiscence. Certain names and characteristics have been changed, certain conversations have been paraphrased, and some individuals are composites. While I have consulted journals, medical documents, family, friends, nurses, doctors, associates, and others who lived through events, this story relies primarily on my own memories and, occasionally, I remember things incorrectly, incompletely, or, ironically enough, uncharitably. For my oversights or misinterpretations, I beg pardon.

  CAST

  The Diva

  Charity Sunshine / coloratura soprano

  The Mother

  Annette / mezzo-soprano

  The Romantic Foil

  Yonatan Doron / baritone

  The Siblings

  Tomicah Sterling / bass

  Kimber Rainbow / soprano

  Levi Mills / bass

  Dulcia Luz / mezzo-soprano

  Corban Israel / tenor

  Liberty Belle / soprano

  Lincoln Justice / supernumerary

  Shiloh Benson / basso profundo

  Mercina Grace / soprano

  Glorianna Willow / mezzo-soprano

  Zenith Wisdom / tenor

  The Father

  Timber / basso profundo

  The Grandfather

  Tom Lantos / baritone

  The Grandmothers

  Annette Tillemann Lantos / contralto

  Nancy Dick / alto

  The Teachers

  Éva Márton / soprano

  Éva Ándor / mezzo-soprano

  Joan Dornemann / mezzo-soprano

  The Doctors

  Chris Lang / baritone

  Robyn Barst / mezzo-soprano

  Reda Girgis / baritone

  Marie Budev / mezzo-soprano

  Robin Avery / soprano

  The Surgeon

  Kenneth McCurry / tenor

  The Angels

  Margot Dick / soprano

  Joela Jones / mezzo-soprano

  Esperanza Tufani / mezzo-soprano

  Danielle Groppi / soprano

  Jeanne Murphy / mezzo-soprano

  Mike Bates / tenor

  The Family / coro

  The Nurses / coro

  The Friends / coro

  SYNOPSIS OF SCENES

  Tosca, Gilda, Violetta, Mimi—tragic heroines are never in short supply at the opera. Even the comic ones don’t have much fun. Librettos are rife with lecherous older men, betrayed wives, and scorned lovers. In opera, tragedy is constituent of female greatness—pain, sacrifice, and disappointment are prerequisites to meaningful artistic achievement. Life is full of death. Music, full of sorrow. Great artists have always amplified both. And, more than anything, I want to be Great.

  OVERTURE

  A pencil rolls to the floor, a shoe squeaks, a lone cough fills the void—silence is nothing but potential sound. The click clack of my five-inch heels transforms the soundscape as I teeter in from stage left. My white gown’s silk tulle trails behind, rustling against the dusty floor. Cold darkness covers my arms in goose bumps, but a few steps away, klieg lights set four thousand eyes aglow.

  The heat of the spotlight washes over me. Everything disappears: no microphone; no distractions; alone with the maestro, I hear the strings’ tremolo. I inhale deep and wide, preparing to convert two decades of dreams and work into pure sound. It is September 21, 2011—my Lincoln Center debut.

  With a flick of the conductor’s baton, I begin to sing.

  Breathing life into La Traviata’s heroine, Violetta, my voice floods the theater with Verdi’s immortal aria “Sempre libera.” I inhale and my lungs fill with air. When I sing, it is a joyous communion with God. More powerful than any narcotic, to me, singing is a sanctified addiction; it is the stuff of transcendence. I spin out a high C and the audience erupts in spontaneous applause.

  The words of the aria read like a classic power anthem: Sempre libera, always free, is its constant refrain. But the music tells another story. Violetta insists she is satisfied, but as my voice accelerates up and down the scale, her truth can’t hide from the melody. Biographically, Violetta’s life and mine could hardly be more different. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old virgin from Denver. Violetta is a nineteenth-century Parisian prostitute. She has spent her life and career making men feel valued and loved—emotions for which she’s always deeply longed but fears she may never herself experience. I’ve never lacked for love, but I fear my voice—trained, groomed, and nurtured over my entire life—will never reach its potential or be truly appreciated. Despite our biographical differences, angst that we may fail to accomplish those things we most desperately desire knits Violetta’s emotions to my own, granting me the most powerful tool of vocal performance—empathy. As the aria forges on, though, a subtext of fear recedes as forgotten confidence emerges. Violetta doesn’t know how her story will end, but she realizes that, whatever she chooses, true love awaits.

  Proper singing must be felt. Approaching the final vocal lap, my chest vibrates as sound resonates in my skull and through my hips. The aria’s fiendishly difficult conclusion is yet to come, but energy transfers from thousands of unseen onlookers to my singing. Transfigured by sound, any remaining barriers between Violetta and me are shattered by the resonance of my voice. Here, music carries the ultimate truth. I have never felt more alive.

