Singing with Dario

When I was 22, I signed up for a 6-week singing class. Unfortunately, the only thing I learned over the six weeks was that none of us could sing; not even the instructor.

At our first session, we learned that the instructor’s name was Dario Vanni. Of course it was. When he introduced himself, we nodded knowingly as though we had guessed as much.

In the first five minutes he assured us that singing retarded the growth of cancer cells in the body and that there was a correct way and an incorrect way to sing the word “love.”

Most people, he admonished, sang the word as “lo-o-ove,” but that was all wrong. We all nodded feverishly. Of course it was wrong! Who did that?

No, Dario warned with an expression of pained regret, we had to sing it as “la-a-ave!” We all practiced singing the word correctly until he sliced the air with his hand, which was our cue to stop singing.

I took a quick look around the room and noticed that I was standing in a shrine dedicated to Dario. On all the walls, maybe a foot apart, he’d hung glossy framed photos of himself in various productions.

Dario as Macbeth, Dario as Willie Loman, his face twisted, then animated, then gazing in rapture at an actress who was being overwhelmed by the weight of her sequined gown.

We were a shy group, but not too shy to stand up and tell a little about ourselves! A young man among us with a deliciously unruly mop of curly hair soon became the crowd favorite and, not inconspicuously, Dario’s favorite.

His name was Enrique and he clutched the neck of his guitar as though he feared it would slither away from him at any moment.

Dario took his rightful place at the piano and we could just see his head bobbing up and down as he was carried to a faraway place by the simple melody that he banged out without explanation.

After a lengthy dissertation about how music and karma were more or less the same thing, he turned to Enrique, who was gazing lovingly at his guitar.

“Enrique!” Dario bellowed and then turned to the group. “Enrique has a treat for us tonight!” We all turned to stare at Enrique in case we missed a single precious movement.

“Enrique wishes to try out a new song tonight. You just wrote the song, isn’t that right?”

Ooohs and aaahs escaped from the rest of us.

Enrique grinned and let his head droop forward on his neck becomingly. In one fluid movement he was seated next to Dario and positioning his guitar gingerly on his lap.

“Well, I wrote this song last week, if that means I just wrote it,” he stammered in heavily accented English.

Dario quivered with anticipation. “I think we can say you just wrote it! Does it have a title yet?”

“Not yet,” Enrique grimaced alarmingly. “Because I just wrote it.”

“Of course not yet! Art can’t be rushed! Please begin, Enrique, and remember that you are among friends!”

I glanced around. We’d known each other less than 15 minutes.

Enrique blinked nervously and we watched, mesmerized, as his tongue darted out to moisten his shapely lips. We held our collective breath. He lifted one hand and let it hover over the strings of his guitar.

He kept it suspended there for one, agonizing moment, then let it drop and filled the room with the melancholy strumming of a semi-tortured soul.

“When you left me crying,” he wailed, the sound of his voice bouncing off the framed photos and hitting us like a weak but still unwelcome tsunami.

“No one else had stepped on my heart like you before!” He stabbed at the strings violently, apparently unaware of how acutely uncomfortable he was making all of us.

As the song continued, we were taken on a mind-numbing journey of love found but then quickly and inexplicably lost. Frankly overcome, Dario swiped a tear from where it dangled at the corner of his eye.

Eventually, the wailing stopped and we all exhaled and then applauded. Enrique flung his head this way and that, presumably to dislodge a stubborn curl, and then made his way back to his seat.

Dario needed a moment to collect himself.

We waited.

Then he launched into a spirited rendition of “Hello, Dolly!”

I wondered if my nerves could take five more weeks of this.

I stole a glance at Enrique who was gazing mistily out the window. Dario finished his song and initiated a lengthy discussion about how singing should be used instead of drugs to treat suicidal patients in insane asylums! Oh yes!

Then before we knew it, the hour was up and Dario was standing at the door shaking our hands and beseeching us to practice our songs because we would each be singing next week. We would be getting down to business.

No more fun and games!

When Dario realized that Enrique was standing behind me in the exit line, he couldn’t push me out the door fast enough. Once outside, I had to adjust my coat and check to be sure I still had my purse.

Never mind, I told myself. Dario would forget all about Enrique next week when he heard my even more soulful version of Whitney Houston's “I Will Always Love You.” Of that I was certain.

I squared my shoulders and made my way to the car. Enrique wasn’t the only one who could make Dario cry.