The Black Opera Page 14

  “The Law disagrees with you!”

  “Fuck the Law, forwards and backwards!”

  “SSSSSHH!”

  All four of the remaining scholars were glaring when Conrad looked around. He swept his notes up and crammed them into his pockets, and strode to the far, deserted end of the library, sinking into a wing-backed chair there. It did him no good: Alfredo Scalese’s ghost glided effortlessly beside him.

  Conrad couldn’t help a low snarl. “There speaks the man who changed his name to avoid his debts! Not that it worked. They still pursued us all round Europe.”

  Alfredo’s gliding figure shrugged. “I only changed to an Italian name to get a foothold in the opera business. Many men have done it! Look at Johann Simon—beg pardon, Giovanni Simone—Mayr…”

  About to cite everything of Mayr’s early bel canto from Ginevra di Scozia to La Rosa Bianca e La Rosa Rossa, set against his father’s lack of any produced opera in his lifetime or after it, Conrad fell into an ambiguous silence.

  True, Alfredo Scalese ended up in debt and couldn’t support a family and died in early middle age, but he could at least compose functional court music, and his son never has…

  The court dances never brought forth any miracles, either, but Alfredo had the ambition to try writing music for opera. Conrad felt again the suspicion that being a librettist meant he had turned out a disappointment to his father.

  “…And why not welsh on the rest of my debts—especially those owed to respectable businessmen?” Alfredo cut short his attempts to jolly Conrad into unreliability. “Only tell me… why should my son be wasting his life away in unhappiness, over something as unimportant as money? I promise you, after you die, nothing counts for less.”

  It might be the more-than-mortal vision of spectres that allowed Alfredo to perceive his moods, Conrad thought. Or, despite his comparatively early death, Alfredo might just know his son that well.

  “I have a chance to succeed in my ambitions,” Conrad said quietly, standing and concentrating on the small shelf of books above a solid desk. Some men can’t see ghosts; better not to be seen talking to myself. “I’m composing another libretto. For the early summer season, perhaps.”

  There was nothing else he was free to say, even to a spectre. He thought it unlikely Alfredo was able to gossip to other ghosts, but a promise of silence is a promise.

  “And you need help with a libretto?” Alfredo drifted close enough to survey the books Conrad was taking down at random from the shelf—large travel books and atlases for the most part. He intersected Conrad’s arm, and was chill as the wind that sent clouds trailing rain across the Bay.

  “Myself, I had once considered a rewrite of The Vestal Virgin, but everyone and their mule produces a version of that!—illicit lovers condemned for letting the Vestal flame go out, it’s so tempting—” Alfredo checked, and snorted. “Then again, Venus shows her forgiveness by lighting the altar-fire again with a lightning-bolt. I should suppose you’ve had enough of lightning!”

  Conrad winced.

  “I’m sorry, Father.” He deftly avoided a move by the spectre to hook a transparent arm through his. “I have to work.”

  There were a dozen books he would like to have taken home from the library, but only for interest’s sake. None gave him an idea.

  A gentle, non-spectral cough drew his attention.

  Conrad looked up to see Luigi Esposito removing his hat, and smoothing back his hair.

  “Intercepted a complaint,” the police captain said.

  Alfredo Scalese clapped spectral hands. “At last! What has my son been up to?”

  “A complaint about you,” Luigi said, with far less good humour than Conrad had seen him display in a long time. “You disreputable old ruffian.”

  The local police chief prodded in Alfredo’s direction with a dusty forefinger, and, despite incorporeality, Alfredo drifted back a yard or so.

  “If you were alive, I’d have you in debtor’s prison so fast you couldn’t blink!” Luigi shot Conrad a shame-faced look. “I know he’s your father. I just wish he was here to pay for his own sins.”

  I just wish he was here, Conrad surprised himself by thinking. He didn’t voice it, for fear both of seeming weak, and of giving his not-mortal sire ammunition for a later date. Yes, I know what he’s like, but he was my father.

  Luigi, constrained by no such past emotions, said, “Begone, before I fetch an exorcist!”

