Calista Joyce

So I say, if you are burning, burn. If you can stand it, the shame will burn away and leave you shining, radiant, and righteously shameless.
—Elizabeth Cunningham

Calista Joyce

Clan: Toreador antitribu
Affiliation: Byzantium Coven
Role: Manager of the Empusa Theatre

Byzantium’s resident opera star, Calista Joyce is surprisingly slender for a soprano of her tremendous power and range. With a lightly freckled face and reddish-gold curls, she has been described as “attractive” and “fetching,” but her imperious affectations undercut the warmth of her Irish features with a certain Teutonic chill. Invested with a larger-than-life personality, Calista is free-spirited and shameless, moody and unpredictable, and utterly convinced of her own genius—in other words, the perfect diva.

History

Born in 1869 in the small Wicklow village of Tinahely, Calista Joyce left Ireland in 1884 to seek fame as an opera singer in London. Gaining some recognition as a Mozart soprano, her penchant for darker fare led her to Wagner, and she began experimenting with more intimidating roles—Venus, Brünnhilde, and finally Isolde. In 1886, Lord Dorian Ives invited Calista to sing at the Lamia Club. Enthralled by her voice, enchanted by her lissome figure, and intrigued by her willingness to explore, the Toreador became infatuated with Calista, introducing her to a wider circle of avant-garde artists. As their relationship deepened, Ives acted as both patron and mentor, pushing Calista to the very limits of the human voice. As her career soared across the stages of Europe, Calista began dropping hints that her final limitation was her own humanity, and Ives began feeding Calista his blood.

In 1888, the Lamia Club produced Adrian Wren’s controversial chamber opera, The Rape of Salomé, with Calista in the titular role. She delivered Wren’s “impossible coloratura” flawlessly, investing her performance with a physical theatricality rarely seen on the opera stage. Winning the singer equal amounts of notoriety and acclaim, she continued to thrill audiences for the next two decades, taking on Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Schönberg’s Erwartung, and Strauss’ Elektra. Eagerly embracing the tenets of Futurism, Calista was an avid proponent of free love, and collected lovers and patrons from New York to Milan—especially Toreador willing to “rejuvenate” her human blood. By the time the Great War consumed Europe in flames, Calista Joyce had been crowned the “most dazzling voice of the new century.”

After the war, Calista spent the twenties and thirties returning to Wagner, appearing at Bayreuth and making several historic recordings with Wilhelm Furtwängler. She began spending some of her own fortune on patronage, supporting Alban Berg, Olivier Messiaen, and Béla Bartók. In 1935, she débuted the role of Lulu in Berg’s unfinished opera, once again electrifying Berlin with her vocal calisthenics and dramatic nudity. But now, critics had become impressed with something else—Calista’s remarkable youthfulness. Although the London Toreador had obscured her birthdate decades ago, the fact Calista still had the “appearance and voice of a woman in her ageless twenties” had become unavoidable in the press. Undaunted, Calista’s next step was to commission a monodrama from Igor Stravinsky. To be named Sarpedon, Calista would assume the role of Medusa, a dramatic soprano relating her tragic tale as frenzied dancers reenacted her conception, her rape, her punishment, and her murder. Their plans crumbled as Germany rolled tanks across Poland, and when the Lamia Club closed its doors during the Blitz, Calista followed Stravinsky’s lead and emigrated to the United States.

Calista as Brünnhilde, Berlin 1934

Calista took up residence with Duncan Capelthwaite’s coterie at Santa de Luzarches, entertaining Gotham’s Toreador with her diva behavior and convoluted sexual escapades. After the war, the Camarilla informed Calista that her days performing before human audiences were numbered. No longer protected by the indulgent Ives, it was time for “ageless” Calista Joyce to shuffle off her mortal coil. All that remained was to fake her death and select a suitable Sire. Furious with the American Camarilla’s “lack of vision,” Calista immediately abandoned the Toreador and sought out Venus and Orchid at the Dakinī Club. Somewhat foggy on the ideological differences between the Camarilla and the Sabbat, Calista knew that Venus had Ives’ Toreador blood in her veins, and the Dakinī Club was said to be modeled on the Lamia Club of old. Venus welcomed Calista with open arms, but unfortunately for the Toreador cambion, Venus was no longer strictly a Toreador. Instead, the Daeva made a suggestion—why not seek out Dorian himself? Last she knew, Lord Ives had “retired” to Ceylon. As far as continuing to perform under her own name, well, what if Calista traveled to Ceylon to meet her own estranged daughter…?

