Death of a Diva

Neville likes to read the morning paper sitting on the front veranda of their waterfront home with his after-breakfast mug of coffee. On this particular morning he suddenly let out a yelp, jumped to his feet, and waved the newspaper at Mavis who was sitting on the other side of the small table.

"Here. Look at this." He jabbed at the page with a finger. "Read that. You're supposed to be dead!"

Mavis took the paper from him, smoothed it out and read aloud, "London, Friday. It was announced here yesterday that the celebrated Australian soprano Matilda Sydney has died. As yet there are no details of how, when, or where she passed away. While she has not performed for some years, her recordings are still popular. She will be remembered for... and it goes on to list the highlights of my career which, if I'm not mistaken, has been lifted straight from the biographical note with my last CD."

Adopting the stage name of Matilda Sydney had been Neville's idea. It had been Neville who encouraged her right from the very beginning, abandoning his own not-very-promising career as a violinist to be her supporter, motivator, manager, and, later, her husband. He had been convinced that, for her to make it as a classical singer, she should go overseas as soon as she could. He worked at two and sometimes three jobs to pay for her lessons and accumulate the capital they would need for the fares to London and to support themselves there until they could get work.

They sat staring out to sea in a stunned silence. Eventually, she asked, "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, but I think I'd like to talk to Jerry first. I know he's retired but I'm sure he still has his contacts. I'd like to find out who's responsible before we do anything. Might be easier for them, whoever they are, to issue a retraction and apology rather than for us to do anything. But that will have to wait. It's the middle of the night in England now."

Jerry had been Matilda's agent from the very beginning. As she blossomed as a performer, he honed his skills as an agent. Small parts in some of the lesser European opera houses led to larger roles in the bigger houses until she reached the stage of being able to pick and choose between starring roles in the major opera houses of the world. After almost thirty years of dashing from opera house to opera house, city to city, and country to country, Neville calculated they had saved and invested enough money to fund a comfortable retirement. Jerry arranged two seasons of lucrative farewell performances.

At the height of her career, they owned apartments in Zurich and New York, as well as this comfortable old house in a small town on the southeast coast of Australia, their refuge from the hype of the operatic world. Here they were simply Neville and Mavis Rolfe, who got on well with their neighbours and enjoyed days on the beach and rounds of golf on the spectacular local golf course that wound its way beside the sea. It was doubtful if anyone even suspected who Mavis really was, and she did everything possible to keep it that way.

After her final farewell performance in the Sydney Opera House, they slipped quietly overseas, disposed of the New York and Zurich apartments and tidied up their affairs before returning to settle in the old house by the sea. People in the town assumed that Neville had retired from his job in Sydney, and he did nothing to disabuse them. She had never been one to play the celebrity except when it would increase the sale of tickets to her performances. Now that there were none to promote, she was quite content to be known as Mavis, devoted wife of Neville Rolfe. Soon the only remaining links with the operatic world were the quarterly payments of royalties from the record company.

After one of the worst rounds of golf Neville had played in years, he reached Jerry on the phone later that evening.

"I'm glad you rang," Jerry said, "but I must say I thought, after all the years, I would have heard the news from you first rather than having to hear it on the radio. Never mind. I'm so sorry. You must miss her terribly."

"No, not really. And we had to read the news in the paper."

"What do you mean, you read the news in the paper?"

"About her death. She was flabbergasted."

"You mean she isn't dead?"

"No. Of course not. I'd have told you if she'd died. I'll put her on."

It took Mavis about ten minutes to reassure Jerry and calm him down. When she handed the phone back to Neville she said, "I think he's crying."

"I know you've been retired now for a few years," Neville said, "but you must still have some of your old contacts. Think you can track down who did this? At this stage don't tell them that they got it wrong. Let's work out what to do first."

"Might take me a couple of days," Jerry replied blowing his nose loudly. "I'll call you."

It took him the full two days, but when he called he had the whole story.

"It was the record company, but it took me a while to get to the bottom of it. I ended up speaking to their Publicity Manager - not the one I used to know but some young whippersnapper who thought he knew it all. When I finally convinced him I was Matilda's agent and that I hadn't received any news of her death, he ungraciously said he thought a copy of the death notice had been faxed to him and he would check it just to be certain. When he rang me today the egg was dripping off his face. Seems there was a real Matilda Sydney who died in Western Australia. The death notice was spotted by their local manager, who happened to be in the West at the time. He's from the pop music side of the business but knew that Matilda was one of their former artists whose recordings were still in the catalogue. He jumped to the wrong conclusion and phoned Head Office, where the idiot I spoke to thought a quick press release might boost record sales. He realised his mistake when he checked the death notice faxed to him by the guy in Australia. This Matilda Sydney was a 93-year-old widow with a tribe of children, grandchildren, and greatg randchildren. Now he doesn't know what to do. I think he hopes it will all just go away without him doing anything."

"Ask him not to do anything at the moment. Things have developed at this end. The TV stations got hold of it and now a memorial service is being held in the Sydney Opera House next Monday. They tracked me down here and invited me as an official guest."

"What does Mavis think of that?"

"She wants to go. Says there can't be many people who have the chance to attend their own memorial service. I had to do some quick thinking. Told them that I had her sister here and said she would also like to be there. They said 'Of course,' and are sending a limo to the airport for us. Just like old times. I'll let you know what happens. It won't hurt those bloodsuckers at the record company to sweat it out for a few days."

The Concert Hall of the Opera House was not completely full, but the areas set aside for the general public were well-packed. Mavis considered it a satisfactory audience. There were speeches by fellow performers, notables, and politicians, some of whom, to her surprise, claimed to have known her well. A former Minister for the Arts, who hadn't done his homework, incorrectly referred to her as 'Dame Matilda.' She had often regretted that the Australian Government had stopped handing out titles before she reached the zenith of her career. Her Order of Australia hadn't seemed quite enough to rank her up there where she felt she rightly belonged alongside Dame Nellie and Dame Joan. Not that it mattered to her quite so much, now that she had been retired for more than ten years.

There were suitably sombre songs sung by some of the young soloists from the opera company and after a final word from a former General Manager of Opera Australia, the audience filed out to excerpts from Mozart's 'Requiem' played on the organ. The whole event had been telecast live, and Neville had carefully set the video recorder to preserve it for future analysis.

He was not surprised that nobody had recognised Mavis in her hat with the heavy black veil, particularly as she now wore her hair cropped short and had allowed it to revert to its natural grey. Leaving the Concert Hall, he began to wonder what their next move should be, but as they were about to enter their limousine, Mavis tugged at his arm and said, "Look. At the cab rank. That's George Henderson, the critic. Offer him a lift. I think we've got a story for him. He wrote some very nice things about me in the past. Offering him a scoop is the very least I can do."

It had been a slow news day, and the old critic's story made the front page of the following morning's paper under the headline: