We were in the prelude to the most beautiful opera among all the operas, the largest. That deep and melancholic prelude, so full of cosmic energy that death and life become the same thing. The music of the prelude seems to push us towards a fatal end and that is why we do not want to stop playing the violins, the cello, the oboes, or the delicate timpani, whose drumstick the performer has wrapped in a silk scarf so that his blows resemble heartbeats. The tension is growing towards the conclusion of the piece, which we intuit is already close, but that is not the case because the tension continues to increase and the end is coming, but it does not come.
The Royal Theater of Madrid seating area is complete, as well as the best boxes and much of the amphitheater. I am, was, in row four of the pairs, and I could see the wind to my right, and a part of the rope below, in the pit. The director let the last chord hang, enigmatic, in the air and then began to lower his arms to receive applause from the public. It was at that moment that the little man appeared in the middle of the hall, a small-looking being with glasses with dark glasses, who wore, despite being inside the room, a long worn raincoat, and a scarf. He clapped his hands to get the respectable's attention and exclaimed:
- Ladies and gentlemen! Attention! Listen!
People thought, we think, that we were facing a disturbed person. The ushers began to rush into the hallway quickly. The man in the raincoat gestured to stop them and exclaimed:
- Please, please listen! Theater exits are blocked from the outside! We're trapped! Going out is forbidden!
The ushers surrounded him. I had never seen such a large number of ushers, I did not know that the Royal Theater had so many, the truth, and that they would come with that speed in the presence of a madman in the middle of the room.
- Help! Help! - Begged the little man.
But the supplicant was silenced, drowned, by the strong arms of the theater employees. The ushers had been joined by the security service
Protests, imprecations and also laughter were heard. Some spectators stood up to watch what was happening. The little man had disappeared from view.
It soon became clear that the fact was true, that the large entrance doors to the hall were closed with no way to open. In addition, there was a terrifying fact: the lights and buildings of the Plaza de Oriente were off and a thick darkness surrounded the theater
It soon became clear that the fact was true, that the large entrance doors to the hall were closed with no way to open. In addition, there was a terrifying fact: the lights and buildings in Plaza de Oriente were off and thick darkness surrounded the theater. A wall of darkness and silence, as if everything had stopped outside. The absence of street sounds was ominous.
If you want me to tell you my opinion, I think the theater audience was more surprised than scared.
- No one tells us anything! Not a single information, it seems like a lie! This address is embarrassing!
The theater foyer was full and, from the railings on the upper floors, people, generally young, appeared more curious than restless.
- If there is not going to be a performance, they will give us our money back! - a boy shouted from the top of the amphitheater gallery.
Finally the mayor of the theater appeared — by the way, well-known to me — and said that the best thing was for the public to return to their seats to wait for news.
"Is the show going to resume while we wait?" Asked a lady next to me.
- Of course, of course! We have already called the fire department.
- Ah, the firemen, of course.
A regular from the theater, with whom I used to exchange operatic comments during intermissions, approached me. I could not remember his name, and he, very politely, pronounced it to avoid making me look bad:
- I'm Alfonso Alcalá, in case you don't remember.
- Hello, Alfonso.
The man was talkative:
- The situation is more serious than it seems, but they do not want to panic.
And added in his ear:
- There is a member of the Royal House in the main box. An Infanta.
He scratched his head without anything itching. In the public address in the lobby, the fanfare sounded and then a soft voice said: "Take your seats, the show is going to resume."
- It's a recording, that notice doesn't mean anything.
A little further I saw Margaret Armstrong's curly white head. Slender, serious, graceful, Maggie greeted me with a smile of circumstance. He lived in Spain since he left the address of a progressive newspaper in the South of the United States - in the South, yes - and here he was cured of cancer. She came back, came back, was born and here she was, locked up and alone, like me. A deep sadness entered me that I disguised with the most jovial of my greetings.
The curtain rose slowly on stage and the lights illuminated the set. But no singer came out, no music was heard.
