“It’s all right!” said a small dark man who had just joined his friend. “They’ve talked him round, but it was a struggle. He chased Feuerbach all over town trying to get him to change his mind, but it was no good.”
“What did he do to make Feuerbach walk out-defenestrate him or something?”’
“Not a bit of it. He kept his temper all the way through. It was the orchestra. They made life impossible for Feuerbach. But this is it, Staub-there can’t be any doubt about it now-she’s got him back and Stallenbach’s away. Your opera’s in the bag.”
Staub nodded. “I showed him the libretto and he was definitely interested.”
The last of the Kings and Queens had arrived; tired-looking persons weighed down by their jewels — and then a lone elderly man who attracted rather more attention as he appeared in the stage box. Richard Strauss, the opera’s composer, the most famous musician in the world, who had travelled up from Garmisch.
The lights were going down now, but the whispers of rumour and speculation had not yet died away.
Then the curtains parted and the manager appeared. “Your Majesties, your Royal Highnesses, Herr President, Ladies and Gentlemen-I have an announcement to make. Owing to the indisposition of Herr Feuerbach, tonight’s performance of Rosenkavalier will be conducted by Marcus Altenburg.”
The audience behaved badly. They clapped, they cheered, they hugged each other. The gossip had been known for days-that Brigitta Seefeld’s lover had returned to coach her, that their famous affaire had been resumed, that the unpopular Feuerbach had made scene after scene…
And now here was Altenburg, riding to the rescue!
“Are you all right, Ellen?”’ whispered Kendrick, for she had given a sudden sharp intake of breath. “Oh Ellen, isn’t this exciting, isn’t this amazing! I didn’t even know he was in Vienna! I wonder if I dare make myself known to him-he wouldn’t remember me, of course, though—”’
But the house lights were fully dimmed now. Only the lamps on the rostrum and the musicians’ desks shone through the auditorium.
The conductor appeared and received an ovation which, waiting for silence, he ignored. Then he turned to bow-not to the crowned heads in their boxes or to the audience but to the old gentleman sitting alone in his box. To Richard Strauss.
Then he raised his stick and unleashed the prelude that Kendrick had worried about, and rightly-for it did indeed depict in music, and unmistakably, the act of love.
The shock, for Ellen, was overwhelming. This was his real life, this was his world. She had had an intimation in the dining room at Kalun but nothing had prepared her for this. Why did she think he belonged with lame tortoises and trees and storks? Even his bravery in the woods was only a small part of his life. Here where a band of the world’s most highly trained musicians were welded by his movements into one whole-here in front of this glittering audience with the composer sitting in his box, was where he belonged. Here with Brigitta Seefeld, who had stopped, the moment she opened her mouth, being a foolish, vain, over-painted woman and become the great artist that she was.
Only why did he lie to me? she thought wretchedly-for that hurt the most, that he had lied. I asked nothing from him so why did he pretend that he was sailing for America, that he had finished with Vienna, and with her?
It was some time before she really heard the music. She did not know the opera; at first she missed the obvious “tunes”, the dramatic ensembles. But then Baron Ochs entered, accompanied by his glorious, absurd waltzes, and the bustling courtiers… so that by the time Seefeld came to the famous monologue in which she mourns, with touching bewilderment, the passage of time, Ellen, who wanted to hate her, was strung out on the liquid notes, as hurt and puzzled as the singer wondering what God meant by it all.
“One day you will leave me,” Seefeld sang to her young lover. “Today or tomorrow or the next day…”
But Marek was not leaving. He was returning, thought Ellen. As the curtain fell on the first act, the applause was frenetic. Everyone recognised a triumph, a performance that would become an operatic legend.
“Isn’t she amazing?”’ said Kendrick. “Her interpretation has never been surpassed. But the conductor! I knew she was his muse, of course, but I had no idea he was in Vienna. Imagine, I used to sing in the same choir as him!”
Ellen said nothing, and a man staring at her admiringly as they made their way towards the refreshment room, dropped his eyes as she came closer, wondering why a young girl should look like that.
If only it was over, thought Ellen. If only I could go home… not to Hallendorf with its memories but right away from Austria. Back to grey and rainy London where they were digging trenches in the parks.
“I’ve been to see her,” said Benny, returning to his box. “She’s over the moon. I tell you, no one can resist what happens to Brigitta when she gives that kind of performance. She’ll have him in that Swan Bed of hers before the night is out if she hasn’t done it already. I’ll give her a few days-and then sign them both up. She’ll have to work out her contract here but she can follow him.”
Seefeld did not appear in the second act, which is devoted to the instant and joyous love of Octavian, the faithless Rosenkavalier, for the young Sophie von Faninal. But if Seefeld was missed, the orchestra under Altenburg played the Presentation of the Rose, the ecstatic duet for the young lovers and Baron Ochs’ sentimental, irresistible waltz as if for the first time. Women mopped their eyes; Benny shook his head. How had he coaxed playing like that even out of this famous orchestra?
Only one voice of dissent was heard in the second interval, from a sallow man wearing an Iron Cross in his lapel.
“I grant you he’s a fine conductor but it doesn’t do to antagonise the Germans. He’s hated in Berlin; we shouldn’t seem to condone the stance he takes against Hitler, not with what may happen.”
But he was the only one and the others moved away from him. They might not be so brave tomorrow but tonight they were willing to snap their fingers at the Third Reich and Hitler’s offer of union and brotherhood.
The last act now. Comedy, bustle, misunderstandings… Baron Ochs discredited… And the entrance of the Marschallin, perhaps the most heart-stopping moment in opera. She stands in the doorway of the inn, knowing that her young lover has deserted her: not “someday”, not “soon”, but now. Yet Octavian is no knave, the girl he has fallen for no scheming minx. The lovers are caught by the one thing she cannot ever again reach out for-their youth. Bewildered, ashamed yet ecstatic, they look to her…
And she puts it right. The trio that follows is of a beauty that stills all turmoil. The Marschallin sings-not grandly, not histrionically — of the need for self-sacrifice. She sings, in fact, of something unbelievably simple and unbelievably difficult: the need to behave well. And the lovers reproach themselves, tremble and-blessed by her understanding-claim each other.
But when she leaves them, though they sing on, the opera is over. Not one person in the audience, or any audience anywhere, but weeps for the Marschallin. Everyone is on her side.
The curtain fell. Kendrick, looking at Ellen, was proud to see that she was crying. After the incident of the Sorrel Soup, he sometimes wondered how deeply she felt music.
Did she feel it almost too much? She was a girl who always had a handkerchief, but now he gave her his, for she was not doing anything to stem her tears.
Renunciation. Letting go. Brigitta who had nothing to renounce had sung of it. But I, who do not sing, I have to do it, thought Ellen. Only I wish I had something to renounce. I do so very much wish that.
The endless clapping, the cries of “Bravo” and “Bis”, the flowers raining down, passed before her like a dream. But when at last Marek allowed himself to be dragged on to the stage, and brought his orchestra to their feet, when Brigitta came towards him with outstretched arms and he kissed her, to the delight and noisy approval of the Viennese, she saw that. She saw that quite clearly.