The Case of the Transposed Tenor
REG
As I approached Baker Street for the first time in months, I could dimly
hear the sound of a violin cutting through the cold autumn air, though I
could not yet distinguish the melody. Something operatic, it seemed to
penetrate the dark and damp which clung about me. It was good to see Mrs.
Hudson again as the front door opened, and she took my anorak and ushered me
into study. I realized that Holmes was indeed at lose ends - he was once
again playing his own variations on the Liebstod, and while I sympathized
with my friend's distress, I had to admit that the effect of playing the
entire piece pizzicato created a stunning effect.
"Holmes - I am glad that you sent for me. Is something wrong?"
"Nothing, my dear Watson."
Then why the Wagner, Holmes? Surely you only turn to Wagner in cases of the
greatest distress."
"
Watson, if you sit for a moment," Holmes replied, "and use your eyes and
your ears, you will find yourself in one of the greatest adventures we have
ever encountered."
No sooner had I composed myself with a large tumbler of whiskey, than I
heard a knock at the front door. Muffled voices were heard in the
passageway, but suddenly Mrs. Hudson let out such a scream as I have never
heard before from a woman, followed by the sharp sound of a slap, perhaps a
hand against a human skin, and then incoherent mumbling. I jumped, but
Holmes extended a single, flat palm to me. "Steady, Watson. I believe we
have a Spaniard in the works."
A moment later, the door to Holme's rooms opened, and an impressive figure
in an opera cape entered the room. Not, perhaps, tall, but giving the
impression of height, my eyes caught the dark hair, the foreign features,
and the glittering eyes of a conquistador.
"Are you Mr. Holmes?" the visitor asked. His accent, insinuating and yet
masculine, was clearly Spanish, but without the lisping effeminacy of his
compatriots from Castille. Here was a man, I thought, that women could love,
and men could envy. The red mark of a human hand across the Spaniard's cheek
only added to the impression of a man of the world.
"Yes, I am, and you are"
"Brunch. Maestro Sunday Brunch"
I recognized the name at once. Brunch, the best known tenor of his
generation, was appearing at Covent Garden this year, for the first time in
a decade. Brunch had sung over 7,000 performances throughout the world, and
though illnesses often forced the management to beg the audience's
indulgence before a performance, it was a marvel of nature that an ill
Brunch rarely sounded worse than a healthy Brunch.
"It is an honor for me to have you in my home. You are a man of art. How may
I be of assistance, Maestro Brunch?" Holmes asked. "You are surely the
greatest tenor of our time."
Brunch noticeably stiffened, and under the pretext of examining myself in
the mirror, I turned and whispered to Holmes, "This man is not only a first
rate singer, Holmes, but a prominent conductor, the administrator of several
opera companies, a patron of the arts such as the world has not seen since
time began. He owns property throughout the continent. There is nothing
this man can not do."
However, no matter how softly I tried to speak, Brunch had heard my words,
and his demeanor changed markedly. The calm self-assurance of a few moments
before gave way to lines of grief in his face, and he responded. "Mr.
Watson, there is one thing I cannot do. I cannot sing my music in the key in
which it is written."
Broken, Brunch wavered, and Holmes leapt to his side to seat him in the
large armchair which dominated the center of the room.After a few moments of
silence, Holmes asked "Senor Brunch, what precisely is the problem?" Brunch
then told us a horrifying tale of rehearsals undermined and performances
failing. For the past year or more, he had found that, no matter how well
the rehearsals went, when he came to performance, he suddenly found himself
compelled to transpose his music, sometimes even during the course of an
aria. While English musicians are exceptionally well-trained for every
possible emergency, the rapid changes often wrecked havoc on the orchestra,
and had led in recent months to audience demonstrations which menaced the
welfare of the entire season. In recent months, Brunch had begun to assume
baritone roles, but without the success of his former employment.
"Someone, Mr. Holmes, wants me to fail. I cannot tell you who, and I cannot
tell you why, but someone has cast a spell on me, and this spell not only
threatens my livelihood and that of my extended family, but the very
stability of Covent Garden itself. If this continues, England may no longer
have a solvent opera house. You must find out who is causing this problem
for me, and end it. The future of English music depends upon it. Will you
help me? Will you help England?"
"Senor Brunch, I shall do my best." Immediately a look of relief appeared on
the doughty Spaniard's face, and his appearance regained all the vigor of a
39 year old. He rose from his chair, shook our hands, and promised us two
tickets for the opera tomorrow night, where he would be singing the baritone
role opposite Madame Albani.
As he turned to leave, Holmes stopped him. "Maestro Brunch, have you noticed
anything out of the ordinary recently in your surroundings?"