  Breathing into my belly and back, I step forward and steady myself as the orchestra charges toward the finale. Leaping to the vocal stratosphere, I give my all to the last high note. Suspended, naked, and shameless, it rings out into the dark. It is perfect. I sing the high E and I am free.

  The note resolves and the auditorium explodes in thunderous applause. I stand triumphant, then bow in gratitude. I bow over and over again—to the audience, to the producers, to my conductor and directors. To my mother and my family. The ovation continues, punctuated by “Bravas!” and “Encores!” What those clapping don’t know is that, in many ways, this was my encore.

  Applause follows me as I step behind the curtain and collapse into a wheelchair. To the artist, a major debut always feels like a culmination—even a miracle. As my brother gently puts down my footrests and my sister secures an oxygen cannula around my nose, it becomes clear that this debut was particularly miraculous. Folding down my shawl to uncover the IV PICC line in my left arm, my siblings work together to administer the intravenous steroids and antibiotics that keep me alive.

  My lungs�
��my instruments—are failing. I am dying. As we round the corner to my dressing room, tears stream down my cheeks. My dream is no longer a future hope—some distant possibility. It’s real. Even if my voice is silenced forever, I’ve just shared the greatest performance of my life in the greatest concert hall in the world.

  ACT I, SCENE 1:

  Hansel and Gretel

  Eyes heavy and lost deep in the woods, Hansel and Gretel pray for angels to watch over them in sleep. Their eyes close and angels gather round.

  Abends, will ich schlafen gehn,

  When at night I go to sleep,

  Vierzehn Engel um mich stehn;

  Fourteen angels watch do keep:

  Zwei zu meinen Häupten,

  Two my head are guarding,

  Zwei zu meinen Füßen,

  Two my feet are guiding,

  Zwei zu meiner Rechten,

  Two are on my right hand,

  Zwei zu meiner Linken,

  Two are on my left hand,

  Zweie, die mich decken,

  Two who warmly cover,

  Zweie, die mich wecken,

  Two who o’er me hover,

  Zweie, die mich weisen,

  Two to whom ’tis given,

  Zu Himmels-Paradeisen.

  To guide my steps to heaven.

  —ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK, HÄNSEL UND GRETEL

  I catch my breath. Floating down the balmy Danube, chandeliers twinkle, women’s jewelry glistens, and Budapest’s best gypsy band whips mournful melodies into feverish Hungarian dances. Even the sky is dressed in lustrous pinks and golds for the occasion. It’s the perfect night for the most spectacular party I’ve ever attended, but something is off.

  It’s the summer of 2003 on the grand Europa river yacht. My grandfather is celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday with 250 of his nearest and dearest friends. Didi, the celebrant, stands by the door, his combed-back hair coordinating perfectly with his spotless cream suit and pearly-white grin. My eternally youthful mother, Annette, is on his arm. Within moments, she’s deep into conversation with every person they pass; despite their slow progress, Didi can’t help but beam. My dad, Timber, tall and intellectual behind wire-rimmed glasses, patiently escorts my petite grandmother, Mimo, around the ballroom. Greeting guests in the lavish setting, they are the picture of familial pride.

  My ten siblings have already scattered. They’re busy taking full advantage of the boat’s rarefied amenities. Both in their teens, Corban and Liberty flirt with the children of other guests on the dance floor. As the sixth and seventh children, they’ve learned to be at ease in any situation. Mercina and Glorianna, the littlest girls in our family, twirl around each other while sipping virgin daiquiris, and Shiloh lectures Zenith on Hungarian parliamentary procedures as these two youngest brothers sample delicacies scattered on tables around the perimeter of the room. Craning my neck, I search for my four older siblings; they must be exploring the upper deck. Meanwhile, waiters wend through the assembled guests with silver platters of champagne flutes and caviar-topped eggs. I don’t like caviar, but I do love food. Hungarian food, in particular. The sour cream. The butter. The paprika. What is there not to love and why am I not more interested in the buffet? Sitting in the midst of this fairytale opulence, my mind is inexplicably elsewhere.

  As we drift by the Hungarian parliament’s massive dome and towering neo-Gothic windows, a poetic justice plays out. Sixty years earlier, this country had turned its back on my family. Didi was carted away to toil in a labor camp, the rest of his family exterminated by the Nazis in Auschwitz; Mimo, the only daughter of Budapest’s finest jeweler, ran when her father was taken out and shot by the Hungarian Arrow Cross along the passing banks, all to make a point: no Jew—no matter how beloved or esteemed—was safe in Hungary. Together, my grandparents fled this country’s violent legacy to make a home in the United States. Yet this morning, our family gathered in the parliament’s Cupola Hall as the prime minister of Hungary decorated Didi with the Cross with Star, one of the country’s highest honors.

