Death and the Chaste Apprentice (6 page)

The story concerned a crucial moment in Scottish history, which it travestied. It was said by one Italian commentator to have “
origine walterscottiana
,” a suitably vague description which obviated the need to ransack the works of the great unread Walter. The noble and patriotic Adelaide is unfortunate enough to be married to the skulking Adalberto, who supports the English tyrant Edgardo,
who is busy suppressing the noble Scots. Adelaide is in love with the true Scottish king Roberto il Bruce, who is in hiding from the ravaging English armies. When he comes to
il castello di Birckenhead
in disguise, seeking succor, he presents her with a crisis of conscience which she solves spectacularly in the last act by hacking off her husband's head, then stabbing herself at the climax of a thrilling cabaletta. The stalwart clansmen of Birckenhead, typically willing to change sides at the drop of a coin, acclaim Roberto as their king.

The American tenor Krister Kroll stood at the Romanesque doorway at the very back of the stage, decked in furs left over from
Attila
(“proving that even Verdi nodded”—
The Observer)
in 1978 and tartan bought in bulk from the local Pricewise chain of discount stores. He was the only one in costume, because he said it was the sort of costume you needed to get the feel of. He was in the mold of so many American tenors: stalwart, clean limbed, and rather small of voice. He had appeared, pleasantly, in Rossini's
Torvaldo e Dorliska
(“a stillborn curiosity”—
The Observer)
the year before. As he stood, dramatically, at the doorway, first Adelaide whispered her apprehensions at the sight of her lover, then her husband expressed his suspicions at the sight (in furs and tartan) of the handsome stranger. And then Krister Kroll launched himself into the great tune:

Io son pari ad uom cui scende

Già la scure sulla testa . . .

Even to Peter, sitting in the wings, it was an anticlimax: It was like being handed lemonade when you had expected champagne. He saw the festival director mask an expression of dismay; he seemed to be wondering what sound, if any, would penetrate to the gods.

Gunter Gottlieb, with an impatient gesture, stopped the
orchestra. Silently, pregnantly, he pointed with his baton to the center front of the stage. Krister Kroll looked uncertainly from Gottlieb to Terry Potts, the producer, in the stalls. Terry was already jumping out of his seat in agitation.

“But, Gunter, you can't have him there. He's just arrived, and he's apprehensive and agitated, uncertain of his reception. He can't just barge his way right to the center of things.”

Natalya seemed to agree with him. She was expostulating violently in Russian against the improbability of the thing, which Peter was just about, somewhat nervously, to translate when he saw that Brad Mallory, with Singh in tow, had come on to the stage and Brad was expostulating with her and calming her. He seemed to be able to do it without benefit of common language, but that was doubtless a necessary talent of agents.

None of which cut any ice at all with Gunter Gottlieb. He pointed icily once more to center stage. Nervously, Krister Kroll moved forward.

“Now again from the soprano.”

The annoying thing was that the man was undoubtedly right. You couldn't have the opera's one big moment, comparable with the Sextet from
Lucia,
go by default because the tenor couldn't be heard. Now Kroll rang out sweet and true, lacking only that dash of kingly swagger and animal excitement that the part seemed to demand. In a conflict between what made musical sense and what made dramatic sense, the music had to win. And yet, and yet . . .

“Now,” said Gottlieb, stopping the orchestra at the end of the number and gesturing to the producer as if he were a dog he was sending to retrieve a partridge, “now you rearrange the staging.”

And with a sigh the poor man, knowing when he was beaten, did just that.

“All right, if we must, we must. Yes, I know it's improbable, Natalya. I agree with you, darling. But you'll have to go
there,
center left, and . . .”

“I know how he feels, poor bastard” came a voice behind Peter's shoulders. He turned and was astonished to see the figure of Des Capper arriving in the wings. His eyes gleamed brightly with malice as he contemplated the scene. “Been a bit of a brouhaha, has there? Looks like it.”

Peter, for some reason that he could not analyze, did not want to swap derogatory opinions of a fellow artist with Des Capper. Gottlieb was a bastard, but a brilliant bastard. He merely said: “They're just having to rearrange the positions a bit.”