Anyway, the audience applauded, out of habit, when the theater director appeared on the stage, serious and properly dressed in the dark, with a pearl gray tie. He was bald, with a shining bald, obscene.
He said the situation was exceptional, yes, but that the most important thing was to remain calm and trust the competent authority, from which instructions were expected.
Afterwards, he left the scene without further ado, hearing some whistles coming from high places.
A few minutes later, there was a denial of information about the content of which we had no news, but that those responsible were quick to deny even without telling us what it was about. That exacerbated nervousness and mistrust.
I looked up an acquaintance on the staff to ask him if he knew anything. But all those responsible for the Royal Theater had disappeared.
I tried to approach one of the side doors; people had formed groups and were arguing in the lobby and in the galleries. Doormen and security guards kept the iron gates from getting too close. They protected us from the invisible.
People tried to call on the mobile, but could not communicate with the outside. It was thought, we thought, that perhaps the network was collapsed, as it happens at the exit of a great sporting event. This time it was different, there was a ringtone, but no one answered. The sounds were lost in an unlimited and mute emptiness.
A wall of silence.
I went up to the first floor and used my VIP spectator card to enter one of the large rooms that opened onto Plaza de Oriente. The room was dim and nobody kept the windows. I tried to catch a glimpse of the outside by pushing aside the patterned curtains of heraldic birds and taps. But what was not seen was equally frightening: an enveloping blackness, like a veil of black lace.
I was alone in the living room and, as my eyes got used to the semi-darkness, I saw how an undulating body began to take shape. She — because it was she, the interrupted opera soprano — wore a gold lamé outfit covered by a long cape, the outfit she wore on stage. He was also looking out until he noticed me and smiled.
- Hello man.
I introduced myself:
- I am José López. It will no longer be remembered, but the mayor of the theater introduced us during the press conference. No, no, I am not a journalist, just an opera fan and admirer of you. And writer and friend of the mayor. It allowed me to be present at the press conference precisely because I wanted to meet her.
His hand emerged from between the folds of the cloak and he held it out to me.
He told me that he had escaped from the dressing room, despite being asked not to leave it, because he couldn't bear being locked up. And that now she was thinking of going back, but she was not sure of finding the way back.
Lise Danielsen finished some sentences with a sigh. His Latin Spanish had a deep tone, like a fjord from his native Norway.
Then he shrugged and said he was in no hurry to go back to the dressing room.
- I'm afraid there will be no representation tonight.
And added:
- Would you have a cigarette?
- I only smoke cigars.
- And do you have one?
I said yes, and she asked me to let her turn it on and give him one or two sucks. He bit the cigar and ripped off his mouthpiece.
- Strange situation, right? What do you think?
And before I answered, he added, as if quoting a phrase:
- Why desire things if you cannot have them? You see, I wanted to smoke and this situation allows me to do it. Is someone waiting for you down there?
I said no, that I had come alone to see her.
When we went out to the gallery we could see that almost everyone had rushed to find a place in front of the buffets and canapés. A queue of half an hour was saved for a glass of cava. Suddenly, an event occurred that excited the spirits more than the confinement itself, or perhaps it was a trigger. The lights in the hall faded sweetly, as if it were a stage effect. The electricity supply was gone and we were staying in darkness. People began to protest and scream. Then some started pushing others, and a brawl ensued. Those in the security service tried to put peace in the light of their flashlights. It was then that a few energums tried to take them away. It is not known who hit an old man, whom I knew from attending my own compost, and the old man rolled on the ground. The veteran hobbyist exclaimed “light! the light!" and he froze on the yellow marble on the floor. The disturbance was increasing. Those who tried to calm the most excited people received fists and insults, as if they were to blame for what was happening. Lise Danielsen and I were still in the upper gallery, where a young man was running somewhere with the flame of a lighter, which in that terrible darkness seemed like a wandering star in the sky.
