And nobody was likely to be lazy about it, after what happened in the first lesson. Four singers had been given an embarrassing spanking on their underwear, just for being unimaginative, so nobody wanted to find out what Miss Geist would do to them for not being prepared for her lessons.
First on the list was a scene from Richard Strauss' "Salome". Rachel (soprano) had been chosen to play the title role, while Gerry (bass) was to play John the Baptist. Both of them arrived well prepared.
"This opera" said Miss Geist, "based on Oscar Wilde's biblical play, was banned for years in many countries, because it dared to depict a teenage girl as having a dangerous sexuality. Dangerous because it was mixed with power, enough to cost a man his head."
"Rachel, remember when this severe prophet emerges from his cell that he is a wild man of the desert. You find him sexy in a scary way, like the girls in teenage vampire stories. The difference is that Salome is rejected by this man, who has always practiced asceticism and self-denial. And she is used to getting her own way in everything. She is a spoiled brat."
"From your point of view, Gerald, there is no room in your mind for sexual dalliance, even when offered by an attractive young princess. Indeed there is no room for anything but the calling of your religion. With those things in mind, you may start."
Elsa the accompanist played the solid chords that mark the entry of John the Baptist from his dungeon. Gerry made a show of crawling along the stage then rising and blinking in the light. He began singing his condemnations of Herod and Herodias.
Rachel watched him with eyes wide. She took Miss Geist's hint and imagined she was someone like Bella, looking at a handsome vampire for the first time.
Then came the part where Salome dares to try seducing the stern desert prophet. She sang "I am in love with your body, Jokanaan. Your body is as white as the lilies of a field never mown. Your body is as white as the snow on the mountains of Judea. Let me touch your body."
Gerry's deep bass thundered in reply: "Back, daughter of Babylon! Evil came into the world by woman. I will not listen to you."
Rachel, kneeling, pounded her fist on the stage and kicked her feet in a teenage temper tantrum, singing "Your body is hideous, like the body of a leper."
The rest of the class laughed at this action. Miss Geist held up her hand and the music paused. Calmly, she said "Silence now. That was a good move and it is right that the audience should laugh. But for now, we have work to do."
Rachel resumed Salome's attempted seduction, reaching out and touching Gerry's head. "It's your hair that I love, Jokanaan", she sang. "The long black nights, when the moon hides her face and the stars are afraid, are not as black as your hair."
Gerry twisted his body away from her: "Back, daughter of Sodom, don't touch me."
Sitting down hard and pounding the stage with her fists again, 'Salome' sang with as much petulant conviction as she could muster: "Your hair is horrible. It is thick with dirt and dust. I don't like your hair."
Again the audience was grinning, but obediently stifled their laughter. Gerry was equally amused at Rachel's performance and had to concentrate on his proper breathing to avoid laughing.
Rachel went on, clinging even closer to Gerry: "It's your mouth that I desire. Your mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. Let me kiss your mouth, Jokanaan."
Gerry thought he ought to keep his acting on as high a level as Rachel's. So he pushed her hard, with a fierce widening of his eyes: "Curses on you, daughter of an incestuous mother!".
And that was where it all fell apart. Rachel fell down, and this, combined with seeing Gerry's flashing eyes, made her helpless with laughter. Gerry too couldn't hold it in any longer and began laughing out loud.
Some chuckling began in the rest of the class, but it quickly stopped. Down in the stalls, they could see the expression on Miss Geist's face, which at first the two giggling singers could not. It was a mask of fury.
No longer calm, she raged at them - "So you ignore my request for professional focus, and waste my time. Leave the stage!"
Worried but still laughing a little, Rachel and Gerry stepped down. They began to return to their seats in the auditorium, thinking they had been dismissed from the demonstration.
Miss Geist, who had followed them down the steps, shouted "Where do you think you are going? Bend over the edge of the stage with your pants lowered!"
Their hearts sank a little. It was clear they were going to suffer the same punishment as last lesson's quartet. They slid their jeans down to their ankles and leaned on the edge of the stage. But worse was to come.
Miss Geist reached for Rachel's panties and pulled them suddenly down to mid-thigh. "No!" shouted Rachel, but she didn't dare actually resist Miss Geist's punishment. She certainly wasn't laughing any more.
A glance sideways told Gerry what was happening. Surely that wasn't about to happen to him too! But then he felt Miss Geist's long fingernails at his hips as she grasped the waistband of his briefs. Then there was a swift downward pull, and he felt the cool air of the theatre, and implicitly the eyes of all his classmates, on his bared behind.
Miss Geist didn't move back to Rachel but immediately began smacking Gerry's bare bottom as hard as she could. It stung like blazes. Gerry kept looking straight ahead so the class couldn't see his face, deep red with humiliation and the effort to stay silent however much it hurt.
But there was nothing he could do. Everyone knew that walking out of this class would mean missing the opportunity of learning from the world's best teacher; and that whether they had her course on their CV could mean the difference between an appointment to a top opera house and none.
So he gritted his teeth and gasped now and then, until Miss Geist was satisfied and her strong left arm with its billowing sleeve stopped swinging.
Rachel by now was absolutely terrified. Her eyes welled up with tears even before Miss Geist started on her. The first smack on her bare bottom was more painful than she expected. It was such a childish punishment that surely, she had hoped, it wouldn't hurt a grown young woman that much. But she soon found that, at least with Miss Geist dishing it out, this just wasn't true.
She yelled over and over again, and squirmed about so much that her panties slipped down to her calves. Perhaps it was because she had started laughing first, or maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed she was getting a longer spanking than Gerry. "Please" she begged, "I'm sorry!".
The stinging smacks finally stopped. "Replace your clothing and return to the stage" said Miss Geist. "The lesson is not over."
As the couple mounted the steps, she added "The next people to fool about laughing will be on stage facing the class when I take their underwear down". The threat of such supreme embarrassment registered completely with the terrorised class.
Despite their still-burning posteriors, Gerry and Rachel tried to forget what had just happened and concentrate on their performance. Miss Geist began directing them on many ways to improve, both vocally and dramatically, and soon their minds were entirely on these technical and artistic matters.
Afterwards, none of the other singers teased the unfortunate pair. They were all aware that it could easily have been them. The girls told Rachel how good she had been in the part, and gave her the occasional sympathetic hug.
The other men said things to Gerry like:
"That was bad luck, being first on the schedule."
"You couldn't know what would happen."
"Come and have a beer, man, to steady your nerves."
"You've got a right to get completely Boris Yeltsin. The first one's on me!"
Of course, the unspoken subtext of all this was "seeing your bare butt means nothing to us straight macho guys".
As they were leaving, Rachel and Gerry caught each other's eye, and they exchanged a sheepish smile of mutual sympathy. Miss Geist saw this and whispered to Elsa, who was packing up, "One thing's for sure. If ever they are cast to play opposite each other during their careers, they'll have no trouble feeling a bond between them".
Elsa nodded, which was all she ever did when the great Mistress of Music spoke.
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There are several versions on youtube of the scene they're rehearsing above, but this one has the most vampire-like Jokanaan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_sFH3q3Q50
The production is from Nashville, but don't expect any country & western singing! :)
