zellephantom (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zellephantom) wrote2019-01-10 04:54 pm
zellephantom) wrote2019-01-10 04:54 pm
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Phantom Thoughts pt. 17
I'm skipping chapter 6, since it's very short and I legitimately could not think of anything to say about it. For the curious, the chapter is basically the managers trying to figure out what's going on in Box Five while the Phantom scares them by somehow creating an illusion of statues laughing at them. Also, the managers resolve to sit in Box Five for the next performance of Faust. There was also some slight wordplay with Pandora's box and Box Five, which I highly approve of.
{"He has the chief management of the stable."
"What stable?"
"Why, yours, sir, the stable of the Opera."
"Is there a stable at the Opera? Upon my word, I didn't know. Where is it?"
"In the cellars, on the Rotunda side. It's a very important department; we have twelve horses."}
The new managers have been in charge for HOW LONG and they don't know about an important department and the at least 6 employees that work there??? Also why are horses such a necessary feature in operas that they need TWELVE of them?? Are there just a lot of horse-heavy operas in 19th century France that I just don't know about?
{"These are 'places,'" Mercier interposed, "created and forced upon us by the under-secretary for fine arts. They are filled by protegees of the government and, if I may venture to ..."}
So the GOVERNMENT did this? I'm just picturing government officials saying "Do you know what the opera house needs? HORSES!! At least TWELVE of them! And they need, of course, six stablehands to care for them!" "Simply genius! I shall implement this right away!"
{"Has Cesar been stolen?" cried the acting-manager. "Cesar, the white horse in the Profeta?"
"There are not two Cesars," said the stud-groom dryly. "I was ten years at Franconi's and I have seen plenty of horses in my time. Well, there are not two Cesars. And he's been stolen."}
I know the Phantom didn't leave a note, since there's such a mystery around this, but what if he *did*? Like this:
Dear stablehands,
Henceforth, Cesar is now MY little pony. Make no attempt to see him again.
xoxo the Opera Ghost
{"He has the chief management of the stable."
"What stable?"
"Why, yours, sir, the stable of the Opera."
"Is there a stable at the Opera? Upon my word, I didn't know. Where is it?"
"In the cellars, on the Rotunda side. It's a very important department; we have twelve horses."}
The new managers have been in charge for HOW LONG and they don't know about an important department and the at least 6 employees that work there??? Also why are horses such a necessary feature in operas that they need TWELVE of them?? Are there just a lot of horse-heavy operas in 19th century France that I just don't know about?
{"These are 'places,'" Mercier interposed, "created and forced upon us by the under-secretary for fine arts. They are filled by protegees of the government and, if I may venture to ..."}
So the GOVERNMENT did this? I'm just picturing government officials saying "Do you know what the opera house needs? HORSES!! At least TWELVE of them! And they need, of course, six stablehands to care for them!" "Simply genius! I shall implement this right away!"
{"Has Cesar been stolen?" cried the acting-manager. "Cesar, the white horse in the Profeta?"
"There are not two Cesars," said the stud-groom dryly. "I was ten years at Franconi's and I have seen plenty of horses in my time. Well, there are not two Cesars. And he's been stolen."}
I know the Phantom didn't leave a note, since there's such a mystery around this, but what if he *did*? Like this:
Dear stablehands,
Henceforth, Cesar is now MY little pony. Make no attempt to see him again.
xoxo the Opera Ghost
no subject
Hee!
Although that does explain how the Phantom got around Paris so easily, if you have horses already stabled at the opera house.
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As to why they had twelve -- matching teams of different colours, at a guess? Little white ponies to pull fairy coaches and big placid animals for the conquering hero to ride in full armour?