  A spatter of applause came from the occupants of the King’s library as Alfredo Scalese drifted off through one wall.

  Captain Esposito elegantly perched himself on the desk, pulling out books at random from the shelves and flicking through them, ignoring the dust on his white gloves. “I’ve had occasion to rebuke you for your father in the past. And I dare say I will in the future—the older generation are quite disgraceful in their morals… Not your fault, of course…”

  “I’m glad you realise that—” Conrad, re-shelving books as fast as they escaped Luigi’s butterfly-interest, stopped as one fell open between his and the police chief’s hands.

  He set the large book down on the library table, open at one of a series of full page engravings.

  Massive jungle terraces rose to a sky full of brilliant birds… Ancient cities crowded with soldiers in feathered head-dresses, carrying obsidian swords… Stark step-pyramids stood out against a dawn or sunset sky. Dark serpentine ferns edged impenetrable jungle, and Conrad saw Cortez upon the shores of the Americas, and a volcano new to an Italian audience, because it rises threateningly above an Aztec civilisation—

  Conrad exclaimed in satisfaction. “Got it!”

  The last engraving was a close-up. The top of a terrifyingly steep step-pyramid, with a bloody altar on the summit. Dead warriors in jaguar furs sprawled on the steps. A woman in nothing but diaphanous white robes and a crown was tied screaming to the altar. A priest in a man-bird mask raised a stone dagger over her heart. In the foreground, their obvious wounds bleeding, two men duelled, one evidently a native and one a European.

  The caption below read The sacrifice of the Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl.

  Luigi Esposito had finished dusting off his gloves, or given it up as a bad job, and read while leaning over Conrad’s shoulder. “Try rhyming that in a verse!”

  Conrad ignored him, staring down at the black and white image.

  “Wonderful!” Conrad closed the book, as soon as he had it memorised. “A tragic romantic triangle between the Aztec Queen, an explorer—Fernando Cortez, maybe?—and one of her subjects… her chief General or War-lord, I think…”

  “And both of them too busy fighting each other to notice she’s being slaughtered by the Wicked Priest?”

  Conrad snickered and caught himself. “You wait. You’ll take this seriously when it’s the climax of Act IV.”

  “Oh, Act II, wouldn’t you say?” Luigi beamed. “I’m sure there’s a lot of story to go after that fraças. Shame there isn’t an Aztec police chief there to put the lot of them in jail.”

  “Including the blood-thirsty priest? Don’t tempt me.” Conrad closed the book and tucked it under his arm, since there was just room. He nursed the indescribable satisfaction that comes with the emergence of the seed of an idea. “Not sure if this is seria or semi-seria.”

  Instinct told him that the black opera itself would be tragedy. In some ways, it’s easier to arouse acute emotion when the ending is tragic.

  But that doesn’t mean something with comedic or joyous elements wouldn’t work just as well to counter it. There are different acute emotions for the lieto fine.

  Conrad added, aloud, “I doubt the censor will let me kill a Queen on-stage, even if she is a foreigner. So I may defy the current trends and manage a happy ending.”

  “Really, those are so unfashionable since the censors started allowing us tragic dénouements…” Luigi smirked.

  “And I’ve never seen you cheering when the boy gets the girl…”

  “Absolutely n
ot. Giulietta e Romeo or nothing!”

  That was more usually a case of the girl getting the girl, the heroine being sung by a soprano, and the hero by a contralto or mezzo, but Conrad didn’t point that out to Luigi.

  The police captain put his hat back on, dusted himself down, and walked out of the library at Conrad’s side. Conrad caught his sideways look, that held disguised but deep curiosity. Luigi Esposito said nothing. In the palace corridor, he checked his direction, glanced back at Conrad, and remarked, “Chess, Thursday?”

  “Of course.”

  The police captain sketched a salute, and sauntered off.

  Major Mantenucci won’t have seen any reason to brief him, Conrad realised. Maybe he can be brought in under the pretext that we face organised crime? Or as part of the protection for the Teatro San Carlo?