Calm did not return until the theater's autonomous generators came on, and as sweetly as it went, the light returned. The light was dim and unsure, but sufficient. As they looked at each other, the maddened crowd calmed down and many looked down at the ground, ashamed of their outrageous behavior. Some still had others by the neck. Their manners were rearranged and the most frenzied tried to smooth their hair and clothing. But nothing was the same again. The smiles were forced and the looks, distrustful. The "please", "after you", "very kind", "thank you", multiplied without rhyme or reason. The old hobbyist had been removed from the ground and the body had disappeared.
For my part, I asked Lise Danielson if she needed anything. She smiled at me and said to stay with her, if she had nothing else to do. Lise has dark hair and complexion, and her eyes are yellow-green, glowing, and reminded me of the candy an old woman sold at a street stall in my neighborhood when I was a child.
- Lucky candy! Lucky candies! - proclaimed the old woman.
The Vergara ballroom, which was the old ballroom in former times and which was reserved as a VIP area in these days , was invaded by amphitheater spectators. No one thought to object to it.
We were squeezed together and Lise invited me to her dressing room.
- The theater management has sent me a bottle of wine. You drink? Yes? We can share it. Cheer up, man! I see you very serious. Are you like this or are you scared to death? What do you watch
- His eyes.
- Now, now, I have blonde eyes, but I'm a brunette.
- Lucky candy! Lucky candies!
The bottle was already mediated when I told Lise Danielsen that her voice had a very different sound when she spoke than when she sang.
- Because I sing with my heart.
- And when he talks, right?
- It depends, man.
Lise twisted and curled the curls of the blonde wig, placed on a stand, with which she covered her hair for her role in the opera. Then she combed the wig and stretched the curls. And start again.
- I've lived this before, my friend. Once, in Minsk, they sold more tickets than the capacity allowed and the function was suspended. I was going to sing the same opera that I had to sing here today, what a coincidence, right?
Lise pulled the blonde wig over her dark hair.
- Part of the frustrated spectators wanted to force the doors and the police intervened forming a barrier. But those who were already inside, because they stayed there, and threatened us with pistols to celebrate the function.
- And they did it? Did you sing
- Nerd. But we all stay inside, the spectators and the singers. Many hours.
Lise went on to tell things about her family and the two children she had in Oslo, studying. Then he described his country house, high up in a place called Ekeberg. And the sky over the fjord, with the zigzagging yellow and red stripes that can be seen at sunset. A sky that produces uneasiness and craving instead of calm and placidity.
I listened to her melodious voice as if I was hearing her sing, paying no attention to what she was saying but to the sound of the words. Meanwhile, he put on and took off the blonde hairpiece.
And so we go on, drinking and shaping time and the wig, if I may say so.
The theater management had provided Lise Danielsen's dressing room with a tray of chocolates, but nothing else to put in her mouth. Neither she nor I had tried the chocolates.
Lise sighed:
- No matter what happens and whatever is happening, I would very happily eat a good Iberian ham sandwich with its tomato and olive oil.
I offered to go out in search of food and Lise said that she didn't want to be alone in the dressing room, that both of us were better off.
We descended the main staircase, which was crowded with people sitting or curled up. The discussions and hectic conversations had been exchanged for whispering voices, in a taut, slimy mute. The group of people neither spoke nor remained mute, rather a continuous low noise was heard, with little meaning. Lise and I tried not to step on anyone and jumped over the murmuring bodies.
The light wavered, but it remained dim and dim like a candle flame in a dense atmosphere.
We found nothing to eat. The buffet was devastated.
Loudspeakers in the halls, lounges and corridors made themselves heard with their usual trumpet blast: the director summoned us to occupy our seats in five minutes, as if the show was about to begin. Everyone should attend an assembly to make decisions about the situation created - that's what they called what was happening. A friendly official approached Lise to beg her to return to her dressing room. The singers had a separate consultation.
The gloom of the hallway grew as the corridors progressed.
