The Black Opera (8 page)

“It may be the nineteenth century, sir, but I have no doubt the Church will call it the Devil's power!”

“Would
you?”
The King's smile held iron. “What do
you
think of the fact that you got a building struck down?”

The canvas awning rippled above, sending a wave of shadow and sunlight across the terrace. The morning air felt cool, and then warm. Without quite knowing why he knew it, Conrad instinctively realised:
This
is the question I'm here to answer.

A quarter of a hour with this man and he's exposed every religious and scientific belief I have. He hasn't done that for nothing. If I want to know why I'm here—there's nothing for it but honesty.

“I can't explain myself without offence to ‘your Catholic Majesty'; I'm sorry.”

Ferdinand nodded a qualified acceptance.

Conrad searched for words, apprehensiveness driving him to choose with precision.
Who knows how important this might be?

“Sir, the Church is—threatened—if there's a causal connection between
Il Terrore di Parigi
and the Teatro Nuovo fire. The Church regards opera as profane. It regards its own Sung Mass as sacred—as the sole producer of miracles. To me… they're the same thing. Both are
musicodramma
. Both music and the sung word, used together to create—
something
—by the power or projection of dramatic human emotion.”

He let out a breath.

“The Church makes use of
musicodramma
. The Mass is one passion. Every man and woman praying at a Sung Mass or other liturgical rite is feeling the suffering Passion of Christ as if those emotions were their own. As if every dark Station of the Cross gouged their own flesh, and the rock that rolls away from the Tomb releases each of them to their own resurrection… And opera—opera is the pure extreme of
secular
passion. Love, revenge, triumph, grief, all as expressed by voice and music… In the opera house, they feel it as their own emotion, too. They love and they hate, oh, just as strongly.”

Ferdinand made a gesture, indicating they should walk on down the long terrace. Conrad found his knees were not quite steady.

The King's expression was blandly stupid again. “So, if I ask you why the Teatro Nuovo burned down, you'll give me one of two answers…”

“Coincidence, sir. Many operas feature the most extreme transgressive emotion, and yet few opera houses are struck by lightning.”

“That would be the first answer.” The skin around Ferdinand's eyes tightened. “The second answer, Conrad, is, ‘a miracle.' You won't deny that something
happens at a Sung Mass, when a man's healed?”

The brush of Canon Viscardo's fingers against his closed eye felt immediate as the warm wind; Conrad tasted Tullio's laudanum. “Something happens. Yes, sir. Undeniably something. I think no one as yet knows what.”

“But
something
, is the point. You'll agree that there have, in the past, been occurrences at operas that would—if they'd happened in church—been called miracles.”

“I agree, sir. With the reservation that some of these occurrences will have been mistakes, some hysteria, some just rumour, and some not caused by anything about the opera itself.”

Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily looked rueful. “You were reported to me as a man who might have reservations!… I agree, on the whole. Let me re-phrase. If you magnify—
intensify
—the emotions of a crowd, whether with community passion in Church, or individual passion in the opera house, then, some of the time, something will happen.”

“Yes. Therefore it's possible
Il Terrore
is responsible for the Teatro Nuovo fire. But also reasonably likely that it isn't.”

Conrad felt himself pinned under the analytic gaze of the King.

Ferdinand broke into a rich chuckle. “You
are
a Natural Philosopher! You won't commit yourself to anything being certain.”

It felt more like praise than mockery.

“I'd hate to disappoint Your Majesty.”

The amused look Ferdinand gave him made Conrad's gut lurch with hope.

“Sir—why am I here?”

Ferdinand stopped, resting his hand on the granite sea-wall. The lapping water below sounded surprisingly loud.

“I've been given a transcript of the libretto for
Il Terrore di Parigi, ossia la Morte di Dio
. Also, the royal library has your libretto of two years back, from Paris.
Les Enfants du Calcutta, ou, Le Probléme de Douleur
. ‘The Children of Calcutta, Or, The Problem of Pain.' For an atheist, you think much about the contradictions of religion.”

Conrad let loose his usual frustrated reply to that. “Perhaps that's why I'm an atheist. Sir.”

Ferdinand's mouth twitched. Whatever emotion he contained, Conrad saw it fade as the King's gaze went eastward, to the blue glass of the horizon, and the double-peaked hill that is the illusion produced by the crater of Vesuvius.

The thronged streets of the port were dwarfed by the mountain, blackly close at hand. The Palace, at sea's level or only a few yards above it, left Conrad gaping across water at the green foothills. He remembered, from his own ascent, furrows,
vine-sticks, loaded wagons, donkeys kicking up white dust.

For all it was spring, a covering of snow shrouded the defunct volcano. A very little haze at the summit might have been cloud, or the volcano breathing.

Conrad tensed, waiting for a verdict.

“You'd imagine,” King Ferdinand said quietly, “that for what I need, I need a believer. A man of Faith.
I
think I need a man with a proven affinity for opera—and a mind that will reject nothing when it considers what to write.”

“You
need
me?”

Conrad's stunned thoughts escaped his mouth.

“You need me as a
librettist?”

The shadow of the awning made it difficult to read Ferdinand's face. His cultured voice said, “Someone to write an opera for me, yes.”

The high facade of the Palazzo Reale echoed back a shout of laughter. Conrad belatedly realised it was his.

He slapped his hand over his mouth and stuttered into silence, little spurts of half-hysterical mirth escaping his control.