  Because I miss our challenging discussions. And this isn’t the first time he’s been of use for ideas for a libretto…

  Most of a sleepless night was spent reading the book of South American history and making note of potential emotional situations. Lost in the beginnings of the words the men and women peopling the story might speak, he walked down to the Palace the following morning, as early as he thought he might find the small library open.

  He was intercepted by one of the footmen.

  “The King wishes to see you.” The man’s casual contempt was accompanied by a lack of any salutation, even plain signore.

  Gossip gets around. They already know that there won’t be a gratuity with Signore Scalese, lackey of the King’s Master of Music, so why bother with him?

  Conrad felt hot around the ears.

  I really will have to have words with King Ferdinand. I can’t blame him for not understanding that I need a salary in advance, or that paying off my father’s debts mean I have no more than enough to eat and drink—

  “Conrad!”

  Ferdinand’s voice broke cheerfully in on his thoughts, calling him from beyond an open door. He waved a dismissive hand at Conrad’s attempt at a bow (this time without shackles).

  “Never mind all that—I have our composer!”

  CHAPTER 12

  The King sounded both briskly excited and content. “I didn’t want you to further waste your time writing to lesser-known composers who’ve already refused—I swear I’ve been in contact with every composer who’s ever written for the opera houses, down to the Ricci brothers—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the Riccis’ music!” Conrad, indignant on their behalf, remembered to add, “Sir.”

  “Oh, certainly not. But there are rumours that Signore Federico and Signore Luigi recently married twin sisters—” The Ricci being twin brothers themselves. “—And scandal says it’s quite definitely a marriage of four. Whether that’s true or not, we can’t currently afford the attention.”

  “They could have written under a false name,” Conrad muttered, but he was almost certain the Riccis had mentioned a run booked in St Petersburg, last time he saw them. Ferdinand was already striding through the anteroom towards the next ones, visible beyond a series of doors.

  “I have a composer, Conrad! Come with me.”

  Conrad exerted his stride to be half a pace behind the King. “If all the professional composers of Italy won’t do this, sir, who could you ask?”

  Has he found some amazing new discovery, fresh from a Conservatoire? Or—more likely it’s a foreigner with a deft hand at Italian opera, a Handel or a Mozart?

  Even Kings are not above looking pleased with themselves, Conrad discovered as Ferdinand glanced back.

  “Once I looked away from the opera houses, it was obvious! I’ve found you a very-well-thought-of drawing-room composer.”

  Conrad halted for a moment as if the breath had been knocked out of his stomach.

  He tried to cover it up by making it look like a stumble.

  Ferdinand chuckled.

  “Don’t be so prejudiced, Conrad! There’s been some remarkably good music produced by the composers of drawing-room operas.”

  I really shouldn’t have said that to Isaura. It’s enough to make a man believe in cosmic justice.

  “A drawing-room ‘opera’ runs an hour, if that!” Conrad huffed out, not quite daring to catch the King’s elbow to stop him. “Not the two-and-a-half or three hours that a professional production runs in an opera house! And they need only be good enough to please amiable fathers, uncles, mothers, cousins, guests! They don’t need to stand the test of an audience liable to hurl down benches from the upper galleries—”

  From the wince, Ferdinand had heard of that notorious occasion.

  “—Or launch a barrage of cod’s-heads at some unfortunate baritone!”

  Conrad noted belatedly that a bearded man, seemingly in his mid-thirties, stood in the open doors of an audience chamber. Narrowed dark eyes stared at Conrad.

  He obviously heard every word—

  The man remarked, “I suppose, then, I must be sure to compose something unlikely to provoke fish.”

  Conrad bit back the oh shite that seemed the only possible comment.

  Ferdinand swept in past the footman who had automatically thrown the final door open at the King’s approach, leaving Conrad to follow him in.

  “Roberto!” The King of the Two Sicilies raised his voice in a determined cheerful greeting. “As I promised—a librettist for you!”

  Conrad halted not far inside the doors, which closed behind him with a decisive click. Rich carpets and gilded furniture made little impression.

