“I saw him at the great scene at The Hague,” said Thresher, “and, of course, I was with him on the Commission that had the job of restoring lost or looted art after the war, but we had very little direct contact then. He was impressive, as you know better than I do. Tall, quiet in manner, but with a quality that I suppose could be called Byronic. A whiff of brimstone.”
“Exactly as I remember him,” said the Princess. “A whiff of brimstone. Irresistible. And Byronic.”
“He ended as a shambling eccentric,” said Darcourt. “Agreeable, when you knew him. But a long way from le beau ténébreux.”
“Wouldn’t you have expected that?” said Thresher.
“What would Byron have been like if he had lived to be an old man? A fat, bald Tory with fearful indigestion. Probably an embittered woman-hater. These romantic heroes are lucky if they die early. They are not built for long wear.”
Although the conversation continued throughout an evening that Darcourt ended by leaving sharp at eleven o’clock, he heard nothing more of significance about Francis Cornish. The talk touched on Cornish again and again, then veered away to some matter of concern to the art world, about which Thresher had an endless fund of hints and stories that might have been illuminating if Darcourt had been better informed than he was about the great sales, the great exposures, and the stupefying prices.
His evening, however, had not been quite so limited in its information as it might have seemed. Max and Amalie did their best to requite him for the drawings he had placed in their hands before dinner. They played fair in that, and when he left, the Princess gave him all her photographs of her adolescent love. But all evening his eyes turned again and again toward The Marriage at Cana, and when he caught his plane the next morning he was on fire to continue some research which would, he greatly hoped, tell him something about Francis Cornish that would make his book much more than a respectable, respectful biography.
5
Was Arthur pleased that such an important meeting of the Cornish Foundation should be taking place somewhere other than at the Round Table? That instead of the nuts and fruits and sweets from the Platter of Plenty they were refreshing themselves from a slapdash smorgasbord Dr. Gunilla Dahl-Soot and Schnak had whipped up with a few biscuits and tins of smoked fish? That a potent aquavit was being drunk—drunk rather too freely by Hollier—with beer chasers?
No, Arthur was not pleased, but his self-control was so great that nobody would have known it, and indeed he was not fully aware of it himself, except as a generalized discomfort. He felt that control of the opera project had been taken out of his hands without any obvious snatching, and he was now an adviser only, rather than in his accustomed place as Chairman of the Board.
They had come to listen to music. There was a piano in his splendid penthouse, and if a piano was needed to learn what Hoffmann’s music was like, and what Schnak had been able to make of it, why had the Doctor somewhat imperiously demanded that they come here? Schnak was playing now.
She was a competent pianist, for a composer. That is to say, she could play anything at sight but she could not play anything really well. She could play from an orchestral score, giving what she called “a notion” of what was written there, piecing out what she could not play with her ten fingers by hoots, whistles, and shouts of “Brass!” or “Woodwind choir!”. When she wished to indicate that a melody was for a singer, she sang in a distressing voice, and as there were no words she took refuge in Yah-yah-yah.
As astonishing as Schnak’s noise was her altered appearance. Clean, to begin with. Dressed in some new clothes that looked as if they might have been chosen by the Doctor, for they were severe and might have had style if Schnak had worn them better. No longer haggard, but puffily plump, like someone who has been eating too much after a long abstinence. Her hair was now a respectable colour, an undistinguished brown, and flew about in uncontrolled wisps. She looked happy, and deeply engaged in what she was doing. A Schnak transformed.
Will I get a bill for those new clothes, or will the Doctor have the tact to conceal them among her own expenses, thought Darcourt. Reasonable enough. So many odd bills were reaching his desk that he began to feel like a Universal Provider. But it all made sense, in a way.
No member of the Round Table was a trained musician, but all were intelligent listeners—concert-goers and buyers of recordings—and they thought that what they heard was good. Melodious, certainly, and passionate. There seemed to be lots of it, and it was being presented in chunks of undeveloped, non-continuous sound. When at last Schnak ceased to play, the Doctor spoke.
