The Black Opera (46 page)

Capiraso's spiky handwriting marked cuts, Conrad saw, but il Superbo had not attempted to make revisions to the actual verses.

“I altered the setting, since Velluti complained,” Roberto Capiraso continued, his tone business-like. “It appears only the
primo uomo
can have an entrance being praised by his soldiers… So General Chimalli is now in the Jaguar Warriors' military camp; enters up-stage after the chorus.”

“We can re-use some of the flats,” Conrad thought aloud. “Background of tents, palm trees, mountains.”

“Baritone and tenor drinking chorus from the soldiers.” Roberto Capiraso drew an ink-line down the page. “Then I suggest we
merge
these two separate arias of Chimalli's. Give him half a verse in the major key, proclaiming that all the lands from the Amazon to the sea submit to his armies and to his will. Then the other half of the verse in the minor key, done as an aside to the audience: there is only one thing he can't subdue—the heart of Tayanna, the Aztec Princess—and he would give up all his military conquests if he could conquer that one heart.”

Il Superbo's tone faltered on the last words, despite his deliberate self-composure.

“That's—actually, that's very good.” Startled, Conrad glanced up from the paper, and met Capiraso's dark eyes. “I'll revise the verses. Roberto…”

He was surprised to find himself automatically using the man's first name.

“It's opera,” Conrad said simply. “Unrequited love and illicit passion are staple subjects.
The Aztec Princess
can't be different—not if it's to succeed.”

The secret museum was quiet for a long moment.

“I agree.” Roberto Capiraso's tone was flat.

That's the best I'll get
.

The urge to question the Count about Leonora—how they met, when they met—was very strong.

And he must want to make the same demands of me
.

Roberto Capiraso raised his manual-labourer's hand and pointed towards the museum's door. “I believe I can work with you if we avoid certain subjects. If, once those doors are closed—or, once we are below Naples in rehearsal—neither of us knows such a person as Leonora D'Arienzo.”

“Very well: I won't speak to you about Nora.”

Conrad opened his mouth to add,
I won't speak
to
Nora, except where the opera is concerned
.

He cut himself off, immeasurably tempted.

It will be unconscionable to make a promise that only sounds honest because its wording.

Conrad seated himself at the large table, his gaze staying on Roberto Capiraso. “I should mention… Signore Paolo suggested today that he ask Nora to help out under Naples as a voice tutor and
recitateur
.”

Roberto Capiraso's shocked expression salved a number of the wounds to Conrad's pride.

“Help with the counter-opera?” Il Superbo sounded flatly disbelieving.

“No need to speak as if it were ridiculous.” Conrad frowned. “Before she gave up her career, she knew the business of an opera house from top to bottom. If she wants to help—let her.”

Roberto Capiraso, for the first time in Conrad's acquaintance, looked as if he had no idea what to say.

And I don't even know if I can bear to speak to Nora
.

“Assuming that she agrees,” Conrad said, “I believe all of us are capable of leaving private business outside of rehearsals. After the first night, then yes—because we must talk about this, soon—but not before. Is this acceptable?”

“Acceptable.” The word came just too quickly from Capiraso's mouth.

The composer went back to the piano. Conrad sketched out a couplet, his gaze on the man. The Count's expression changed a number of times—and finally relaxed.

“After all…” Roberto Capiraso spoke as if he mused aloud. The whimsically-amused glint was back in his eye. “…
Anyone
can put on an opera in sixteen days…”

Conrad momentarily put his hands over his face.
I take it back. It's going to be a long two weeks!

“It's taken us eighteen months!” The King looked grim. “My men have checked every opera house in Catania. And they've found nothing.”

Conrad met with Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily again on the Tuesday, the twenty-ninth; ridiculously grateful for the leap year that gave them an extra day of February to work with, even if it was an illusion of the calendar.

“Without any great stroke of fortune,” Ferdinand added, “I think we won't discover where the black opera is being sung. Not in the next two weeks.”

In England, three public houses (and a heretic church) qualify as a village, Conrad knows. In the Italian states, it's three churches, a campanile, and an
opera house, not always in that order. The King's forces have spent a summer and two winters searching every provincial rat-hole village and town, in both the Two Sicilies and beyond.

Conrad made a face. “Meaning they have to be singing it as a drawing-room opera?”

Ferdinand gave him a tired but approving smile. “Precisely! I've been assuming that as a possibility for the last six months. There are palazzos with halls large enough to have a full production put on. Ask Signore Conte di Argente! But as for which of them might house it…”

A surge of choral singing echoed up the ancient walls, reverberating from the rehearsal-mine. Conrad noted that Ferdinand waited until it faded before he spoke again.

“We're seven miles from Vesuvius here. And Pozzuoli is seven miles west of us. Say the black opera must be within, what, ten miles of the volcano? That gives us half of the Burning Fields, all Naples, then Pompeii, and all the way to Sorrento, Salerno, and the Amalfi coast.”

Conrad bit down on his frustration. “The black opera they sang in 1816 needed to be close to Tambora. Assume that it has to be somewhere large, for the audience they'll need… And
that's
assuming they need more of an audience than they did for 1816, which was no more than the crew of a boat!” He paused. “How many private palazzos would be suitable?”