After wishing her new friends bon voyage, Calista boarded a ship and sailed for Colombo. Locating her former mentor at a tea plantation in Kahawatta, she was expecting to find the Toreador at the center of an exciting new movement or cult; instead, the elder was modestly preparing to commit suicide. Calista tried in vain to convince Dorian to return with her, but the heartbroken aesthete refused—“I’m sorry to say, the bright and terrible Angel of Modernity requires of me one final act of beauty—my own extinction.” Two weeks later, Ives Embraced his former ghoul atop Adam’s Peak. Commanding his new progeny to manacle her Sire to the Sri Pada just before sunrise, Lord Dorian Ives committed suicide in the time-honored fashion of his clan.

Returning to New York, Calista realized that something had changed. As the world reacted to the “tragic loss” of Calista Joyce, drowned off the coast of Ceylon during a squall, the fledgling Toreador watched with a sense bemusement that blossomed into the joy of liberation. Calista felt fabulous, invigorated, like she had sloughed off a threadbare coat and stepped into a shimmering wardrobe of brilliant new colors. She had the freedom to reinvent herself, and would never again be forced to pander to patrons, conductors, and critics. There was no need for an estranged daughter. Calista Joyce was dead—long live Calista Joyce!

Was seht Ihr in den Lust- und Trauerspielen?! —
Haustiere, die so wohl gesittet fühlen,
An blasser Pflanzenkost ihr Mütchen kühlen
Und schwelgen in behaglichem Geplärr,
Wie jene andern—unten im Parterre. —
Das wahre Tier, das wilde, schöne Tier,
Das—meine Damen!—sehn Sie nur bei mir.
—Alban Berg, Lulu

Current Role

Today, the reborn diva is a fixture at Club Byzantium, where she occupies the largest suite of rooms on the sixth floor Magnaura. Whether being fêted by a host of naked servants or impishly shattering a senator’s wineglass with a high C, Calista indulges her every whim, and is genuinely adored by her coven. She has even forgiven the Camarilla, and was invited back to Santa de Luzarches to première the roles of Rebekah, Catherine, and Eva in Vladimir Zamiatin’s Aqedah Triptych. In 1989 Calista purchased a theater near Columbia University and reopened it as the Empusa. Known for its avant-garde productions and tireless promotion of modern music, the Empusa is frequented by Toreador from both sects, and has emerged as an Elysium for the clan’s divided halves. Calista herself frequently performs on the Empusa stage under the name Joyce Ives, a “brilliant but reclusive” soprano praised for her breakout performance of Gepopo in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre. The Empusa is currently staging a “modern revival” of Adrian Wren’s The Rape of Salomé—like Calista Joyce herself, a century old and still possessing the power to shock and confound audiences.

Sources & Notes

The core of the Gotham Sabbat was first uploaded on 31 October 2000, but the Byzantium Coven was extensively revised during the August 2018 update. Calista Joyce is a new character, developed from notes I made about a scenario set at the Lamia Club. While she is not based on any particular historical figure, I had Kirsten Flagstaff, Barbara Hannigan, and Patricia Petibon’s Lulu in mind while writing her profile. The banner uses a wonderful piece of digital art by the Italian artist Lente Scura, who creates dreamlike portraits using actual photographs. The photograph of the Nazi Valkyrie is from a live performance by Women of the SS, one of John Zewizz’ many bizarre bands. The poster for The Rape of Salomé uses a work called Caterpillar by the Russian illustrator Yana Moskaluk. Her art is fantastic, sexy, and utterly unique—check it out!

The quote from Lulu has been translated as:

What can you see in plays—or music dramas?!
Tame creatures, that are so well-bred and moral,
Their milky diet kills all savage quarrel.
They revel in their bourgeois tête-à-tête,
I simply wondered if you’d like some dress rehearsal tickets.
Just like the audience in the stalls, I bet!
The real beast, the sleek and savage beast,
Ladies I’ll show you, come and join the feast!

Author: Great Quail
Original Upload: 21 August 2018
Last Modified: 3 September 2018
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
PDF Version: [Coming Soon]