On the way to my chair, I found out about the situation that apparently everyone already knew about. An unknown and acronym-less militia had surrounded the theater.
- We are kidnapped.
But no one really knew what was out there.
The strangest thing was the silence of the whole world. As if everything that exists was subject to the same force.
I had a chill when the others already seemed to have gone from fear to anger, and from anger to looking for culprits, and then, being divided on guilt, returning to democratic and universal fear.
A familiar married couple stepped up next to me as we walked down the hall to Gate 6 of the seating area. She had been a minister in the previous government, and had always been very unfriendly. Now she seemed more loving and close. I confessed to them that I had not found out about the situation because I had been accompanying the soprano in her dressing room.
"A very pretty woman," said the ex-minister. "Well, to be a soprano."
In the same queue at the entrance, several acquaintances asked me if I knew something different from what everyone knew. I suppose they believed me very well related.
- I know nothing. Calm must be keeped.
My interlocutor responded angrily.
- Why the hell do you have to stay calm?
- I do not know, is what is usually said in these cases. But do what you want.
He grabbed me by the lapel of his jacket.
- You make fun of me!
They held it between several and I refrained from making further comments.
In the dim light I made out Maggie Armstrong standing in line. I approached her giving the occasional push.
- How are you? You know something?
Maggie was very pale. He grabbed me by the arm.
- This is real. It is not a Mexican surreal movie, nor a state of collective hypnosis.
My acquaintance from the theater, Alfonso Alcalá, intervened without anyone asking him anything. His gaze was a little lost, like I'd never seen him before. He was a formal person.
- The planet has fallen into a deep sleep. A lethargy in the winter of the world, which cleanses the blood and consolidates the memories. Everything that is out there is asleep, except us and those who stalk us in the dark ...
The tails of the tail separated me from Maggie, who had released my arm. He did not know whether to follow her or continue listening to Alfonso Alcalá and his strays.
Alfonso continued, very seriously:
- I know that you are very skeptical and that you will not believe what I am saying. And that you prefer to listen to that old trickster. Don't trust her.
Maggie motioned to me, or at least seemed to me to be gesturing for me to come closer. But I stopped seeing her, lost in the crowd.
The great hall was filling up, both the audience and boxes and balconies, while many heads appeared from the front of the amphitheater. The space was poorly lit, like the rest of the building, until suddenly the great gilt bronze lamp came on completely, its thousand light bulbs glowing at once. All eyes turned to the ceiling, blinking dazzled. The nymphs, goddesses, and winged horses stirred up there in the painted sky, as the audience erupted in grand applause. Sidelights illuminated the proscenium, the curtain lowered, and the gleaming bald spot of the theater director appeared. The entire staff surrounded him ; one of them was my friend the mayor, who had some papers in his hand.
The director was very clear in his approaches, anticipating that the resolutions that were made would be discussed by all those present — he was about to pronounce “from the public present”, but he corrected himself. You had to think, "he said in a deep voice," of an indefinite siege, desirably short, but not excluding that it would drag on. It could therefore be a brief isolation or, on the contrary, it could be long. He ran a handkerchief over his feverish skull and went on to say that no one knew what was out there, but that the nightmare would ever end and everything would be the same as before.
- As long as we do not reestablish communication with the outside, the theater management assumes all responsibility and becomes the only competent authority.
After listing a series of rules of elemental coexistence, he added that he was going to communicate good news to us:
- Ladies and gentlemen, we have food and music. Yes, that is a great advantage.
The musicians of the Real's orchestra and the singers who were going to perform that night were willing to collaborate and entertain the besieged. He regretted to say that the performance of opera would be postponed for a better occasion, because of its long duration and so that he would not have to interrupt it if something new happened. It would be sung to one voice, how lucky to have those wonderful voices for us. Regarding food, the theater was linked by a gallery to two gourmet stores on Felipe V and Carlos III streets. Exquisite viands and wines. Of course, to last, consumption would have to be limited. There were many frozen dishes, cooked by the best chefs. Fish, seafood and meat, along with excellent preserves. The wines, beers and spirits lived up to all of the above, how could it be otherwise.