Brunch shook his head. His life ran on the gilded rails of the wealthy and
the talented, and there could be little of mortal coil that could interfere
with the progress of Brunch. "No, Mr. Holmes, nothing." But as Brunch's hand
reached the door to let himself out, he paused, lost in thought. Slowly he
turned, and said quietly to Holmes, "One thing, strange perhaps, but I gave
it no thought at the time. I went last year to visit the place of my birth,
and decided to pay a visit of respect to the small church where I was
baptized. The padre was pleased beyond measure to see me, and I offered a
brief recital in the church later in the evening. I asked, as a favor, if I
might, however, see the registry holding my birth records, but when the
padre sought the volume, it was missing. At first, it appeared that it might
have been misplaced, but I have heard from him recently that it was stolen.
Undoubtedly this is simply an error, but I thought it worth mentioning."
Holmes and I bid our farewells, and the room was left as it had been. I
stared at the chair where the illustrious singer had reposed, still bearing
the imprint of the body, and an aureole of black on the antimacassar where
Brunch had laid his head.
"Watson, I think that tomorrow we shall go to the opera and being our
assistance for Brunch. What, by the way, does the Times tell us that the
opera is to be?"
I scanned through the paper, finding the announcement. "An opera by the
Italian, Rossini. Cenerentola."
Very well, Watson. Tomorrow, Cenerentola. The game is afoot."
End of Part I
Stephen Jay-Taylor
"If this continues, England may no longer have a solvent opera house."
Too late dear. We don't.
"an aureole of black on the antimacassar"
Don't you just hate it when that happens ?
I trust Part the Second will contain several narratively irrelevant and
gratuitously graphic descriptions of the ROH's Maestro, Sig.
Ghiandaia-Sarto's unusually hands-on rehearsal methods with Snr. Brunch's
up-and-coming sooty-lashed rival Johannes-Jakob Blume.
SJT, en tremblant délicieusement....
La Donna Mobile
Sherlock Holmes may find that all such problems are resolved after the
victim has been administered some extreme TLC by a drunken civil servant
from sarf of the river.
REG wrote:
--
http://www.madmusingsof.me.uk/weblog/
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog/
Silverfin
How exactly am I supposed to get any work done with not one but two
serialised stories going on RMO?
Silverfin
Mrs Terfel
as it is - just to make up for time spent reading about Sherry Strudel
on the cruise ship. Maybe we should start a separate news group?
rec.music.operafiction
We could always have a subsection just for the smutty filth that La
Donna writes so beautifully.
Anyway, I hope there will be lots of furniture abuse in this new story,
not to mention maybe a baritone in a black dress....
Mrs T xx
Mrs Terfel
Silverfin wrote:
> >
>
> How exactly am I supposed to get any work done with not one but two
> serialised stories going on RMO?
>
> Silverfin
Sorry to break this to you - but it seems that now there are actually
THREE stories going on RMO.
Check out the "Chapter Sixty-Four" thread, all about the DaMingi
Code....
Mrs T - (who must go and do some work before she's tempted to start
writing her own opera story set in Middle Earth) xx
REG
antimacassar - I always thought foreplay was important to furniture abusers.
"Mrs Terfel" <faye.c...@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:1130239737.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Mrs Terfel
REG wrote:
> You must have patience. There has already been the desecration of an
> antimacassar - I always thought foreplay was important to furniture abusers.
>
Sorry REG, but I had no idea what the hell an antimacassar was. I had
to look it up in a dictionary.
Mrs T xx
La Donna Mobile
an 'R'. Ross, or something like that
David Melnick
mystery to me for years. I think I preferred just reading it
and pronouncing it (mistakenly, as it turned out) rather
than decoding it and realizing, as I eventually did, that my
grandmother had been crocheting them before my very eyes all
my life; I still have one of hers, which goes under a vase
on my big old Altec-Lansing Carmel speaker, the one I can't
use except on special occasions, because of the neighbors,
who never complain, but whom I can feel cringing through
the walls, despite the walls being of good thick Victorian
construction, originally framed of local redwood and Douglas
fir....
Now ask me about madeleines, which I can get at a lovely
little bakery in my neighborhood, off Castro St.....
donpaolo
did to Custer & company at Little Big Horn....
DonPaolo, the non-semanticist & auntie-intellecktchool.
"David Melnick" <dmel...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:9ps7f.77632$qM5....@fe04.news.easynews.com...
Count of Warwick
I have writen several possible opera plots on and off for years at the
Parlour, Operaphile and Opera Obsessors Anonymous.
Most recent was the story of a fued (professional and sexual) between
an American soprano and a dramatic tenor, a hybrid of Mario Del Monaco
and Franco Corelli, that came to a violent denouement.
Also, a longish story about a ghostly opera star set in Ireland, and a
fictional confrontation between Pavarotti and "Don" Pippo Di
Stefano....
Also, I did a sketch featuring a Saturday Night Opera show starring
Ant'n' Dec. Unfortunately, I've lost the original, but I can ressurrect
it in another form.
Count