Daring Do: The Opera

by AlexTFish

Act II: Rehearsals

“...She’s dashing and sincere, oh
Equestria’s top hero
The villains quake in fear, oh
I wish I could be near, oh
The mare called Daring Doooo!”

“Great singing, everypony! Now you exit stage left – no, keep facing the audience and sidestep – and keep smiling! Excellent. Okay, we’ll stop there for now! Scootaloo, be sure to learn your lines more for next time.”

Autumn Blaze’s enthusiastic stream of orders came to a sudden halt. She smiled at the chorus fillies walking off stage. The Crusaders chatted animatedly among themselves, but Diamond Tiara excused herself and sidled up to Autumn Blaze.

She hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Director, I have a question. I’m very grateful to be in the part of Rainbow Dash, and I’m happy to do my very best, but wouldn’t it be better to cast a pegasus for this role?”

Autumn Blaze gave her a kindly smile. “Don’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing. We don’t need you to fly much – just at the end of the wedding scene where you rescue Daring Do from the Sphinx – and special effects can handle that just fine. What I need is a beautiful clear singing voice and a strong acting ability – and those are exactly what you bring to the part.”

Warming to her topic, the kirin’s gaze drifted off as she continued, “The thing we need from Rainbow Dash at the start of the play is that she’s a huge fan of Daring Do. Daring Do is Rainbow’s idol who’s everything she wants to be. Remember this is before Rainbow Dash is a famous hero herself. And Dash always thought Daring Do was just a made-up character, so whenever Daring Do is on stage Rainbow is watching her with this astonishment, like she’s had these dreams since she was a filly but told herself none of this stuff could be real, but now Daring Do has turned out to really exist after all so she’s going through a stage of daring to believe in all her childhood hopes and wishes, and Daring Do is the focus and... personification of all that emotion, you know? And I need you to show that through the way you act on stage, and I’m sure you’ll be brilliant at it!”

Diamond Tiara was saved from having to work out how to respond to that by the re-emergence of her friends. Sweetie Belle was humming the song they’d been practicing, while Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were animatedly discussing something:

“Jus’ because the lights are dim don’t mean this place is haunted!”

“I’m not saying it’s definitely haunted, I’m just saying it wouldn’t surprise me if it was. This place just feels like a haunted theatre, you know?”

Autumn Blaze rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Girls, this is just an old opera house. It’s dim because we haven’t fixed up the lights and cleaned the windows yet. There’s no spirit haunting the place, no matter how evocative and dramatically appropriate that would be.”

“Are you sure?” demanded Scootaloo. “How do you know there’s no spirit?”

“Because that’s how stories go, not what happens in real life,” said the kirin with a nervous smile. “There’s no spirit living underneath the stage, nothing’s going to happen to an ominously wobbling chandelier, nopony is going to sneak around sabotaging props, and we’re definitely not going to be receiving creepy mysterious letters of any…”

She trailed off as she noticed the rest of the cast had come out to watch the argument, and were staring wide-eyed. Chestnut Magnifico raised an eyebrow and said, “That’s a lot of awfully specific denials.”

“Do you know something we don’t?!” demanded a stallion dressed up as a henchpony.

“What? No, it’s just that I once wrote a story about an opera spirit. But that was fiction, and it’s not going to happen in real–”

“Wobbling chandelier?” cried Lyra from the orchestra. “It really doesn’t look very stable now you say it…”

“I think the stage is hollow!” exclaimed another chorus pony, tapping it with his hooves.

Autumn Blaze was looking around frantically. “What? No! Nothing’s going to happen! I know this place looks like exactly the kind of building a spirit would love to haunt, and if there had been a spirit happy here for the past few years then it wouldn’t appreciate our intrusion, but that doesn’t matter because there isn’t–”

“I knew it!” said Scootaloo excitedly. “It’s going to keep sabotaging the play until we leave it alone!”

“Is it safe to stay here?” “I’m scared!” “We need to–”

“Everypony BE QUIET!”

The sudden cry cut through the hysteria. All eyes turned to the scowling Diamond Tiara. “Ugh! You’re all being ridiculous!”

She gathered herself, stood tall and said more calmly, “Sorry for shouting. But there’s no cause to believe in any spirit, everypony.. We don’t have any reason, do we? Just rumours and ungrounded fears. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. Now, we’ve all got lines to learn or jobs to do, so why don’t we all go and get on with that?”

The crowd started to disperse, muttering and murmuring. Diamond Tiara took a deep breath, then exhaled. She had a feeling she and Autumn Blaze would be quelling these rumours for a while.

---

“How’s it goin’, Diamond Tiara? Hard at work learnin’ lines?”

Diamond Tiara stared at the script in front of her. “Yes. I keep mixing up the lyrics from my solo song with the monologue in the next scene.” She shook her head, stretched, and stood up, looking across the playground at the younger schoolkids playing in the field, and Apple Bloom standing in front of her. “How about you? Learned yours yet?”

“Ehehe… not exactly.” Apple Bloom’s look of embarrassment was quickly replaced with enthusiasm as she continued, “We’ve been makin’ our costumes! Look at this!” She turned around, fiddled with something she’d brought with her, and turned back to face Diamond Tiara, who jumped in surprise. Apple Bloom’s face had turned black and she’d gained fierce pointed teeth. “I’m a jaguar!”

“A jaguar?” Diamond Tiara squinted, and then said tactfully, “Yes, I can see that now… Are you, ah, going to be colouring your coat too? The black head and yellow body makes you look a bit like a bugbear.”

“A bugbear?” Her face fell, but Apple Bloom recovered and continued, “Yeah, I probably should, shouldn’t I? Otherwise I imagine Miss Chestnut Magnifico will have words to say. Like she did about Scootaloo’s tiger mask yesterday.” She scowled. “First time we met her I thought that mare was real nice, ya know? She was all friendly-like to you. Pity that seems to have been all an act.”

Diamond Tiara sighed. “I wish I was surprised. But honestly, Apple Bloom, it’s very common for famous ponies to put on a friendly face but be much nastier when you get to know them. The things some important ponies have said at Mother’s parties…”

“Mmm, I guess so,” said Apple Bloom despondently.

Except Diamond Tiara realised that actually, that wasn’t really what the situation with Chestnut was like. Yes, the older mare could certainly be snippy, harsh, and critical. But it was clear she really wanted the opera to succeed. There was a… drive within Chestnut that Diamond Tiara admired. She took her work seriously, whereas the famous ponies she’d met at her family’s events took themselves too seriously but usually didn’t care much about getting anything in particular done.

She shuddered and changed the subject. “Are the others done with their cat costumes too?”

“Scootaloo’s still workin’ on her tiger costume, but Sweetie Belle’s pretty much done with her cat outfit. You should see her – she looks so cute!”

Diamond Tiara couldn’t help smiling. “I’m sure she does. I’m sure Autumn Blaze will like it too. And Chestnut…”

“Ah, who cares what she thinks,” Apple Bloom replied brightly, her smile returned. “She's not the boss!”

“That's the spirit!”

Comments

[AlexTFish]

9475115

Of course it isn't!

[Darkstarling]

Actors are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

And in the Opera everyone is insane. If you start seeing notes with multiple exclamation points, run for it.