- Art and gastronomy, distinguished pu… dear, friends.
My friend the mayor read a fantastic list of products on the papers in his hand and then there was a turn for words.
There were quite a few interventions, more orderly than such a large audience would fear. At some point it seemed like the meeting would be very long, but as soon as it was said that the first turn of dinner delivery was ready in the foyer , in the Vergara room and in the Goya room, the session was closed with a surprising agreement taken in the last moment.
I told Lise Danielson on my return to the dressing room.
- When everyone had already resigned themselves to rationing food, a couple, a boy and a girl, who looked like they had come out of a fashion magazine, were blond, graceful, almost winged. Yes, that's what I mean, they were very handsome, simply. They are from the ballet corps of the theater, perhaps you have ever worked with them. In this opera they had no participation, so they were among the public. And they believed for free. They defended that it was better to eat, drink and listen to music without tax; that the time of confinement had to pass with joy and that later it would be seen what resolution was taken ... I do not know if the proposal had triumphed or not, but at that moment a somewhat curved man with small eyes goes up and stands up. , and that he was wrinkling his brow as a gesture of an actor without resources, with a professorial speech, reluctant ... Yes, I know, I know, my friend, that one should not mock physical defects, I do not mock, but ... Voucher. The man that argued against the two dancers, calling them frivolous and almost heartless. His intervention had the virtue of putting everyone against what he said, and incidentally against the first proposal, that of rationing. Well, that's what I'm telling you, that they voted in favor of the handsome guys' proposal. What do you want me to tell you, beauty is an irrefutable value, which does not need a foundation. So, How? And who says it was the right thing?
Lise gave a musical sigh.
- For how long is there food?
- There has been no time to make an evaluation.
Then I thought I should tell him what I knew:
- My friend the mayor has given me an estimate.
Lise got up; her wavy hair glowed darkly in the dressing room.
- Three days - I said - There are three days.
He took my hand and I squeezed it. It was like a pact to go a short way together.
We heard booms coming from somewhere in the theater. Two or three in a row, and then several more at intervals, as if it were an exchange of fire. We listened carefully: it was the corks from the champagne bottles jumping happily. We left the dressing room into the rarefied air of the theater.
A smell of stew was spreading between the red stucco walls, from which hung portraits of great singers and royals. The Vergara and Goya rooms were open to anyone who wanted and served as a large buffet. The rugs tempered the sound of plates, silverware, and conversations. In the Blue Room he was smoking. Someone protested and received as a reply that for what they had left of their lives, it would not do them much harm to their health. There were toasts and also some cheers. Someone exclaimed:
- Long live the mother who bore us! - and was chanted by others.
The Real's orchestra began to play somewhere on the second floor, outside the large hall, and everyone was silent, listening to the sweet lament of the melody. Music without contours or defined limits, an inexhaustible sound in which passion has its best expression without naming it. Some chords that are transforming almost without realizing it and that seem to have no direction. "Only I hear this melody, so wonderful and soft, sweetly conciliatory? ... In the undulating tide, in the sound that resonates, in the universe that sighs ... flood, abyss, unconscious, supreme delight."
Under the cover of that music - which was that of the suspended opera - feelings overflowed from the bodies, and people ate and ate with a certain desperation, as if they wanted to commit suicide with music and foie gras .
There was a silence after the last measure, a disturbing calm. They had stopped eating. Shortly thereafter, the jaws began to clash, not sure if they chattered or chewed again.
Lise declined any plate and only accepted a glass of champagne. And specified:
- Pol Roger, if possible, rosé .
He had promised to sing a chosen piece from his repertoire, like almost all the other singers. The extraordinary musical evening would begin with the tenor, whom I was seeing, I saw, at an angle of the room, pale and rigid as a plaster statue.