“Sorry—I thought—I've been expecting a pyre! Twenty years in an Inquisition cell—!” He found it hard to hold back the avalanche of words. “—You want me to
write an opera
…”

Ferdinand's shoulders, that had gone regally stiff, relaxed. Tension left him on a released breath. Lines showed worn into his plump face as he smiled—he looked as if he must govern his country, as well as reign.

“I'll certainly leave you the option of the Holy Office, if what I offer is repugnant.” The King folded his hands behind his back and looked unreasonably content to wait for Conrad to recover himself.

“Sir?”

“I don't share your atheistic views, Conrad. That doesn't mean I decry them. On the contrary. I believe that you may be exactly the man to write my opera for me.”

Sunlight off the sea below made Conrad flinch, caught between scepticism, hope, and misgiving. He prompted, “And?”

“And I need an opera written with the same kind of power that was generated by
Il Terrore di Parigi
.”

Conrad fidgeted with his chain, seeking the link that Luka Viscardo had sealed, running his thumb over the smooth surface of the steel. The King of the Two Sicilies watched him with a hawk's gaze.

Be honest. No matter what it may cost
.

“I'm… not sure I could do it again.”

King Ferdinand did not immediately jump up and summon a detachment of
riflemen, or a palace
aide
to shove Conrad out of the front door and into the hands of the Inquisition.

“Sir, I don't say this to spread guilt away from me. I say it to give credit where it's due.
I
didn't get the Teatro Nuovo struck down. It took a whole company of singers and musicians and stage crew to achieve that, as well as Giuseppe Persiani as composer and myself as librettist.”

“A company, yes. Every man's words, music, and voice create the opera together. But as things stand, your composer and the singers appear to have left Naples. I have the librettist left.”

The complexity of Ferdinand's expression was startling, on a man who at first appeared bland. He spoke with a direct, dignified, intent excitement, restrained by absolute control.

“Conrad—you were a part of something powerful enough that it called down fire out of the heavens. Something born of Aristotle's
catharsis
in drama—the purging of pity and terror in the human heart—coupled with the
magia musica
, that Pythagoras knew connects us with the heavenly spheres above.
That
is power. Yes, music and the singers and everything else is part of it. Your words give it shape. They create those situations which draw people in, make them cry, laugh, feel love or hatred, indignation or sorrow. If you assisted in causing that once, Conrad—I believe you might do so again.”

The smalt blue of Sorrento and the southern Bay blurred in Conrad's gritty vision, as if on a watercolourist's palette. He hadn't blinked as the King spoke, he realised.

“Conrad, I need a man who will write me a particular kind of opera. The Two Kingdoms needs this. So, it seems that I need you.”

“Because I'm an atheist.”

Ferdinand's amused smile made a reappearance. Along with his tension.

“Precisely because you're an atheist!”

“And…”

Conrad pulled his thoughts together.
Now we come to it.

“…If I'm understanding you, sir—you want me to attempt to cause another ‘opera miracle'?”

Ferdinand of the House of Bourbon-Sicily shook his head.

“Not exactly. No. I want you to stop one.”

“S
top a miracle.” Conrad fumbled his chains. Coils of metal slithered and crashed to the paving stones, bruising his feet through his shoes. “How—! What—? Stop?”

He forced away panic, striving for rationality.

“A miracle, caused by a Mass—or by another opera?
Porco miseria
, this is different!
Stop
a miracle! But who—? Why?—Has that even been
done
before?”

Ferdinand's look was both sympathetic and reproving. “On rare occasions. A sufficiently intense outpouring of emotion has been known to overwhelm something lesser.”

Just how magnificently written must an opera be, to produce a reaction “sufficiently intense”?

“Sir… when I woke up today, I was expecting it to be the start of my successful opera career. Finally,
finally!
I'd written a libretto that made the opera shine—instead of the words and story being a silly adjunct to the music and singing. The audience cheered themselves speechless. Angelotti and the stage crew joked that the noise would shift the roof-beams.”

Conrad rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes, feeling the last sensitivity of hemicrania in the right socket. The migraine seemed centuries in the past.

It must be… less than two hours.

“And this morning—this morning, the opera house is a ruin. I'm arrested for blasphemy. And, apparently, I need to be an atheist to write a libretto for his Majesty of the Two Sicilies. To prevent a miracle.”

The urge to drop down and sit with his head in his hands was very strong. Conrad straightened up.

“Forgive me, sir, I think I must be still asleep and dreaming!”

Ferdinand's wry smile was joined by a crisp tone. “Then I suggest you wake up and seize your opportunity with both hands. This is an important decision for you.”

He broke off, looking grave.

“I apologise. There are only certain other things I can tell you, before you must come to that decision.”

Conrad opened his mouth to object. He found himself conceding. “I do realise one thing, sir—if you were going to summon me, it ought to have come
from your Master of Music by a letter to my lodgings; or by a servant if it was urgent. Not from Your Majesty yourself, privately, with Captain Esposito's help. If this is a secret State matter, then—until and unless I agree to this, the less I know, the better.”

Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily looked mildly impressed.

The first time I've ever been grateful to my father for lecturing me on the ins and outs of courts.

Conrad shoved his linen cravat under a painful edge of his steel collar to pad it. His business frame of mind came to him; the one in which he usually dealt with impresarios. It sat oddly out of place with the Bourbon King, but Conrad felt doggedly determined to show responsibility. The more so since his loss of control—however brief, he felt hot behind the ears recalling it.

“The things I can know, before I need to commit myself to this, are these. You want me to stop an ‘opera miracle'—”