“How expensive is it likely to be?” said Darcourt.
“Expense is not our first consideration,” said Arthur. “This is an adventure, you remember.”
“A Quest. A real Arthurian Quest,” said Maria. “A Quest in search of something lost in the past. Let’s not be cheap.”
Was Maria being ironic, Darcourt asked himself. Since their talk—their divano–he had sensed something in Maria that was not new, but a return to the Maria he had known before she became Mrs. Arthur Cornish, and seemed to dwindle. Maria was returning to her former stature.
“I’m glad you feel like that,” said Powell. “The more I think about this opera the more expensive it becomes. As Maria says, the past doesn’t come cheap.”
“What are the singers likely to want?” said Darcourt.
“Their figures are pretty well fixed, according to their reputations. For this job, you want second-rank singers—”
“Need we settle for that?” said Arthur.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I mean second-rank, not second-rate. You don’t want, and couldn’t get, the biggest star names; they are booked up for three and four years ahead, and as they do a pretty restricted group of parts they wouldn’t consent to learn a new role for a few performances. They aren’t used to rehearsal, either. They just swoop in by plane, do their standard Violetta or Rigoletto or whatever it is without much reference to where they are or who they’re with, and swoop out again, clutching their money. No, I’m talking about the intelligent singers who are also musicians, who can act and who keep their fat down. There are quite a lot of them now, and they’re the opera of the future. But they’re always busy, and they don’t come cheap, so we shall have to hope luck is with us. I’ve already made a few inquiries, and I think we’ll be all right. Chorus we can get in Toronto; lots of good people.”
Admirable, thought Arthur. Just what he would have wanted. Lots of initiative in his friend Geraint. And yet—the business man in him would not be silent—money was being promised, and perhaps contracts offered, and who was authorizing all this? The would-be impresario and patron applauded, but the banker had nasty qualms. Powell was continuing.
“The singers aren’t the only problems, let me tell you. Designer—where do you look for a designer now for an opera next summer? Far too late. But we’ve had a stroke of the greatest luck. There’s a real comer who has been doing a lot of supervisory work for the Welsh National Opera, and she wants a chance to design something entirely her own. Dulcy Ringgold, her name is. I’ve talked to Dulcy on the phone, and she’s keen as mustard. But there are conditions.”
“Money?” said Darcourt.
“No. Dulcy isn’t greedy. But she wants to do the whole thing as if it were being done under Hoffmann’s supervision at one of his opera houses—Bamberg, for instance. And that means scene design in the early-nineteenth-century manner, with changes managed as if we had a staff of about fifty stagehands, when we’ll probably have ten, and they’ll have to learn old techniques that will astonish them. Because in those days stage-hands were really scene-shifters, and not button-pushers. It’ll cost a mint.”
“I suppose you’ve closed with her?” said Hollier. The more aquavit he drank, and the more beer he sent down to supervise the aquavit, the more dubious he became.
“I have her on hold,” said Powell. “And I hope to God you agree with her plan.”
“Does it mean monstrously heavy stuff, long intervals, mossy banks covered with artificial flowers, and a lot of rumbling behind the curtain?” said Arthur.
“Not a bit of it. This kind of stage dressing came before all that nonsense. Quite simply, it’s a system where each scene consists of a painted back-drop, and five or six sets of wings on each side of the stage; but they are arranged on wheels so that the scenes change almost instantaneously—in out—in out—so that its almost like movie dissolves. At the end of each scene the actors leave the stage and—whammo!—you’re already in the next scene. But it takes some very nippy work backstage.”
“Sounds wonderful,” said Maria.
“It’s magical! I don’t know how we ever changed it for all this business of fixed settings and mood lighting that reflects nothing much but the mood of the lighting-designer. Pure magic!”
“Sounds to me like pantomime,” said Hollier.
“It is a bit like pantomime. But what’s wrong with that? It’s magic, I tell you.”
“You mean like the things one sees at Drottningholm?” said Darcourt.
“Just like that.”
Nobody but Darcourt among the Foundation members had been to Drottningholm, and they were impressed.
“But why is it so expensive?” said Arthur. “It sounds to me like a few pieces of lath and a lot of canvas and paint.”
“And that’s what it is. It’s the paint that costs money. Good scene-painters are rare nowadays, but Dulcy says she could do it with six good art-students and herself to supervise and do the tricky bits. But it takes time and it costs like the devil.”
“If it’s magic, we’ll have it,” said Arthur.
“That’s the real Arthurian touch,” said Maria, and kissed him.
“I declare for it, without reserve,” said the Doctor. “It will mean that I—I mean Hulda—can have many scenes, and that is wonderful freedom for a composer. Indoor-outdoor; forests and gardens. Yes, yes, Mr. Cornish, you are man of fine imagination. I also salute you.”
The Doctor kissed Arthur. On the cheek. Not one of her tongue-in-the-mouth kisses.
“With such a scheme of production, I suppose you see no obstacle to using The Questing Beast,” said Hollier, cheering up visibly, if a little unsteadily.
“What in God’s name is The Questing Beast?” said the Doctor.
“It was the monster whose pursuit was the lifelong occupation of Sir Pellinore,” said Hollier. “I’m surprised you do not know. The Questing Beast had the head of a serpent, the body of a libbard, the rump of a lion, the hooves of a hart, and a great, swingeing tail; out of its belly came a sound like the baying of thirty couple of hounds. Just the thing for a magical opera.”
“Oh Clem, you genius,” said Penny Raven, and, not to be left out when kissing was toward, she kissed Hollier, to his great abashment.
“Well—I don’t know,” said Powell.
“Oh, you must,” said Penny. “Hulda could make the Beast sing out of its belly! All those voices, in wonderful harmony. What a coup de théâtre! No, I suppose I mean a coup d’oreille. It would be the hit of the show.”
“Just what I’m afraid of,” said Powell. “You have a very minor character, Sir Pellinore, traipsing about the stage with a bloody great pantomime dragon, and taking all the attention. No! Nix on The Questing Beast.”
“I thought you wanted imagination,” said Hollier, with the hauteur of a man whose brilliant idea has been scorned.
“Imagination is not uncontrolled fantasy,” said the Doctor.
“The Questing Beast is a vital part of the Arthurian Legend,” said Hollier, raising his voice. “The Questing Beast is pure Malory. Are you throwing Malory overboard? I want to know. If I am to have any part in preparing this libretto—as you call it—I want to know the ground rules. What are your intentions toward Malory?”
“Good sense must prevail,” said the Doctor, who had not been inattentive to the aquavit. “Myth must be transmuted into art, not slavishly reproduced. If Wagner had been ruled by myth, the Ring of the Nibelungs would have been trampled to death by monsters and giants and nobody would have understood the story. I have my responsibility here, and I remind you of it. Hulda’s interests must come before everything. Besides, Hoffmann has not provided any music that could in any way be turned into a four-part chorus singing inside the belly of a monster, and probably not able to see the conductor. To hell with your Questing Beast!”