- He is a very handsome man, but fearful. I have to make a great effort to believe him in his role as a Breton knight.
He shrugged and sighed once more.
- If you close your eyes, you like how he sings.
The singing started suddenly, without warning, while people talked, complained or protested. They all fell silent.
"Will my angel come from heaven?
Will my angel come from the sea? ”
The tenor's direct, unadorned and unadorned voice sounded soft as the calm sea and the serene sky it invoked. Cielo e mar was one of his most frequented arias and the one the public expected to hear. Hearing him, the warm salty air seemed to blow over us.
"Here in the shade, where I wait with a longing heart, come, come to the kiss of life,
of life and love.
Ah! Come come."
The agitations and emotions of each one were suspended for a moment, all grouped in the unique feeling of the music. Fear and fears were exchanged for hope and hope, even if it was a dream that lasted only as long as the aria lasted.
But it was enough for Lise and I to kiss for the first time, without waiting for the tenor's voice to die out. The kiss was more of a celebration of life than anything else, but neither of them stopped to consider it. Just in case or not, we kissed again. And this time the kiss was clearly what is considered a kiss, with his desire, his love, his carnality.
We weren't the only ones to kiss. When we look around, Lise and I laugh. There were more couples kissing. Perhaps they were people who had not kissed for a long time, or simply did it because they could, the confinement that justified many behaviors that otherwise could not be admitted. Kisses by contagion, by imitation, because yes
We weren't the only ones to kiss. When we look around, Lise and I laugh. There were more couples kissing. Perhaps they were people who had not kissed for a long time, or simply did it because they could, the confinement that justified many behaviors that otherwise could not be admitted. Kisses by contagion, by imitation, just because. The golden gloom of the corridors, boxes and galleries covered all that feast of pampering and caresses.
Efforts were also made to manifest joy, a provoked joy, with theatrical overtones. After all, weren't we in a theater?
In a silver box, Margaret Armstrong was kissing with an usher in a long, rendered kiss. There were groups drinking and clinking glasses. Former acquaintances talked to each other in a jovial tone, and a small group of very tall and thin young men commented on some risky assemblies they had seen, carried out without complexes or concessions, they said.
I began to applaud, and after a few moments many people imitated me, although there was no end of act to applaud: the scene was us. An ovation to existence, whatever its meaning.
The curtains were drawn in the royal box, veiled so far. Then it appears, it appeared, the young infant, blonde and splendid, as if it came out of the wrapping of a gift box. Until then it had been protected against any setbacks by secretaries and palace staff, and now it was offered to the public from its golden box.
She waved a hand to greet and her lips moved to say some words that we did not hear, far and alone.
The audience returned the salute and some applauded again. Out of sympathy with youth and with the promise of life that emanated from him.
I noticed one of the audience who was one of the few who did not applaud or greet. It was the man who lost the vote due to rationing. With her frown and her tiny, tiny eyes ...
Well, I did not applaud the Infanta either, it is true, but I am the one who tells this story and I am beyond suspicion.
* * *
Stage light is what creates day and night. If not, all hours would be the same inside the Teatro Real. Lise and I are each other's arms and remain that way long after a while she sang the aria Casta Diva from Norma . I feel the sweat of the effort on her neck and the start of her breasts.
"Now I do want food," he says, "I'm hungry for a wolf."
And he bites my ear when he talks to me as if he wants to eat it.
I got what I was asking for in the extensive assortment from the gourmet shops, so full of food and drink that they seemed endless, as it usually seems at first sight with this kind of thing.
I served him an onion soup, then, Alcantara-style partridges, followed by Taleggio and Stilton cheeses, topped off with a souffle of red berries. Lise ate with the appetite of a goddess descended from Olympus for a day of love and hunting. I was watching her eat as a little earlier I had heard her singing Casta Diva .
