Punks for the Opera!

In Michael J. Vaughn's new novel, Punks for the Opera, marketing wiz Marina Quantrill takes two surprising new connections and creates Punks for the Opera, a benefit for San Francisco Opera's community outreach program by four area punk bands. Halfway through the evening, things are not quite the blockbuster she was hoping for, but things are about to change...

Snatcher takes the stage in very unexpected clothing. Macy wears crisp white breeches, a scarlet waistcoat over a Cramps T-shirt, and a black tricorner hat. Jane has a powdered wig, a foot tall. And Lily wears a pink 18th century French ballgown with panniers to either side. Replacing the usual inner layers is a black bodysuit with skeleton bones. Lily plugs in, works the guitar strap around her ship-like dress and guffaws.

“Haw! Whattyathink?”

She sashays, model-like, and the forty patrons shout their approval.

“Just a little something I picked up at the opera. Sergeant Macy? Lady Jane? Shall we rock ‘n’ roll? One two three four!”

The sight of a Mozartean skeleton grinding away on guitar is vastly entertaining. Marina floats away on the cloud of absurdity that she herself has initiated. Macy seems to be enjoying herself as well, even though her military getup has exiled her further into the Land of the Cute. If it’s possible, the band is edgier and tighter than ever, and the crowd responds by moshing.

“This is one helluva show.”

Linda Ortega has crept up to Marina’s shoulder.

“Linda! I wondered where you were.”

Linda adopts the sunny voice of a cult member. “I have a table out front with the most delightful pamphlets!”

“These costumes are amazing. Thanks for getting Callie out here.”

“Least I could do. You’re doing my job for me.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to sell CDs.”

“Sure, sure. Well, just wanted to say hi. I’m gonna go back outside. My ears are a little sensitive.”

Linda disappears. The eyes of the men (and a couple women) follow. Lily cuts off her song and stops for a commercial break.

“Hey! Thanks to our fearless band manager, Marina, we have a brand new CD. Five bucks apiece. Just head to that gorgeous woman in the red shirt and hand her a Lincoln. Proceeds go to San Francisco Opera’s school outreach program. Also, our fearless tavern owner Jay is throwing in a cut of the bar, so bottoms up! The drunker you are, the better we sound. And now, back to noise!”

They creep into Primitive. Red light washes over the stage. Marina notices something else about Lily. She has this rare ability to let a musical moment spell out before rushing to the next. Too many musicians look like they’re already thinking about the next song. Marina sells four CDs and feels a little better. Then she gets a tap on the shoulder. She expects another customer, but this one’s different: a perfectly made-up Asian lady with a small face, delicate features and a dazzling smile. She also seems vaguely familiar.

“Hi. Are you Marina?”

“That I am!”

“I’m Betty Yu. I’m a reporter for channel five? We were covering some storm damage on the seacliffs here and I saw a flyer for ‘Punks for the Opera.’ Well naturally, I gotta check that out. And now with the costumes! Is it okay if we shoot?”

“Oh! Absolutely. Um, how long will you be here?”

Betty looks at her cameraman. “Well, not too long. I need to get Ben back to his pregnant wife or he’s gonna be in trouble.”

Marina laughs. “Reason I ask is that we have a special performance coming up and I’d love for you to see it. Tell you what, I’ll have the band do two more songs, then we’ll cut to the surprise.”

“Fantastic! Ben, you’re on.”

Ben wends his way through the crowd like an explorer dodging undergrowth. Marina swims toward Lily. At the end of the song, she waves like a maniac to get her attention. Lily kneels on the stage, the gown swimming around her, and Marina talks into her ear.

“Channel five is here! Can you do your two best songs - maybe Halloween and Sick - and then make way for the guest stars?”

“Gotcha boss. How cool!”

Lily hops back up and returns to the mic. “Hey! Channel five is in the house. So I want you to be your rowdy best and please keep the freakin’ obscenities to a minimum. This is Every Day is Halloween.”

She looks back to make sure her players are set and counts them off. Ben stands at stage left to catch performers and watchers, and switches on his bright lights. The room is a pandemonium of bouncing bodies and raised arms. Marina watches for a bit, then sneaks out into the cold ocean air. Veronika and Linda are gathered next to a keyboard.

“Hi! Channel five is here.”

“I know,” says Linda. “I told her to talk to you.”

“Really?”

Linda gives her a crafty smile. “It’s your gig. Plus, I wanted to see how you operate under pressure.”

“Very good! Um, well, here’s what I want. We need to do the surprise performance in five minutes.”

“Oh wow,” says Veronika. “Okay. I’ve got my singers warming up in the van.”

She quick-walks across the lot. Marina looks at Linda.

“Go on in. Enjoy it. I’ll keep things motivated out here.”

“Thanks.”

“TV’s not guaranteed. But you may have hit the jackpot.”

“Fingers crossed!”

She re-enters to find Snatcher at the end of Halloween. Ben is now upstage, shooting Lily from behind as she works the crowd. The dress is a pink ghost, spectacularly weird. She cranks to a stop and the crowd goes apeshit, coked out by the presence of a TV camera.

“OK. We’re gonna play one more and then we’ve got something really special. This is a tender love song called You Make Me Sick. One two three four!”

The choice is perfect, hard-charging, a touch of Ramones, exactly what’s needed to draw out the contrast with opera. Marina finds Betty in her same spot, enjoying herself immensely.

