Personally I saw the edifice before me as a resplendent example of grandeur and folly in roughly equal measure. With sunlight gilding the figures of Music and Dance on the façade and Apollo atop the dome, it was almost impossible to conceive that such an odious crime could have happened under the aegis of such gods and noble virtues.
“Another disfigurement. Almost a prediction, if you believe such nonsense.” As we climbed the steps to the entrance, Poe pointed out Carpeaux’s sculpture, which had so shocked the Puritans of Paris in its erotic depiction of La Dance that ink was thrown over its marble thighs. “Ink. Acid. I know some critics where the two are synonymous.”
If we had doubted the atmosphere of superstitious dread permeating the company, we soon found it illustrated when the doorman almost leapt out of his skin at the sound of our rapping. Poe introduced himself — as “Dupin,” naturally — and proceeded to interrogate the individual, a sapeur-pompier with a wooden leg, about his actions on the afternoon in question. The fellow was adamant that nobody had entered or left the theater on his watch and he himself never strayed from his post until the doors were locked.
We ascended the Grand Staircase with its balustrade of red and green marble and two bronze female torchières in the direction of the foyers.
Poe sniffed like an eager bloodhound as we were surrounded by immense mirrors and parquet, more colored marble, moulded stucco, and sculptures.
“These are the mirrors in which the audience watch the show before the show.” He looked at the vast room in reflection, and at his own. “This is where they see each other, and themselves. And find themselves on the upper step, or the lower. The inane dance of the socially inclined and the artistically disinterested. I’d wager by law of averages that of the myriad citizens crammed in here on opening night, at least five are murderers.”
“A sobering thought.”
“On the contrary, a thought to turn one to drink,” said Poe. “I should know.”
We had lied to the doorman. Our appointment with Guédiguian was at three. It gave us a full hour to explore unhindered, an opportunity my colleague took to with relish. He had been given extensive floor plans of the Opéra, but nothing, he said, was a substitute for the application of the senses. If there were gods that deserved statuary, Poe declared, it was Sight, Smell, Touch, Taste, and Hearing.
And so we roamed the interweaving corridors, stairwells, alcoves, and landings. Before long it was not hard to imagine a clever infiltrator scampering from floor to floor or room to room unseen. Skulking round the Romano-Byzantine labyrinth, several times I wished for Ariadne’s ball of twine, fearful that we had lost our way, while Poe counted his footsteps into hundreds, storing myriad calculations of I-knew-not-what. But then, I seldom did.
A swell of music rose up and I was momentarily reminded of the old adage of a dying man hearing a choir of angels. The gas-lit passageway gave the notes a dull, eerie resonance, making it tricky to know whether the source was near or far. But when Poe opened a door and we stepped into a fourth-level box overlooking the stage, the voices and orchestra took on voluminous proportions.
The tiny figures before us were dwarfed in a five-tier auditorium resplendent in red velvet, plaster cherubs, and gold leaf. The magnificent house curtain with gold braid and pom-poms was raised above the proscenium. And presiding over all — in fact partly obscuring our view — hung the magnificent seven-ton crystal and bronze chandelier which alone, if you are to believe the controversy, cost thirty thousand gold francs.
I am marginally more familiar with La Traviata now than I was then, and could not have told you in those days they were rehearsing Act Two, Scene Two — the soirée at Flora’s house, in which Alfredo, here a beefy man with the build of a prize-fighter, sees his love, the former courtesan Violetta, with Baron Douphol. After winning a small fortune from the Baron, he bitterly rounds up the guests to witness her humiliation— “Questa donna conoscete?”—before hurling his winnings at her feet in payment for her “services.” Whereupon she faints to the floor.
“She faints in Act One, too,” said Poe, paying less attention to the stage than he did to the fixtures and fittings of the box. “Never a good sign.”
“More to the point, Guédiguian hasn’t wasted any time in finding a new Violetta. I presume that’s her understudy.”
Poe arched an eyebrow.
As we listened to the guests turn on Alfredo — singing “Di donne ignobile insultatore, di qua allontanati, ne desti orror!”— Poe could no longer bear the pain and left the box, muttering that high art was invariably highly dull. The art of the street, the Penny Dreadful and barrel organ, he found more rewarding, he said — and more honest. “I don’t know about you, but I have seldom been accompanied by an orchestra in my moments of intimate passion.”
“But is there a clue in the play?” I caught up with him in the corridor.
“Why would there be?”
“I don’t know. Do you? I’ve never stepped in an opera house before. I don’t even know what La Traviata means.”
“The Fallen Woman. It is based on La Dame aux Camélias, a play in turn based on a novel by Dumas, fils—in turn based, some say, on a lady of his own acquaintance. The play was a big success when I first arrived in Paris, especially after it was vilified by the censors.”
“For what reason?”
“A high-living prostitute depicted as a victim of society? Especially when she never sees the light? In London, I believe they tried to get an injunction to stop it. But then, it is never entirely a bad thing for a work of art to be pilloried by the Church. In America they say the plot is immoral, though no worse than Don Giovanni. Here, it was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Place de Chatelet with Christine Nilsson in the title role. Too chaste-looking for a harlot, if you ask me.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes, which is why I abhor opera with every fiber of my being. Rarely does an art form offend all the senses at once, and the buttocks more than any. Nothing less than the crucifixion of Christ should last more than forty minutes. And God forbid that Judas should sing about it. Though, given time, I’m sure he shall.” Keeping up his sprightly pace, he turned a corner. “The truth is, my dear Holmes, I endured this mellifluous obscenity once and did not care for it. In fact, I walked out.”
He strode on several yards before replying to my unspoken question, but did not turn to face me.
“You see… the soprano was too old, too obese… almost to the point of being flabby, to play — to conceivably play, with any hope of conviction — the part of a young woman dying of consumption.” His face creased and twitched with the most intense inner agitation. “That she sang with such — abnormal gusto, with superhuman energy — with such buoyant, lustrous, glowing health. And the fact that she was applauded. That people cheered…”
He had told me before of Virginia, his cousin and child bride. Her icy pallor, cheeks rubbed with plum juice to fake a ruddy complexion. Her dry lips enlivened briefly with the color of cherries. The coughing of blood onto a pure white handkerchief. He had also, once, intimated that the disease gave spells of excitement, even desire; that there was an aphrodisiac quality to the fading bloom. I think it was this that haunted him most of all. I cannot imagine what he had suffered. To bear helpless witness to a death so inevitable yet so gradual. To see loveliness — one’s very reason for living — wither on the vine, and all around feel harangued by the prejudice of others, not knowing whether to blame habits or heredity or himself. Then to be there as the leaf takes to the wind, leaving its heavy load behind…