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It all began innocently enough, with a stroll through our town’s wine and food festival one summer day. Suddenly a woman literally leaped out of a booth and accosted us. She looked at us fiercely, grasped my husband’s wrist, and demanded,

“Are you opera lovers?”

As our hearts returned to normal rates, we saw that her booth was marked “Martinez Opera Company.” Now Martinez is the neighboring town, best known as county seat (where one goes to deal with jury duty and driving infractions) and the home of Northern California’s smoke-belching oil refineries. We had not, until that moment, associated it with fine arts.

As it turns out, we ARE opera lovers, and we entered into a spirited discussion with this lady, whom we never saw again. Angel fanciers, take note. We learned that this lazy little town actually has an opera company that mounts one production a year, most recently La Traviata. Excitedly we took the brochures she handed out, signed up for email announcements, and vowed to learn more.

Long silence. Finally a few months later we got a casting call for that other contestant for the-most-loved-opera-of-all-time, Madama Butterfly. A chorus was needed. Oh, good, I thought. A place to sing with lots of other people on stage; I could mingle in the background with the altos and contribute respectable tones to a crowd scene. I responded with the information that I had participated in high school and college choirs, spoke Italian, and played the harp professionally. They accepted me sight unseen, or should I say voice unheard. I had neglected to mention that college was decades ago and I had stopped playing the harp in 1991. But they took me anyway.

There’s only one explanation.

They wuz desperate.

In March, the choir began rehearsing for the May production. At my first practice, which was billed as “coaching,” not rehearsal, one other woman showed up. The coach, or pianist, or whoever she was, played a few notes on the portable keyboard. My co-conspirator tried, she really tried. She searched for the correct note in the way a giraffe searches for a smear of peanut butter at the bottom of a tall jar. I did a little better. I could sing the note, but (with the glorious tones of Renee Fleming and Natalie Dessay resonating in my memory) with a mediocre sound modestly better than a squeak. You would ask for my singing the way travelers ask for directions, just to get a vague idea so you can hurry on to your destination.

This went on for an hour.

Later that day a real rehearsal was held and four other women showed up. (The giraffe lady was never seen again). Three of them are young ladies with real voices, whom I admire and envy. The other woman is nearly my age and comes equipped with a heavy Australian accent, a pleasant mezzo-soprano voice, and a dogged determination to find the correct note.

For a month we practiced once a week, with a succession of accompanists. Maybe we drove them away. Never mind, I thought to myself, this is a tiny community production and no one will know what a struggle I’m having. Despite my musical background and love of the Italian language, I had difficulty getting these phrases to stick in my mind. Above all, I couldn’t find my note. The chorus in Butterfly consists of her friends who come to her wedding carrying their parasols and fans, all dressed up to admire and gossip.*

* I never realized before how nasty some of these friends are. I was required to learn lines like, “Oh, this will never last. She’ll be divorced soon. I sure hope so” and, “She’s already over the hill” (Butterfly is 15 years old). Other members of the chorus, giving the bridegroom the once-over, are saying to each other, “The matchmaker offered him to ME first, and of course I said NO!”

Our first accompanist tried to convince me I’m a soprano. I nearly laughed out loud. When not anxious about public appearances, I’m rather proud of my deep, tenor-like tones and think I could creditably belt out the bottom line in an all-girl barbershop quartet. My upper register (ahem) sounds like a deflating balloon being held at gunpoint. Trust me, you would cross the street rather than hear me try to sing Un Bel Di, though I can do a nice singalong with Linda Ronstadt’s torch songs when I’m in the garage repairing a doorknob.

My friend Michael politely declined to give me a lesson but sent me to his voice teacher, who ALSO asserted that I am a soprano. Yes, and the national debt is shrinking. But both teachers showed me intriguing things about breathing and throat management. I hadn’t realized that great singers are born (as well as made by decades of hard work), partly because of the shape of their sinuses! I almost wish I didn’t know that about opera singing — it does take away some of the glamour ….

But it does give me a new excuse. Of course I’m a modest singer — I’m not genetically programmed to have good sinus resonance.

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