The Understudy's Year

Mira had performed the role of Isolde every night for eleven months — in the wings, in costume, in full voice, perfectly. The audience had never seen her. On night 312, Celeste walked off stage at interval and did not come back.

The stage manager found Mira in the green room. 'You're on,' he said. She looked at her hands. They were not shaking. She had been on for eleven months. She had simply been invisible.

She walked out and did not play Isolde. She played Mira playing Isolde — and the distinction was invisible to the audience but total to her. Every night for the next three years, she made it her own.