It's not at all clear from the plot summary for Le Prophète (La Profeta) where César can have been required for that opera, for example, but his role was evidently a memorable one ;-p
(An interesting fan-theory is that the Meyerbeer opera being performed at eleven pm on the night when Erik threatened to blow up the entire Paris Opera and its audience was, in fact, Le Prophète, which ends with an enormous onstage explosion killing the entire cast. That would be typical of Erik's sense of humour, and account for the otherwise inexplicable delay and precise timing of his ultimatum -- it appeals to him to stage his act of self-immolation to coincide with the end of the next day's scheduled opera, and to turn the special effects into reality :-D)
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And I had no idea there was an opera about evil Anabaptists?? That is absolutely bizarre. And now I'm picturing Cesar as just playing one of the peasants or Anabaptists, and no one comments on the fact that he's a horse. Or maybe one of the characters just rides a horse around the entire time??
That is scarily in line with Erik's sense of humor and dramatic nature, and I could certainly see that as a plausible option. I wonder how, in the normal run of that opera sans grasshoppers hopping jolly high, they managed the special effect of the firey explosion, given the technology at the time?
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A traditional 'tenting' circus could easily have a dozen stalls in its canvas stables; big rosinback horses for the bareback riders to stand on, a set of pretty little ponies for the clown acts and to perform clever tricks, maybe a 'learned' horse to count and answer audience questions with Yes or No, individual horse acts trained to jump through rings of fire or perform haute école manoeuvres ('airs above the ground'), and of course one or more sets of beautifully matched animals for the usual dashing riding displays around the ring, dressed in plumes and ridden by sequinned performers.
A nineteenth-century opera house would have been a bit more restrained, I assume (the stage is big, but not all that big), but I imagine that something like the infamous procession from 'Aida' could easily have involved more than one set of horses. French grand opera was all about the spectacle and stage machinery (sometimes to the detriment of the music, modern critics have claimed), and as 'chief stage machinist' (chef machiniste -- translated by de Mattos as a mere 'scene-shifter') Joseph Buquet would have been in authority over a crew of sixty or seventy men operating the elaborate and complex mechanisms involved.
(An interesting footnote is that -- according to the programme of the West End production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera" -- the reason why it was staged at Her Majesty's Theatre was because the theatre retained its original Victorian stage machinery, thus enabling the various special effects, i.e. vanishing in a puff of smoke or diving into a pool of water.)
According to my annotated edition, a lot of Leroux's descriptions of the Opera House interior can be traced back directly to the reference books he evidently consulted, Charles Nuitter's Le Nouvel Opéra and Charles Garnier's own account, "Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris".
(The latter is available on Google Books; I did a quick search of the PDF to see if Garnier says anything about facilities for horses, and while the search didn't reveal anything about stables, it did throw up a lyrical passage about the grand staircase where he asks the reader to imagine entire operas taking place in that setting, specifically mentioning the procession from Le Prophète and the one from La Juive 'minus the horses, of course', since they couldn't manage the stairs ;-D
In fact I've just looked at the relevant chapter in Leroux, and he explicitly mentions those two operas as being ones requiring trained horses. So I'm guessing that these very precise details were probably the result of Gaston Leroux's own research!)
The footnote to this chapter in my annotated 'Phantom' comments that Charles Nuitter's book mentions "horses that will be hoisted onto the stage by means of an elevator".
Some concentrated Web searching throws up a page about the Opéra Garnier which mentions, as an aside, that the dimensions of "l'ouverture de la scène" (the proscenium arch?) were such that in the past it had permitted the arrival of horses at the gallop thanks to its 16-metre size: https://paris-guide-web.com/opera-garnier-paris/
The article also comments that it was possible to open up the foyer de la danse, which was situated directly behind this area, to form a continuation of the stage which created a depth of almost fifty metres, permitting the illusion of arrival from a great distance thanks to the reverse rake of the floor -- also useful for staging processions, I imagine.
(So much for my comments about "not all that big"!)
Apparently danseuse is actually French slang for a financially demanding mistress; 's'offrir une danseuse' is to become a 'sugar-daddy'.
So Philippe's caution that "once these little ladies from the Opera learn their way to a man's purse, life can become astonishingly expensive..." was extremely accurate, however 'hypocritical' and 'immoral' my readers found it :-p
He was generous to Sorelli, I hope...
