Isda begins to thrive in her role but also becomes obsessive. She overhears his singing and his beautiful tenor enchants her, thus Isda takes him on as a mentoree in secret, and soon Emeric is a rising star in the opera. After bumping into Isda by accident backstage, they develop a prickly friendship. Then cheerful, introverted janitor Emeric Rodin shows up. Cyril relies on lies about the Opera Ghost – whose effect upon the house has lent it mystique instead of horrifying visitors – to keep things running smoothly, and to stop people from asking questions about Isda. It’s a bargain that keeps Cyril in business – and keeps Isda alive, for if anyone knew he’d saved her, they’d both be executed. Isda is now the Channe’s star attraction – singing behind a veil and screen, avoiding the other musicians, and filling the two thousand seats of the Channe every night with audience members whose memories of the show have been manipulated by her siren song. Gravoirs are to be killed at birth – her mother accordingly abandoned her at the bottom of a well at infanthood – where Cyril, owner and manager of the Channe Opera House discovered her and nursed her to health and maturity.
With it she can manipulate and modify the memory of any individual who hears her, and can extract and see their memories as well. She was born a gravoir, with scars upon her face, and a powerful voice that packs a wallop.
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book – quite the contrary – but it’s a delightful twist. Olson’s well-written and impassioned Sing Me Forgotten will definitely amuse musical theater fans – if only because the book definitely reads like a gender-swapped, fantasy-tinged take on The Phantom of the Opera.
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