  Ferdinand shook the other man’s hand, and added, with pointed civility, “Conrad Scalese wrote the script that brought lightning down on the Teatro Nuovo. Conrad, meet Roberto Capiraso, Conte di Argente.”

  The dark-haired man was dressed well enough to be a nobleman. He stiffly held out his hand. Conrad shook it.

  “Corrado Scalese,” he said, as he habitually did in Naples; his mind racing to somehow salvage the situation.

  But—I know you! If only by sight and reputation.

  “You’re on the San Carlo opera board, aren’t you, Signore Count?” Conrad hazarded, in a conciliatory tone.

  Something of the stiffness went out of the Conte di Argente’s spine. Roberto Capiraso nodded, looking as if—were he not Neapolitan nobility—he would have allowed himself to seem pleased at the recognition. “For many years now. I inherited my brother Ugo’s box at the San Carlo, and his position on the board.”

  One dark brow went up.

  “I regret I don’t recall any professional dealings we may have had with you, Signore Scalese.”

  The tone was still unashamedly snobbish, but this time not malicious.

  “No. So far I’ve been involved with the smaller houses here.”

  Every town in Italy has its opera board, in charge of matters pertaining to the local opera house—renting and owning boxes, contributing money, arguing every tedious detail when it comes to deciding what impresario to hire for which season. In Conrad’s experience, every nobleman who sits on a town’s opera board—and thus makes himself responsible for keeping the opera house up, usually mostly with what proceeds they can wheedle out of the gambling concessions—turns into a petty-minded, obstructive, nit-picking bureaucrat, however genuine their love of the art may have been. Roberto Capiraso, though…

  Conrad suppressed a grin—and the next comment that his uninhibited mind had been about to blurt out.

  You’re the one Sandrine calls “Il Superbo”!

  If Sandrine Furino had indeed begun it, it had caught on generally. Conrad wondered if it had reached the Count himself yet. Conrad first heard it when Sandrine was singing the title role in Il cavaliere d’Eon, the Chevalier d’Eon’s life-story. It was an opera much bedevilled by the Board continually wishing to alter everything, including the (vital) terms on which the impresario controlled the opera house foyer gambling concessions.

  “Superbo!” Sandrine had commented—she was costumed as a cross-dressing French nobleman, for a reh
earsal that the board had decided to oversee, and object to, in minute detail. She sat down with a flounce.

  Since at that point Conrad was only back from Bavaria a week and still thinking in German, the mezzo further translated:

  “‘The Proud Man,’ or ‘the Haughty Man.’—But in his case, I prefer to translate it freely as ‘the Arrogant Son of a Bitch’!”

  Count Roberto was likely no more than a handful of years older than Conrad himself: perhaps five-and-thirty. He looked more. Part of that was his close-cropped pointed beard—Unfashionable! Conrad thought smugly, and then wondered how he came so low as to be taking note of fashion. I doubt the Conte di Argente worries that clean-shaven chins are required of gentlemen. He looks as if he never does what’s required.

  He also looked intimidating, Conrad recognised irritably. That came from his broad long body, and his square-on stance. No slim model of fashion, certainly, but his body spoke of utter assurance.

  Ferdinand stepped across the line of sight between Conrad and the Count, and Conrad felt the interruption as if it were a physical snap.

  “The Count is a recognised composer of one-act pieces.” Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily signalled for drinks, ignoring the deft palace servants as if they weren’t there. “And I know that he won’t mind me saying that, while his family is noble, he handles a great deal of banking business. Gentlemen, shall we sit down?”

  Conrad took a glass from the tray offered by a servant, and seated himself on a solidly-comfortable sofa.

  I can read the undertones as well as the next man—the King’s smart to pick a man financially powerful enough that even the Prince’s Men will hesitate to challenge him.

  Compelled to further social conversation, Conrad added, “I didn’t know you composed music, Count.”

  “No reason you should.”

  In another man’s voice, it might have suggested modesty. In the Conte di Argente’s tone, faintly emphasising the pronoun, it invited Conrad to consider himself so far beneath the social circle of the Count’s drawing-room operas that even the echoes wouldn’t reach down to him.