“I love this!” she shout-talks. “I’d like to get some interviews. Maybe your lady in pink there. Whose idea was this?”

“Mine. My roommate is the bass player. A friend of mine works for the opera. We thought, why not bring them together?”

“Great! Let’s get you on tape, too.”

“And maybe the soprano?”

“There’s a soprano?”

Marina smiles. “There’s always a soprano.”

The band slams to a halt and the moshers yell their heads off. Lily grins.

“Okay. We’re gonna take a break, but in a couple of minutes we have a special treat. Go buy a CD. And a drink.”

The stagehands reappear, this time carting in a desk and chair with various accouterments: a blotter, a framed picture, a letter opener, a phone. A bearded man in a business suit comes out and sits in the chair, already in character, talking on the phone, making some notes. He gives off the air of a boss, perhaps a CEO.

Veronika sets up an electric keyboard to stage right and plays a few passages to check the sound. Oddly, Lily hasn’t moved. She waits at stage left, studying something on the back of her guitar, still plugged in and strapped on.

The patrons are all abuzz about the mystery of it all, but they quiet when Veronika stands at her keyboard. She looks to someone near the exit, then to Lily. She raises a hand and brings it down. Lily plays a resounding chord and lets it ring out, collecting some feedback. Veronika plays a sweep of dramatic downward chords, a theme that will appear later in the scene.

A woman stalks onstage in a red vinyl jumpsuit, skin-tight, her dark hair lacquered into triceratops blades. She’s a fiery-looking Latina, a bit like Linda but with sharper, more feline features. The immediate impression is that she’s some kind of pop star, a Britney Spears or Lady Gaga. She charges the CEO and sings in angry bursts, colored in the peculiar tang of Italian.

The CEO replies in a rich baritone, a conciliatory manner.

“Oh my God,” says Betty. “It’s Tosca.”

“Really?” whispers Marina. “You’re good.”

CEO circles the desk and tries to touch Popstar, but she flinches away like someone evading a scorpion. She fires off another round of complaints. Veronika lifts a hand from the keyboard and points to Lily, who plays another resounding chord. Veronika cuts her off and returns to the keyboard for that same downward sweep. Popstar releases a note so piercing that it stuns the crowd (a punk crowd!) into silence.

CEO returns to Popstar’s side and sings to her in sinister tones. He waves a hand toward stage right, whereupon a stagehand hiding behind the Greek column produces a harrowing cry of pain.

“They’re torturing her boyfriend,” says Betty. “And Scarpia - the villain - is willing to let him go in return for sexual favors.”

“Scumbag,” says Marina. A guy with a mohawk shushes her.

Popstar agrees to the deal. CEO kisses her hand and returns to his desk to make a phone call. Veronika points to Lily and fans her fingers, producing a quieter, spelled-out chord from her guitar. Veronika plays a slow introduction.

Popstar, overwhelmed at her predicament, comes to kneel at the front of the stage. Marina realizes that the singer is even more beautiful than she thought, with full lips and dark, fathomless eyes. She begins her lament with long, full notes, capturing her listeners. Marina imagines that she’s heard these lines before. Although she’s singing in Italian, her expressions and the music seem to indicate something like the grievous cry of Jesus, “Why God hast thou forsaken me?”

The volume grows with her anguish, all the way to a stunning top note that fills every square inch of the bar. She finally releases it, quieting and descending into an afterthought of exhausted acceptance. When she finally lets go of the final note, the punks go wild. The soprano keeps her eyes down, shaking with sobs even as the applause rolls over her back. Veronika restarts the music, Popstar rises, goes to the CEO’s desk and watches as he signs her boyfriend’s release papers. She reaches for them, but he tucks them into his pocket. The inference is clear: she’s going to have to earn it.

Jubilant, the CEO makes his advances. Popstar puts him off as politely as possible, but matters quickly progress to a classic chase around the desk. After a few laps, the CEO stops to rest, hands on knees. At this point, Popstar discovers the letter opener on his desk and hides it behind her back. CEO finally recovers and makes a lunging advance, but he is met by a knife to the gut. Lily plays another big chord. The moshers let out little syllables of surprise: Ooh! Whoa! Aigh! CEO drops to the stage and sings a few ragged lines as he fights for breath. Popstar stands over him, taunting him as he dies. The music stills to a murmur. She drops the knife, pulls the papers from the CEO’s pocket and dashes from the stage. Lily plays one more burst, followed by a quiet finishing passage from Veronika.

It takes a moment for the Winters congregation to understand that it’s over. They’re cued by Betty, who begins the applause. Popstar comes back to take a bow, then helps the evil baritone to his feet. Linda comes out to Lily’s microphone.

“That was a scene from Puccini’s great opera Tosca. Our lady in red is Jocelyn Rosina Puentes, and our evil Baron Scarpia is Efrain Solis. They are both from our Adler Fellowship Program, and they both participate in the school outreach program that tonight’s show is benefitting. Our keyboardist and conductor is Veronika Agranov-Dafoe, with guest guitarist Lily Kakes! Thanks so much to Snatcher and the other great bands tonight for putting this on, and be sure to buy up those CDs!”

The opera troupe trots off, quickly replaced by Macy and Jane. Lily comes to the mic.

“Holy crap! That was fucking amazing. Okay! Back to rockandroll. One two three four!”

And they’re off.