Lise, on stage, was majestic, firm, confident, resplendent, captivating, persuasive. The words and the melody managed to be the same thing. It was not an ornate and flowery song, but pure, in which the breath was the thread of the plot. He did not seem to sing, truly, but to modulate a long shocking imprecation. "When the angry and gloomy god asks for the blood of the Romans ..." And although he also spoke of love, we listeners could not forget that soon afterwards he was going to try to kill his own children, in a fit of horror and revenge. A bloody sacrifice.
- Health and luck.
Lise raised her Pol Roger glass and I raised mine.
While we were in the dressing room, a shocking event occurred. The boy who had defended the decision - on the other hand, the most sensible one - of food rationing, proposed to the group of besieged that the young Infanta be handed over to the besiegers. Perhaps a sacrifice will appease them.
- Take it to the terrace and leave it there as an offering to the irrational.
An inconceivable proposal, which could only be described as an act of barbarism.
"Wouldn't it be worth giving up one to defend many lives?" He had declared loudly enough for some twenty or thirty people to hear him. They would repeat, they repeated, the message that bounced around the theater.
- Multiple lives in exchange for one.
No decision was made, but the idea was planted in fearful hearts. Death was at the doors of the theater.
When Lise and I return to the great hall, the curtains of the royal box are again drawn, opaque. Some men argue strongly with others under the infanta's box, but soon the trumpets are heard calling to occupy the seats. "In every extreme or rare situation, a prophet always comes up," Maggie tells me as she briefly approaches me in the hallway. Thus they begin to call, precisely, the young man of rationing: the Prophet.
The public is restless, somewhat excited, perhaps because of the consumption of wine and spirits, perhaps because of permissive behavior, perhaps simply because the situation itself is exciting, or rather because music and death feel like the same thing.
The public is restless, somewhat excited, perhaps because of the consumption of wine and spirits, perhaps because of permissive behavior, perhaps simply because the situation itself is exciting, or rather because music and death feel like the same thing. . What if it were also true that the besiegers want the infanta's head, and she is the cause of the siege?
Some hisses asking for silence silence the rumors, the orchestra attacks the introduction to the aria of Rigoletto who is going to sing, who is already singing, the baritone.
Pleading on the one hand, threatening on the other, broad, sung on the lips, in a low voice, with a certain bell in the upper area, the Aryan Cortigiani, vile razza dannata! fill the concave room. The hunchback, furious at the sixteenth notes, agitato , fierce, rebukes looking at the public:
Quella porta, assasini, assasini,
m´aprite the porta, porta,
assasini, m´aprite!
The audience shrinks in their seats and sublimates their fears. The baritone is applauded and appreciates the ovation, seriously. Lise continues to applaud him as he slowly withdraws, in no rush to leave the scene.
- Bravo, bravo, bravo!
No one makes mention of the Prophet's proposal; there is talk of anything but the infant. The Prophet is the object of all eyes and he also walks slowly down the hall, without looking at anyone.
* * *
Supplies were running low. On the contrary, the bathrooms were full of organic waste. A balanced balance. "Fear is on the rise," I warned Lise.
- Bæsj og frykt - sighed in Norwegian, and then in a Spanish Latin song:
- Poop and fear, no more.
While we were talking, the light dimmed. Also the generator was starting to fail. We would soon be in the dark.
The director of the theater shone his bald head in a last flash and arranged that the lighting for decorations and stage sets be used as lighting: the La Bohème lamps , the chandeliers of Il puritani , the torches of Il trovatore and thus all kinds of candles, spark plugs, tapers, candles and lamps.
The besieged spectators had, had to, almost blindly trace the exquisite wines and sophisticated dishes of the gourmet shops, and grope for a villeroy breast, a glass of Rioja, some monkfish and prawn meatballs, a drink of Macallan fine and rare .
The orchestra began to play their instruments in the dark, and I realized that being in the dark is similar to being alone. And that the music was like a wet nurse lulling a fearful child. I was trying to name the one I heard ... What was her name? What was the title of that melody that pierced the air everything? The name hovered around my head like a bumblebee on a summer day ...