  How did we ever get here? I think, smiling in disbelief. Despite the trappings of wealth surrounding us tonight, we’ve never been wealthy. Dad is a brilliant inventor. Issued his first patent as a freshman in college for a high-efficiency bicycle, he produced more ambitious creations with the passage of time. Baby car seats, medical devices, internal combustion engines—Dad has always approached inventing as the art of solving important problems. But his creator’s soul isn’t exactly brimming with business savvy, so Dad’s day job as a college administrator keeps food on our very large table. Mom, a former beauty queen with a cache of advanced degrees, has spent the past twenty-five years doing the only thing that could ever fully use her boundless energy: raising kids. She started homeschooling in 1983, and since then she’s welcomed a steady stream of new students into her classroom. Five feet two inches and 100 pounds of pure fire, charm, passion, strength, and will, only Mom, I’m convinced, could ever meet the demands of time, physical energy, and mental dexterity required by her particular brand of extreme childrearing. Like one of Dad’s prototypes, our family started out as a bold and untested vision. Today, Mom and Dad claim my siblings and me as their greatest creative endeavor.

  Though he attended college on a B’nai B’rith scholarship, Didi—Mom’s dad—worked relentlessly in menial jobs so Mimo could come join him in the States. In 1950, after years of war, poverty, and separation, the childhood sweethearts married and started to rebuild their lives together. Mimo raised Mom and her sister, Katrina, while Didi worked to become a professor of economics at San Francisco State University. Didi had even greater aspirations for his American daughters than for himself, so he was not thrilled (to put it lightly) when his precious firstborn eloped with a starry-eyed tinkerer from the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Still, when Didi decided to run for office, he chose Dad to manage his campaign. My parents moved out to California, two babies in tow, and Didi won the long-shot congressional bid in 1980. In the decades since, he’s grown into something of a legend: the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the US Congress and one of the most respected statesmen in Washington, DC. Throughout their travels, Didi and Mimo have collected a great number of wealthy friends. And if anyone knows how to throw a party, they do.

  I smile to myself, wondering what nineteen-year-old Didi—an orphan leaving Hungary with seven dollars and a salami in his pocket—would have to say about this welcome-home bash. But my mind is quickly beckoned back to more immediate hypotheticals. Today, nineteen years old, I am sitting on the cusp of much more than a dance floor.

  After my grandfather’s award ceremony that morning, I’d snuck off with my mother and our best Hungarian friend, Judit. Judit had arranged a voice lesson for me at the Budapest Opera House. Even while I was there, the scene felt unreal. I play it over again in my mind: the cold resonance of stone floors; melodies merging in the cavernous hallway. In my head I knew this was just a first-rate field trip—before leaving for Europe, I’d accepted a music scholarship in the United States—but I couldn’t help but feel I was breathing in the air of destiny in those grand old halls. After our lesson my voice teacher left the room, then reentered with a line of distinguished-looking people trailing behind her. Confused but accommodating, I sang for these newcomers. Then I left the room, the totally incredulous recipient of a spot at Budapest’s storied Liszt Academy of Music.

  This is how opera legends begin! I think to myself back in the ballroom. I can see it now: “Young Soprano Plucked from Obscurity Goes onto Musical Greatness.” But while the story sounds like a dream come true, its reality poses some challenging logistical questions. Am I really willing to leave everything I know behind—without a plan, preparation, or even the right language—to chase a dream so far from my home?

  A hand on my arm interrupts my musings. “Charity Sunshine! Where have you been?” demands my oldest brother, Tomicah. “We’ve been looking all over for you—you’re late for the run-through!”

&n
bsp; I hurry down to the lower level of the yacht. Every other year, my siblings and I put on a show for our family reunion. The process is equal parts ridiculous, entertaining, and punishing. At twenty-one and seventeen, Levi and Corban always lobby for inappropriate humor that Kimber, twenty-three, inevitably cuts. Toeing the boundary between “little kid” and “big kid,” fifteen-year-old Liberty is eager to participate at the highest levels, yet thirteen-year-old Shiloh doesn’t even want to dance. True to my middle-child type, I always want more solos, while Mercina and Glorianna, eleven and nine, are tired of their perfect harmonies being put center stage; six-year-old Zen will inevitably regret his willingness to tromp around stage wearing nothing but a Speedo; and Tomicah, with slightly more foresight at twenty-four, preemptively argues that the esteemed crowd will think he’s too old to play the family dog. Our oldest sister, Dulcia, has opted out of the circus altogether. Disagreements over the performance range on everything from costumes to choreography, but we charge ahead—the show must go on!