King Ferdinand smiled crookedly. “Given that they
could
be rehearsing anywhere in Europe and bringing their singers here at the last moment? Dozens. Hundreds. Even here, if you add up which of the nobility are rich enough to own a palazzo that would put Tiberius to shame, and then might also belong to the Prince's Men…
and
who must be questioned with kid gloves on, because their business affairs are not completely respectable… My spies and officials have been searching, but even the King's name doesn't open every door.”

Conrad looked levelly at the King.

He didn't come here just to unload himself of his frustrations
.

Ferdinand stood, resting his hand down. Conrad felt the warmth of it heavy on his shoulder.

“Conrad, I don't wish to put still more of a burden on you… but I believe we need to face this.
L'Altezza azteca ossia il serpente pennuto
must be as excellent as fallible human beings can achieve, because—unless something miraculous happens within the next two weeks—the black opera will go forward. The
only
defence we have against it will be our counter-opera.”

M
arch opened with fine weather but Conrad didn't see it. The cast members of
L'Altezza
besieged him with so many requests and suggestions that he spent more time writing underground than in the secret museum. It was impossible not to feel homesick for the tall buildings and narrow streets of Naples above; for the spring sun shining on worn and peeling orange-red plaster, and women leaning on the black-painted rails of their balconies to speak with their neighbours, gossip curtained off by rows of flapping washing.

Roberto Capiraso co-opted Spinelli's forte-piano and did most of his own work down in the ancient mines, since he also was much in demand.

Conrad missed climbing the rickety outer wooden stairs to Sandrine's lodgings, for rehearsals—or to the wooden-railed flat roof above Spinelli's apartment, where they could sit with bread and onions and wine, the Gulf of Naples spread out to their view. In the tunnels, nothing changed. The light came only from oil lamps.

But the whole underground complex was full of echoing sound. And from time to time he would look up and catch distant sight of Leonora.

Roberto did not speak to him unless Leonora was absent. Leonora stayed with the singers—displaying an iron will in rehearsals. Conrad Scalese might as well have been transparent air.

Work was his only palliative.

“Act Three, Hymn to the Sun!” Paolo's summoning of the chorus rang through the chamber. Conrad distinguished her touch on the violin, as strings and woodwind came in, in accompaniment.

He leaned back in his chair—one at the table set up in the main hall—and scribbled two more lines, adjusted a word, crossed one line out, and then scribbled over the other.

“Conrad…” Roberto Capiraso sat down in a nearby chair, a sheaf of papers in his hand. He absently signalled one of the servants for wine. “Some revision's needed for the end of Act Two.”

“Act
Two?
I thought we had that sewn up!”

“Much of it.” Roberto sounded civil enough. “The charming
L'Altezza
Sandrine herself is pleased with her aria of unwilling love—her duet with Cortez—
her duet with the Jaguar General—and the ‘jealousy trio' between all three that leads into the end of that scene. The High Priest's invocation of vengeance is fine. Although if you're having Lorenzo murdered at the end of Act Two, we may have to move that back.”

Conrad nodded. He found himself pouring wine, since it was unlikely il Superbo would lower himself. “And so?”

“Tell me where we stand for the end of Act Two.”

Conrad searched his heaps of paper, and found his notes on the back of a sheet. “Here we are. Act One, the first love triangle: Cortez and General Chimalli both love the Aztec Princess. Act Two, we introduce the second love triangle: Hippolyta the Amazon slave-girl and Aztec Princess Tayanna both love Cortez. The surprise reveal for the end of the act—the slave-girl has had a
child
by Cortez. Cat among pigeons, shock and horror from the chorus, Fernando Cortez astonished, the Jaguar General triumphant,
L'Altezza
herself furious, exits the stage; all ends in confusion!”

The Conte di Argente sipped at his wine, looking as if he concealed amusement.

Conrad added, “We may have to placate the censor and make the slave-girl Hippolyta into Cortez's native wife. Is there any problem with that?”

“Not with the staging.” Roberto gazed off in absently the direction of the chorus rehearsal. “An older child, though, not a baby! Any child is bad enough—although a member of the chorus or orchestra will likely have a six or seven year old we can train to be led around stage by his Amazon mother—but can you imagine Signore Velluti holding a baby while wearing any of his usual white costumes?”

Conrad couldn't help laughing. “I can imagine the disaster if he does!”

“Quite…” The Conte di Argente looked at his glass, as if surprised to find it empty. “We do have some difficulties with the
prima donna
and
seconda donna
. Madame Sandrine feels the ‘slave-girl secondary plot' in Act Two is in danger of swamping the true romantic heart of the opera—by which she means Cortez, Chimalli, and Tayanna—and Madame Estella doesn't appear to think her role falls into the category of ‘secondary plot.'”

“Che stronzo!”
Conrad divided the last of the bottle between their two glasses. “All right, I'll talk to them—or Paolo will.”

“And may I point out, I have yet to compose anything for our contract singer from the San Carlo? I hear Donna Lorenzani is due back from South Africa shortly.”

Roberto Capiraso's expression held considerable
schadenfreude
, but also a degree of unmalicious amusement.

“If all else fails, she can have a role as a junior Priestess—” Conrad glanced up,
aware that the chorus's voices had ceased at some point while they were debating. Paolo and Lorenzo Bonfigli came to the table.