The lights seem brighter when it is you alone on the stage. You cannot see beyond the flames that line the edge of the stage and lead into the darkness of the pit. You know there is a world out there, beyond those lights, where hundreds of men and women sit and wait and listen, but you cannot see them.
You are nervous, and butterflies battle each other in your belly, their wings beating fast and fast, as if they can break free and fly around the Opera House. The ballet has left the stage, and even the wings are silent, and there is only you and the bright flames, and you know he is listening somewhere. You wish to please him, but you are still very young, and you want to please yourself just as badly. You still feel like this is your doing somehow, as if you were better than all the rest, as if you were chosen. But, too, you know that you are not as good as the one who should be there in your place, but it is a fleeting thought, one that is not much focused on. You have been told too many times that your talent cannot be held by the green dome atop this place that you call home, and that gives you the courage to step forward and into the light.
At first, your German is not as it should be, and you miss one of Marguerite's high Cs. There is too much breath in your vowels, and you can hear the chastisements of your instructor in your head. You can almost feel the audience's disappointment, their desire for the true diva that belongs where you stand, but then the music takes over, and that is when things change.
Still largely untrained, yes, but the voice that rises from your lungs is enough to silence even the loudest doubter in the audience, and everything is a hush, there is no sound but you in your own ears, and the music is something you feel. It is not heard, the notes, and this is something you do not think you can explain to anyone, the way the music fills you up and completes you. You do not think you can live without it at times, and you are no longer thinking about the notes. They are right, and they are true, and they are perfect.
The last note rings, draws itself out like breath over the now applauding audience, and you think this, this is happiness. You want nothing more.