“That is what we have, you see. That is what Hulda must develop and stitch together, and occasionally amplify with stuff that is akin to Hoffmann without being genuine Hoffmann. He left quite a lot of notes in prose, indicating what he had in mind. But it is a long way from being an opera. What we must have now is a detailed libretto, with action and words. Words that fit these melodies. At this moment we have not even a final list of the characters in the piece. Of course we know what the orchestration will be—the sort of thirty-two-piece group that Hoffmann would have been able to use in an opera theatre of his own. Strings, woods, a few brasses, and kettle-drums—only two, for he would not have had sophisticated modern timpani. So—what have the literary people been doing?”
“We have a scheme for the libretto. That’s to say, I have a scheme, pretty much like the one I outlined a few weeks ago,” said Powell. “As for characters, there are the seven leading roles: Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, Modred, Morgan Le Fay, Elaine, and Merlin.”
“And Chorus?” said the Doctor.
“For the men you have the Knights of the Round Table, and there must be twelve, to make up thirteen with Arthur. Linking it with Christ and the Disciples.”
“Oh, that’s very dubious,” said Hollier. “That’s nineteenth-century romanticism and utterly discredited now. Arthur had over a hundred Knights.”
“Well, he certainly isn’t going to have them in this opera,” said Powell. “As well as Lancelot and Modred he can have Sir Kay, the seneschal, Gawaine and Bedevere who are the good guys, and Gareth Beaumains, who can be a pretty boy if we can find one. Then we want Lucas, the butler, and Ulphius, the chamberlain. For funnies we can have Dynadan, who was a wit and lampoonist and can be a high-comedy figure, and Dagonet the Fool, who can be a jackass now and then to keep things lively. And the two blacks, of course.”
“Blacks?” said Arthur. “Why blacks in sixth-century Britain?”
“Because if you have an opera nowadays without a black or two, you’re in hot water,” said Powell. “Luckily we can use Sir Pellinore and Sir Palomides, who are both Saracens, so that takes care of that.”
“But Saracens were not black,” said Hollier.
“They will be in this show,” said Powell. “I want no trouble.”
“It will be incredible,” said Hollier.
“No it won’t. Not when I get it on the stage,” said Powell.
“Nothing is incredible in opera. Now, as for women—”
“But wait,” said Hollier. “Are you sending this whole thing up? Making it into a comedy?”
“Not at all,” said the Doctor. “I see what Powell means. Opera presents mythic truth, even when it is about nineteenth-century whores with golden hearts. And mythic truth sets you free to do a lot of very practical things. What about women?”
“A woman for every Knight,” said Powell. “They don’t need names or characters. Except for the Lady Clarissant, who must be Number Two to Guenevere and carry her fan, or catch her when she faints, or whatever may be necessary. Basically, Clarissant is Chorus, though she will have to have a few more bucks because she plays a named character. So there you are. Twenty-nine in all; and a few extras for heralds and trumpeters, and of course understudies, and you’ll get out with less than forty, and never more than thirty-four on stage at one time. We can’t get any more on that stage in Stratford if it is to look like anything but the subwa
y at rush-hour.”
“How expensive is it likely to be?” said Darcourt.
“Expense is not our first consideration,” said Arthur. “This is an adventure, you remember.”
“A Quest. A real Arthurian Quest,” said Maria. “A Quest in search of something lost in the past. Let’s not be cheap.”
Was Maria being ironic, Darcourt asked himself. Since their talk—their divano–he had sensed something in Maria that was not new, but a return to the Maria he had known before she became Mrs. Arthur Cornish, and seemed to dwindle. Maria was returning to her former stature.
“I’m glad you feel like that,” said Powell. “The more I think about this opera the more expensive it becomes. As Maria says, the past doesn’t come cheap.”
“What are the singers likely to want?” said Darcourt.
