Angels of Music

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For Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier

Christine Daaé – the Angel of Song
Trilby O’Ferrall – the Angel of Beauty
Irene Adler – the Angel of Larceny
La Marmoset – the Angel of Light
Sophy Kratides – the Angel of Vengeance
Unorna – the Angel of Magic
Ayda Heidari – the Angel of Blood
Ysabel de Ferre – the Angel of Rapture
Hagar Stanley – the Angel of Insight
Katharine Reed – the Angel of Truth
Clara Watson – the Angel of Pain
Lady Yuki – the Angel of the Sword
Gilberte Lachaille – the Angel of Love
Elizabeth Eynsford Hill – the Angel of Many Voices
Riolama – the Angel of the Air
Alraune ten Brincken – the Angel of Ill Fortune
Olympia – the Clockwork Angel
Thi Minh – the Angel of Acrobatics

A
CT
O
NE
: T
HE
M
ARRIAGE
C
LUB

‘“The requiem mass is not at all gay,” Erik’s voice resumed, “whereas the wedding mass – you can take my word for it – is magnificent! You must take a resolution and know your own mind! I can’t go on living like this, like a mole in a burrow! Don Juan Triumphant is finished; and now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.”’

Gaston Leroux,
The Phantom of the Opera (1909–10)

T
OWARDS THE END
of the seventies – that colourful, hectic decade of garish clothes, corrupt politics, personal excess and trivial music – three girls were sent to the Paris Opéra. They could dance a little, sing a little more, were comely when painted and cut fine figures in tights. Were the world just, they would have been stars in the ascendant. Leading roles would have been assigned to them. Rewards would have come along… fame, riches and advantageous marriages.

However, a rigid system of seniority, patronage and favour-currying then governed the house. Our heroines, no matter how perfectly they trilled audition pieces or daintily they lifted skirts from shapely calves, were of the ‘untouchable’ caste, and fated to remain in the depths of the chorus. If critic or admirer or patron were to call public attention to their qualities, they would likely find themselves cast as slaves in the next production, faces blacked with burnt cork, holding the Queen’s train at the rear of the stage. Such was the ruthless dictate of the house’s reigning diva, Signorina Carlotta Castafiore.

Yet… Christine Daaé had a Voice. Trilby O’Ferrall had a Face. And Irene Adler had a Mind. When they arrived at the Opéra, the women were gems in the rough. To be revealed as diamonds of the first water, they required polish, cutting and careful setting. Without such treatment, they were likely to become dull pebbles, lost among so many other shingles on the beach.

Many equally appealing young ladies have served years in the chorus as their brothers served terms in the armed forces (or prison), trying not to squander meagre pay on absinthe or cards, hoping to emerge whole in mind and limb from regular ordeals, dreaming of comfortable retirement. At best, they might end up the second wives of comfortable widowers; at worst, they might… well, ‘at worst’ is too hideous to be dwelled upon, save to observe that such as they were found ragged on the cobbles or drowned in the Seine with a frequency which verged upon the scandalous.

These demoiselles tended to attract the puppy-like devotions of decent, dull-witted youths and the carnivorous attentions of indecent, cold-hearted roués. Our trio, in their private dreams, yearned for a different stripe of suitor – mysterious, dominating, challenging. Without such a presence in their lives, the girls lacked direction. But, even kept outside the circle of the limelight, they had an unnerving tendency to sparkle. Carlotta saw the shimmering in her wake, and made sure they stayed in shadow. Nevertheless, one by one, they were
noticed
… not by the stuffy and harassed management or the violently partisan audience claques, but by a personage who saw into their secret selves.

This unique individual was at once Christine’s Trapdoor Lover, Trilby’s Mesmerist Genius and Irene’s Mastermind of Intrigue. All Paris knew him as the Opera Ghost, though most deemed him a phantasm rather than a phantom. He was a bogey conjured by stagehands to throw a scare into pretty little ballerinas, not the spectre of a dead man whose bones lay unshriven in a recess of Charles Garnier’s palatial opera house. Those who had cause to believe the Phantom of the Opera a man of flesh and bone were wise enough not to speak of him. There were rumours about what happened to those who earned his displeasure.

His protégées came to know him as Monsieur Erik.

Among the Phantom’s few intimates was the Persian. The exact function of this long-faced, astrakhan-capped fellow at the opera house was hard to determine but evidently essential. The girls flitted through a surface world of upholstered finery, fashionable cafés and society engagements, of grand opening nights and merry madcap balls; the Opera Ghost confined himself to the decaying, watery labyrinth below street level, among the scenery of out-of-fashion productions and tombs of tortured men. Only the Persian passed easily between the two realms. It was said he was the only man living who had seen the true face behind mirror and mask, though some claimed to have glimpsed a yellow-eyed, noseless spectre in Box Five, upon which it had a permanent lease.

From behind a mirror in Dressing Room 313, Erik gave ‘music lessons’, whispering for hours to his songbirds – his Swedish-born French nightingale, French-born Irish thrush and All-American eagle. He first discovered Daaé, his most naturally gifted pupil, and called from her a voice to rival the angels. Moreover, he taught her to
feel
the music, to imbue the polite perfection of her natural tones with the rude turbulence of her young heart. Thanks to Erik, Christine’s voice could reach and affect in a manner those who heard it would never forget, though for her finest performances her only auditor was a single, tattered soul weeping under his mask.

O’Ferrall, near death after a spell under another mesmeristtutor, was cracked in voice, body and spirit when brought to Erik. He repaired her voice if not to its former, artificial magnificence – once, briefly, she had performed at the highest level – then at least to pleasant adequacy. Not a natural singer like Christine, Trilby was, if properly presented, the greatest beauty of the age, an attainment involving at least as much sacrifice and special exercise as musical distinction.

Adler, the American, was warier, less obviously talented, too strong-willed for the special tutelage Erik bestowed upon her sisters in song, but prodigiously gifted. She could turn her quick mind and light fingers to almost anything. Irene’s involvement with the Agency was a matter of negotiation towards mutual advantage rather than submission to the will of the Opera Ghost.

Each, in her own way, benefited from Erik’s work with them, and grew when they worked together. Collaboration went against the instincts of the potential diva in each… but they were more effective as a trio than they would have been as three solo turns. Should their maestro have been interested, a healthy income could have been generated by hiring out
les trois jolis anges
as entertainment for cafés, society functions, musical soirées, orgies, weddings, funerals and the like… but his vision for his protégées was of a different stripe. He saw in them deeper, more specialised talents and was determined they should be put to good use. A mystery himself, Erik set out to rid the city –
à terme
, all France (and overseas territories and possessions) – of competition. His own mask would stay in place, but all others would be lifted.

Though seldom seen above street level, Erik founded a private enquiry agency. Just as an opera director does not appear on stage, except to take bows after a first night, Erik remained in his well-appointed cellars while his protégées acted on his behalf and received the applause due to them.

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