Another page (also in French, but with good photos): http://curieuseartemis.over-blog.com/article-opera-garnier-paris-visitons-le-ensemble-96727982.html
At the beginning she comments that the Opera contained not only the singers, the corps de ballet, the ballet school and the singing school (which actually took place at the Conservatoire, where Christine studied), but also costume workshops, a stable, an armoury etc. It seems clear that there was one, even if I can't find any pictures or descriptions of it -- unlike the infamous 'lake'!
This page mentions that nowadays the chandelier is lowered to the ground to be cleaned annually, but that originally it was designed to be raised through the ceiling, where you can still see the little circle in the centre that opened to allow it to pass through, and that it remained lit throughout the performance -- presumably it was also raised in order to light it?
(By the era, I assume it would have been illuminated by gas rather than by candles, and they did have ingenious methods for lighting gas-lamps remotely: https://cassstudio6.wordpress.com/lighting/gaslight-era/ )
The Wikipedia page for the opera actually shows the staging for the final act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meyerbeer_Proph%C3%A8te_D%C3%A9cor_ActVTab3_Chaperon.jpg
By the looks of it, the various scenery flats crack up and fall apart and some thunderflashes get set off on stage, while everybody makes gestures of dismay and falls flat ;-p
As I mentioned, 'the technology at the time' did pretty much focus on dramatic special effects to draw in audiences; the finale of "La Juive" involves the heroine being executed a cauldron of boiling water, and "Robert le diable" was famous for the ghostly effects used to create its ballet of sinful nuns rising from the grave...
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It's interesting to think of Buquet as someone in charge of so many people with such an important role, given most adaptations (at least, that I've seen) where he's pretty much just a slacker or drunk all the time.
A horse elevator! It probably sounds a lot more whimsical in my head, but for some reason, that phrase is just delightful. 'Bring the horse to the horse elevator!' 'Did that horse get stuck in the horse elevator again?' The phrase almost has a 'cellar door' like musicality to it.
Wow, that was some elaborate stagecraft, and it certainly seems like shows where the main draw was the spectacle or some impressive technical effect are nothing new. (To think, the King Kong musical on Broadway had precedent going back centuries of other productions with spectacle over story! I wonder what those stage machinists back in the 1880s would have thought of a mechanical ape puppet that weighed one ton and was controlled by electronics and ten puppeteers...)
A ballet of sinful nuns rising from the grave is probably the most unusual phrase I've heard all day- well, aside from 'horse elevator' XD
no subject
But I have read quite a lot of books where the characters know quite a lot about horses (including tidbits like 'one must not keep carriage-horses standing in the cold outside the door')...
Poor old Buquet. He doesn't have much of a role even in the book, and of course Lloyd Webber's musical was based on de Mattos (I'm pretty sure there weren't any other English translations around at the time he was working on the project), where he is written off as a mere scene-shifter. Ironically enough Buquet's function in the original seems to have been as an example of a sober, reliable witness whose evidence can be taken seriously!
He is definitely a 'chief' in the French text, though -- and actually, even in the musical he is described as 'chief of the flies', i.e. in authority over the men who do the actual hauling up and down of all the painted backdrops and heavy scenery flats. It's just that owing to practical restrictions he is the *only* one of the stage-hands we get to see.
(In the 2004 movie we do see him working and directing other men up above, just before his murder.)
You're right, "horse elevator" does sound a bit 'selador'...!
They go back at least as far as "The Tempest", which Shakespeare wrote to show off the new 'storm at sea' effects and elaborate scene changes for King James ;-)
Apparently it was considered gratuitously shocking, and a big audience draw that didn't have much to do with the main plot -- some other things never change, either ;-p
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https://www.opera-online.com/en/articles/la-juive-from-oblivion-to-renascence--2
The first production of "La Juive" in 1835 by the Paris Opera (not at that time resident at the Palais Garnier) involved twenty horses borrowed from the Cirque-Olympique. So one can see how, when they were building a new opera house in the expectation of presenting this type of production, they would take care to equip it with a sizeable stable :-)
no subject
Another one in the list of astonishing things I didn't know about Le Prophète: apparently the classic ballet Les Patineurs is actually based on the music from a roller-skating scene from Meyerbeer's opera.
Starlight Express, eat your heart out!