“Their figures are pretty well fixed, according to their reputations. For this job, you want second-rank singers—”
“Need we settle for that?” said Arthur.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I mean second-rank, not second-rate. You don’t want, and couldn’t get, the biggest star names; they are booked up for three and four years ahead, and as they do a pretty restricted group of parts they wouldn’t consent to learn a new role for a few performances. They aren’t used to rehearsal, either. They just swoop in by plane, do their standard Violetta or Rigoletto or whatever it is without much reference to where they are or who they’re with, and swoop out again, clutching their money. No, I’m talking about the intelligent singers who are also musicians, who can act and who keep their fat down. There are quite a lot of them now, and they’re the opera of the future. But they’re always busy, and they don’t come cheap, so we shall have to hope luck is with us. I’ve already made a few inquiries, and I think we’ll be all right. Chorus we can get in Toronto; lots of good people.”
Admirable, thought Arthur. Just what he would have wanted. Lots of initiative in his friend Geraint. And yet—the business man in him would not be silent—money was being promised, and perhaps contracts offered, and who was authorizing all this? The would-be impresario and patron applauded, but the banker had nasty qualms. Powell was continuing.
“The singers aren’t the only problems, let me tell you. Designer—where do you look for a designer now for an opera next summer? Far too late. But we’ve had a stroke of the greatest luck. There’s a real comer who has been doing a lot of supervisory work for the Welsh National Opera, and she wants a chance to design something entirely her own. Dulcy Ringgold, her name is. I’ve talked to Dulcy on the phone, and she’s keen as mustard. But there are conditions.”
“Money?” said Darcourt.
“No. Dulcy isn’t greedy. But she wants to do the whole thing as if it were being done under Hoffmann’s supervision at one of his opera houses—Bamberg, for instance. And that means scene design in the early-nineteenth-century manner, with changes managed as if we had a staff of about fifty stagehands, when we’ll probably have ten, and they’ll have to learn old techniques that will astonish them. Because in those days stage-hands were really scene-shifters, and not button-pushers. It’ll cost a mint.”
“I suppose you’ve closed with her?” said Hollier. The more aquavit he drank, and the more beer he sent down to supervise the aquavit, the more dubious he became.
“I have her on hold,” said Powell. “And I hope to God you agree with her plan.”
“Does it mean monstrously heavy stuff, long intervals, mossy banks covered with artificial flowers, and a lot of rumbling behind the curtain?” said Arthur.
“Not a bit of it. This kind of stage dressing came before all that nonsense. Quite simply, it’s a system where each scene consists of a painted back-drop, and five or six sets of wings on each side of the stage; but they are arranged on wheels so that the scenes change almost instantaneously—in out—in out—so that its almost like movie dissolves. At the end of each scene the actors leave the stage and—whammo!—you’re already in the next scene. But it takes some very nippy work backstage.”
“Sounds wonderful,” said Maria.
“It’s magical! I don’t know how we ever changed it for all this business of fixed settings and mood lighting that reflects nothing much but the mood of the lighting-designer. Pure magic!”
“Sounds to me like pantomime,” said Hollier.
“It is a bit like pantomime. But what’s wrong with that? It’s magic, I tell you.”
“You mean like the things one sees at Drottningholm?” said Darcourt.
“Just like that.”
Nobody but Darcourt among the Foundation members had been to Drottningholm, and they were impressed.
“But why is it so expensive?” said Arthur. “It sounds to me like a few pieces of lath and a lot of canvas and paint.”
“And that’s what it is. It’s the paint that costs money. Good scene-painters are rare nowadays, but Dulcy says she could do it with six good art-students and herself to supervise and do the tricky bits. But it takes time and it costs like the devil.”
“If it’s magic, we’ll have it,” said Arthur.
“That’s the real Arthurian touch,” said Maria, and kissed him.
“I declare for it, without reserve,” said the Doctor. “It will mean that I—I mean Hulda—can have many scenes, and that is wonderful freedom for a composer. Indoor-outdoor; forests and gardens. Yes, yes, Mr. Cornish, you are man of fine imagination. I also salute you.”
The Doctor kissed Arthur. On the cheek. Not one of her tongue-in-the-mouth kisses.
“With such a scheme of production, I suppose you see no obstacle to using The Questing Beast,” said Hollier, cheering up visibly, if a little unsteadily.