“Looks like there's been a good old-fashioned blowup to
me.
I know the signs. That swine has got the light of battle in his eyes. I know just how that producer must feel.”

“Oh, yes?”

“
Just
how he feels. I've felt his nasty tongue myself. He's got no thought for the feelings of others. I'm sensitive. I don't like being spoken to like I was dirt.”

Peter did not comment on Des's sensitivity. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Oh, I'm committee. Ex-officio as landlord of the Saracen. I've a right to go anywhere—” He suddenly caught sight of Singh, still onstage with Brad Mallory. “My! I see they had Indians in Birckenhead even then. Running the corner shops, I suppose.”

Peter turned away with a grimace of distaste and didn't bother to correct him. He wondered about Des's right to go anywhere. It wasn't a right that any other member of the committee seemed to exercise. Peter turned back to the stage. Gunter Gottlieb, on the podium, was softly tapping his baton on the score. His expression suggested that he was long-suffering but had been pushed near the limits of even his saintly endurance.

“
Now
,” he said when Terry Potts paused for breath, “is all clear? We go from there to the end of scene.”

It was only ten minutes of music, but it seemed endless to Peter. The ensemble developed into a big scene of suspicion and suppressed fears, with every character generously sharing his innermost feelings with the audience. The problems of balance were acute, not least because of Krister Kroll's sweet but small tenor, which was swamped by the larger voices around him. Again and again Gottlieb stopped the music, reorganized the singers, hushed the orchestra, subjected Krister Kroll to heavy, biting irony, lashed the other singers, and ridiculed members of his orchestra. Even Peter felt himself sweating with tension. It was at the height of the unpleasant session, when the frayed tempers of singers and players were beginning to conquer their fear of Gottlieb and find open expression, that Peter from the wings saw Gottlieb's “heavy” sitting in the front row of the stalls, a slow, relishing smile on his face. He might not like music, but he certainly did appreciate aggro.

At long, long last Gottlieb called a break, and the tension dissolved. Peter's immediate visual impression was one of sweat. The orchestral musicians, jostling their way out through the door at the back of the pit, were shining with it, and one of the younger men seemed close to tears. The chorus members were bathed in it and wiping their foreheads, and the principals were drenched and close to the breaking point. Backstage everything became a jumble as singers and players made for the Green Room in search of cold drinks or chocolate to revive their strength. Peter was conscious of the Mexican baritone standing by a wall, clenching and unclenching his fists and muttering furiously to himself in the manner of operatic baritones. He was conscious in a far corner of the room of Krister Kroll being collared by Des Capper. Des had been in the Green
Room when they arrived, making himself at home and waiting for a victim. The chain-saw voice cut through to Peter:

“You know, physiologically speaking there's no such thing as a small or a large voice. It's all a question of the diaphragm and the way you use it. If you'll take a tip from me . . .”

The American seemed to be a supernaturally nice person, for he was showing only small nervous signs of wanting to get away. Then Natalya Radilova arrived from the stage, and Peter darted away and took her aside.

“The message came through for you,” he said in Russian. “It was ‘Best wishes for rehearsals and the first night.' ”

Natalya smiled, a smile apparently out of all proportion to the banality of the message. She squeezed Peter's hand, and they found themselves a private corner of the Green Room.

Once the chaos there had sorted itself out into groups, Peter and Natalya found themselves joined by Krister Kroll, still wiping the sweat from his open, engaging face.

“Who is that
creep
who got hold of me?” he demanded. “That schmuck? That smart-ass? I have never
heard
such crap as that guy was spouting.”

“It's the landlord of the Saracen,” said Peter. “A loathsome Australian by the name of Capper.”

“I've known plenty of Australian singers,” said Kroll, “and they've mostly been great people. But this, this—”

“It's not the nationality, it's the type. As with Gottlieb. Keep away from Capper. He's poison.”