I wanted to find Lise. But Lise was preparing her new performance in some unknown part of the theater. Suddenly, a detonation was heard. I couldn't discern if it was the cork from a champagne bottle or the shot from a gun. The music, frightened, wavered for a moment, like a record at less revolutions, I perceived the false note of a violin and then the orchestra returned to the sweet order of the melody. I heard Lise's voice: she was rehearsing a lied with the musicians. They started, stopped, and started again, in search of ultimate perfection.
I oriented myself towards the place where I thought the orchestra was playing. A tortuous path between shadows and lumps.
- Watch out! - One of the shadows told me.
In the dark places you could hear woes and uhes. Something was going on upstairs in the theater, but it was hard to know what.
In the middle of the darkness, there were the light gaps produced by the scenographic candelabra and axes. In one of the gaps I saw the Prophet surrounded by people who listened attentively to him. Some cried and others laughed, perhaps all somewhat drunk, it is already known that wine produces different effects depending on who drinks it.
The story was circulating through all the groups; it was always the same, but its degree of credibility depended on who told it. The facts were the narrated, without a doubt or interpretation: they had taken the infant out of the box to hand her over to the besiegers, they had done it at first with deceit, and then, in the face of her resistance, dragging her along. Then they forcibly throw her on the tiles of the terrace, where the flags still fly, and leave her there to fulfill her destiny, like a maiden delivered to a dragon devouring virgins.
The princess has been leaving along the way a smell of Nenuco cologne and blond hair. The sacrifice has been consummated.
Margaret Armstrong would later write that story, stripping it of all ideological phobias or literary embellishments, which in the end become similar things if the facts are distorted.
The authors did not show their faces, and the Prophet, in the middle of the pool of trembling light, distanced himself from the act. Furthermore, no prior agreement had been made, meaning that those who carried it out had done so out of control. The fault was with the management and its government staff .
The theater director was a failure and the Prophet offered himself as the new director.
In that turbid and turbulent environment, I kept looking for Lise in case I needed help.
I went downstairs and up stairs until I realized that the harp, horns and violins had moved to the main stage, in the great room. The tireless trumpets — this time, live — demanded over and over again that the public take their seats. The scattered spectators delayed their presence and the lied was beginning, already beginning, with the room almost empty, desolate.
The sweet tones of the harp, followed by the violins, brought me to a nameless remembrance, until Lise made her entrance, radiant as the last morning of the world, and the flying bumblebee settled softly on my memory.
Tomorrow the sun will shine again
and we will find the way.
It was Morgen! , by Richard Strauss, sung in a pianissimo that was reducing and reducing as if it were only going to stop at the edge of the abyss. Its timbre was superb: bright metal in the high notes, wide and settled in the center, dark and extensive in the bass. Lise declined all show and drove the expression inside, as if it were the silence that spoke.
We will quietly look each other in the eye
and the silence of happiness will descend on us.
In the midst of fear and darkness, he proclaimed the hope that there would be a tomorrow and that we would be there to live it, "in the midst of this land drunk with sun."
Then, after applause, Lise and I toasted the last bottle of champagne. The supplies were finished.
They found the little man in the raincoat and the dark glasses in box number 5. He was the first to raise the alarm and then, strangely, he had disappeared. When they found it, by chance, the little man seemed to want to hide by ducking behind the curtains, and then he crawled along the floor like a vermin. They chased him mainly because he was running away. He managed to outwit his pursuers and disappear for a short time. Because right away they took him again at the top of the theater, in an attic hole in the dome of the building. He screamed and protested his innocence about what was happening.
- You bastards, you bastards! What do you want to do to me? On top of that I have warned you!
He jumped up to the little window in the attic. That saved him: through the little window you could see a piece of heaven. They released him. The black veil had been torn as the glory break of a great religious painting. The view was clear and there was nobody in the Plaza de Oriente.
A dove crossed the sky with a green twig in its beak.
May 15, 2020
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