“What in God’s name is The Questing Beast?” said the Doctor.
“It was the monster whose pursuit was the lifelong occupation of Sir Pellinore,” said Hollier. “I’m surprised you do not know. The Questing Beast had the head of a serpent, the body of a libbard, the rump of a lion, the hooves of a hart, and a great, swingeing tail; out of its belly came a sound like the baying of thirty couple of hounds. Just the thing for a magical opera.”
“Oh Clem, you genius,” said Penny Raven, and, not to be left out when kissing was toward, she kissed Hollier, to his great abashment.
“Well—I don’t know,” said Powell.
“Oh, you must,” said Penny. “Hulda could make the Beast sing out of its belly! All those voices, in wonderful harmony. What a coup de théâtre! No, I suppose I mean a coup d’oreille. It would be the hit of the show.”
“Just what I’m afraid of,” said Powell. “You have a very minor character, Sir Pellinore, traipsing about the stage with a bloody great pantomime dragon, and taking all the attention. No! Nix on The Questing Beast.”
“I thought you wanted imagination,” said Hollier, with the hauteur of a man whose brilliant idea has been scorned.
“Imagination is not uncontrolled fantasy,” said the Doctor.
“The Questing Beast is a vital part of the Arthurian Legend,” said Hollier, raising his voice. “The Questing Beast is pure Malory. Are you throwing Malory overboard? I want to know. If I am to have any part in preparing this libretto—as you call it—I want to know the ground rules. What are your intentions toward Malory?”
“Good sense must prevail,” said the Doctor, who had not been inattentive to the aquavit. “Myth must be transmuted into art, not slavishly reproduced. If Wagner had been ruled by myth, the Ring of the Nibelungs would have been trampled to death by monsters and giants and nobody would have understood the story. I have my responsibility here, and I remind you of it. Hulda’s interests must come before everything. Besides, Hoffmann has not provided any music that could in any way be turned into a four-part chorus singing inside the belly of a monster, and probably not able to see the conductor. To hell with your Questing Beast!”
Arthur felt it was time to exert his skills as Chairman of the Board, and after five minutes, during which Hollier and Penny and Powell and the
Doctor shouted and insulted each other, he was able to restore some sort of order, though the heat of passion in the room was still palpable.
“Let’s come to a conclusion, and stick with it,” he said. “We’re talking about the nature of the libretto. We have to decide the ground on which it rests. Professor Hollier is determined on Malory.”
“It’s simple reason,” said Hollier. “The libretto is to be in English. Malory is the best English source.”
“But the language, the language!” said Penny. “All that ‘yea, forsooth’, and ‘full fain’, and ‘I woll welle’. Great to read but bloody to speak, let alone sing. Do you imagine you could write verse in that lingo?”
“I agree,” said Darcourt. “We’ve got to have language that’s clear, and permits rhyme, and has a romantic flavour. So what’s it to be?”
“It’s obvious,” said Powell. “Obvious to anybody but a scholar, that’s to say. Sir Walter’s your man.”
Nobody responded to the name of Sir Walter. There were looks of incomprehension on every face but Arthur’s.
“Sir Walter Scott, he means,” said he. “Haven’t any of you read any Scott?”
“Nobody reads Scott nowadays,” said Penny. “He’s ceased to be a Figure and been demoted to an Influence. Too simple for scholarly consideration but can’t be wholly overlooked.”
“You mean in the universities,” said Arthur. “Increasingly I thank God that I never went to one. As a reader I’ve just rambled at large on Parnassus, chewing the grass wherever it seemed rich. I read an awful lot of Scott when I was a boy, and loved it. I think Geraint is right. Scott’s our man.”
“Just about every big Scott novel was made into an opera. Not operas that are done much now, but big hits in their day. Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Bizet—all those guys. I’ve looked at them. Pretty neat, I’d say.” It was Schnak who spoke. She had been almost unheard until this moment, and the others looked at her with wonder, as in one of those old tales where an animal is suddenly gifted with speech.
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