“Boy, am I glad I rented an apartment. I nearly went to the Saracen this time, to treat myself. But to have that creep giving me advice about breathing all day would—”

But he stopped, because heads were turning in the direction of the door, and conversation was stilling so that
people could hear what was going on there. Gunter Gottlieb, alone of the performers, did not require sustenance or refreshment. His heavy had procured a soft drink for himself and was standing massively behind Gottlieb, doubtless to prevent a stab in the back. But Gottlieb had captured a prize: the director of the festival, who had been sitting in on the rehearsal after checking receipts at the box office. He had been hauled to the Green Room by Gottlieb with an end in view.

“Next year,” said Gottlieb in his unattractive clipped tones, “we do
Fidelio.
People are waiting for my
Fidelio
.”

“It's an idea,” said the director in a practiced neutral voice. He was a local man, but one with long experience in arts administration. “Though of course we have tended to stick with the Italians. But next year's already tied up. We're doing
La Straniera
.”

“I change my mind,” said Gottlieb, putting aside
La Straniera
with a contemptuous sweep of the hand. “We do
Fidelio
.”

“My dear chap, it's not on. Even if the committee were to agree—which I wouldn't bank on—it's still not on. You don't seem to understand the operatic world. All the worthwhile singers are booked up years in advance. All the principals for
Straniera
have been engaged. They'd hardly be suitable for
Fidelio
.”

“I have my cast here,” said Gottlieb, drawing a sheet of paper out of his pocket. “With alternatives if my first choices are not available. It is clear, yes? If you can get neither of them, you come back to me. Understood?”

“No, I'm sorry, old chap, it is not understood. There's no question of our upsetting our existing arrangements—”

It was at this point that Des bustled up.

“I wonder if I could mediate. As a member of the festival committee I think we ought to try to come to some compro—”

Gunter Gottlieb turned on him with a savage fury and pointed to the door.

“Out! Out! Out!” he bellowed. “I do not take advice from taverners! Get out and do not come near this theater ever again, is understood? You come near one of my rehearsals ever again and I have you removed, thrown out on your fat bottom. Is understood?”

Des had retreated three steps. When the heavy advanced from behind Gottlieb's back, he spluttered back any riposte and turned to slink out.

“No offense,” he was heard to mutter.

Gunter Gottlieb turned back to the festival director, iciness reasserting itself.

“Is all your committee fools? They must learn to know their place. Now, as to
Fidelio,
I have a designer in mind . . .”

“Oh, my God,” said Peter, pushing back his chair. “This bear garden makes life with Jason Thark seem a haven of rest. I must be getting back to the Saracen.”

“Peter,” wailed Natalya in Russian, “you're forsaking me. I have that dreadful finale to get through.”

“Sorry, love. Duty calls. I was only given till four. They'll probably all be crying out for some fresh and engaging humor from Peter Patterwit. . . .”

But they weren't, and he spent most of the rest of the afternoon and early evening lounging around, not unhappy to have escaped from the Alhambra. Gunter Gottlieb's plans for the festival were inevitably the topic of conversation in the Shakespeare Bar that evening. Gillian and Peter went out and bought a Chinese takeaway, enduring with sweet smiles the murderous glances from Des as they marched through Reception with the little cardboard boxes. Des, understandably, was looking murderous all evening. When they had eaten their fill in Gillian's room, they went down to the Shakespeare and found Natalya,
Ronnie Wimsett, and Krister Kroll at a table together. The last named kept looking round nervously for routes of escape should Des feel impelled to come over and offer further advice on what he should do with his diaphragm. Gillian and Peter joined them, and soon they were well at it.

“It would change the whole character of the festival,” Ronnie Wimsett said when he was told of Gottlieb's demands. He was a serious-minded, private young man, but he had come to feel passionately about the festival, to appropriate it in some way as a part of himself, as Gillian had. “The two things go together—Jacobean drama and nineteenth-century Italian opera. People like the music critic of the
Observer
sneer because it's not ear-wrenching stuff, but in fact it's wonderfully direct and passionate, really theatrical. And it's what people expect of Ketterick, what gives it its character. Give Gottlieb his way and it'll become just like any other festival. We'll be doing
The Marriage of Figaro
and
Pallyarse and Smellyhands,
and they'll be
his Figaro
and
his Pallyarse.
When that happens, we'll be just like any other festival. The next thing will be, he'll start dictating what plays are done, to tie in with
his
opera of the year.”