A Sweet Obscurity by Patrick Gale

Author:Patrick Gale [Patrick Gale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007378463
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

27

The timing could not have been better. Giles had one more morning of rehearsal then the répétiteur and choreographer were to be forced to work for a week only on the scenes for the Mechanicals and the lovers, giving the three principal fairies a week off while Dewi Evans and Grover flew to Jamaica to shoot a video for Dewi’s new single. Being freed for this was a condition of Grover’s accepting the commission. Plainly his ability to make Dewi part of the production was what induced the opera management to accept what would normally have been unacceptable.

It was an oddly placid opera for Giles to work on. While the lovers scurried about and fought and wept he had little to do but glide in and out and look powerful. Even when enraged, Oberon was essentially static. Compared to the spite, heroics and vocal acrobatics of so many baroque roles, it was a breeze to sing. He had a superb Titania – a voluptuous young Frenchwoman whom he suspected was out of his league or would be within a couple of seasons. He had become used to Dewi’s omnivorous flirtatiousness and the conductor was entirely trustworthy.

He was trying not to think about the costumes, or lack of them, and suspected the clamorous rumours were planted by Grover’s team to whip up a frenzy of anticipation among jaded punters for whom a glimpse of a pop star’s buttocks was more exciting than one of musical paradise. As insurance, however, he had doubled his daily abdominal workout to the point where it sometimes hurt when he breathed.

Selina was beside herself with pleasure, apparently, though being Selina her pleasure manifested itself as a kind of threat. ‘This is going to be huge, Giles,’ she kept saying. ‘Huge. Up there with Miller’s Rigoletto and Hockney’s Rake. Just so long as nobody loses their nerve again and buggers it up.’

He did not like to point out that the productions she cited were all about a certain look or a certain director and that nobody now could name their original casts.

Julia put in a morning’s work too then he picked her up in a taxi with their bags. They had not taken a holiday in months. They both worked hard, certainly, and then there was Dido to consider, since he did not feel he could whisk her away from Eliza for longer than a weekend. But he worried sometimes that their official line, that they much preferred a pampering long weekend here and there to a prolonged stay in one place masked their fear at what fault-lines a longer holiday without company might expose. Even this trip was not truly a holiday, of course, but work for her and duty for him with a pampering weekend attached.

Subsidised by the agency, they were able to fly most of the way on the little plane that shuttled a day long triangle between Gatwick, Plymouth and Newquay. Their fellow passengers seemed to be a strange mixture of business people

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