As the curtain rises…
A Chinese-American bass, sprawled on his couch in shorts and a T-shirt, is learning a magic trick from YouTube.
The phone rings. Carnegie Hall. The bass soloist for Messiah is violently ill, retching, and heard in the background.
Our singer is the cover. He has to be onstage in twenty-five minutes.
He explodes out the door, half-dressed tie and tails flying, and dives into a taxi driven by a trumpeter.
“Carnegie Hall!”
The cab hurtles into Manhattan traffic. Percussion pounds the city’s pulse; the trumpet blasts fragments of Handel.
In the back seat, the singer dresses and warms up, barking scales into his phone.
His inner voice erupts-pre-recorded panic. I can’t believe this. What if I blow it?
“Siri, start my first aria.” She complies-then cuts him off: “That sounds a little flat.”
Comedy fractures into the surreal. Siri becomes sentient. She lectures him on the erasure of Chinese-American male opera singers-the roles denied, the voices unheard.
Other Siris interrupt. A male voice from India, a female voice from Slovenia. They’re listening in.
Then Siri turns ruthless. “You had an affair with the soprano. Fifteen years ago. Anonymous sex with the tenor.”
The trumpet snaps him back to Handel. He sings. The city hammers on.
Carnegie Hall keeps calling. Finally, a scream through the phone: “FIVE MINUTES TO CURTAIN!”
The taxi skids to the stage door. Horns blare. The singer-now in full white tie and tails-leaps out, grabs his score, and runs headlong toward destiny.
Blackout