Phantom Thoughts pt. 21
Jan. 12th, 2019 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zellephantom{"The little baggage!" growled the count.}
Weird insult, but okay.
{Raoul, behind the curtain of his hands that veiled his boyish tears, thought only of the letter which he received on his return to Paris, where Christine, fleeing from Perros like a thief in the night, had arrived before him}
Boyish tears? I was under the impression that tears were simply water flowing from one's eyes- I wasn't aware that they were inherently gendered.
{Thenceforth, certain of herself, certain of her friends in the house, certain of her voice and her success, fearing nothing, Carlotta flung herself into her part without restraint of modesty ... She was no longer Margarita, she was Carmen.}
Forgive me for my little knowledge of Opera, but aren't Margarite from Faust and Carmen from.. er, Carmen, two completely different character types?
Also, gentle readers, I have taken the liberty of removing the massive amounts of quotations from Faust in this chapter. It might mean something to someone who is familiar with Faust and could pinpoint where exactly they are at the moment, but I am generally disregarding it.
{The uproar in the house was indescribable. If the thing had happened to any one but Carlotta, she would have been hooted. But everybody knew how perfect an instrument her voice was; and there was no display of anger, but only of horror and dismay, the sort of dismay which men would have felt if they had witnessed the catastrophe that broke the arms of the Venus de Milo...}
Well, I'm glad that the audience likes Carlotta and isn't taking the oppertunity to kick her while she's down. (Even if she might deserve it, given her treatment of Christine.)
{So much so that, after some seconds spent in asking herself if she had really heard that note, that sound, that infernal noise issue from her throat, she tried to persuade herself that it was not so, that she was the victim of an illusion, an illusion of the ear, and not of an act of treachery on the part of her voice....}
How dare you, Carlotta's voice! You treacherous wretch! (Also, it's interesting to note that Carlotta's ego is partially right- her voice is a technically perfect instrument, and the audience recognizes it.)
{Moncharmin and Richard had turned very pale. This extraordinary and inexplicable incident filled them with a dread which was the more mysterious inasmuch as for some little while, they had fallen within the direct influence of the ghost. They had felt his breath. Moncharmin's hair stood on end. Richard wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Yes, the ghost was there, around them, behind them, beside them; they felt his presence without seeing him, they heard his breath, close, close, close to them!}
It's not polite to just stand there and breathe down people's necks without saying anything, Erik. At least give them something ominous to haunt their nightmares! (Or, alternatively, the quacking incident has put the managers so on edge that they're just imagining things.)
{THEY FELT THAT THEY WERE SMARTING UNDER THE GHOST'S ATTACKS.}
WOAH SUDDEN ALL CAPS TO EMPHASIZE THE DRAMA (seriously, Leroux really likes sudden all caps)
{"I feel without alarm ...
I feel without alarm—co-ack!
With its melody enwind me—co-ack!
And all my heart sub—co-ack!"}
That feeling when you get the hiccups.
{And, at last, they distinctly heard his voice in their right ears, the impossible voice, the mouthless voice, saying: "SHE IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING THE CHANDELIER DOWN!"}
Okay, just because you can't see who's talking doesn't mean he doesn't have a mouth!
{The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier was slipping down, coming toward them, at the call of that fiendish voice. Released from its hook, it plunged from the ceiling and came smashing into the middle of the stalls, amid a thousand shouts of terror}
So, is Erik up there with the chandelier throwing his voice, or is he down in Box Five with the manager and somehow remotely crashing the chandelier? For that matter, was Carlotta really quacking, or was that him throwing his voice? And if he messed with her throat spray, then why did it fail at that exact moment and not earlier, while she was being Carmen-esque?
Weird insult, but okay.
{Raoul, behind the curtain of his hands that veiled his boyish tears, thought only of the letter which he received on his return to Paris, where Christine, fleeing from Perros like a thief in the night, had arrived before him}
Boyish tears? I was under the impression that tears were simply water flowing from one's eyes- I wasn't aware that they were inherently gendered.
{Thenceforth, certain of herself, certain of her friends in the house, certain of her voice and her success, fearing nothing, Carlotta flung herself into her part without restraint of modesty ... She was no longer Margarita, she was Carmen.}
Forgive me for my little knowledge of Opera, but aren't Margarite from Faust and Carmen from.. er, Carmen, two completely different character types?
Also, gentle readers, I have taken the liberty of removing the massive amounts of quotations from Faust in this chapter. It might mean something to someone who is familiar with Faust and could pinpoint where exactly they are at the moment, but I am generally disregarding it.
{The uproar in the house was indescribable. If the thing had happened to any one but Carlotta, she would have been hooted. But everybody knew how perfect an instrument her voice was; and there was no display of anger, but only of horror and dismay, the sort of dismay which men would have felt if they had witnessed the catastrophe that broke the arms of the Venus de Milo...}
Well, I'm glad that the audience likes Carlotta and isn't taking the oppertunity to kick her while she's down. (Even if she might deserve it, given her treatment of Christine.)
{So much so that, after some seconds spent in asking herself if she had really heard that note, that sound, that infernal noise issue from her throat, she tried to persuade herself that it was not so, that she was the victim of an illusion, an illusion of the ear, and not of an act of treachery on the part of her voice....}
How dare you, Carlotta's voice! You treacherous wretch! (Also, it's interesting to note that Carlotta's ego is partially right- her voice is a technically perfect instrument, and the audience recognizes it.)
{Moncharmin and Richard had turned very pale. This extraordinary and inexplicable incident filled them with a dread which was the more mysterious inasmuch as for some little while, they had fallen within the direct influence of the ghost. They had felt his breath. Moncharmin's hair stood on end. Richard wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Yes, the ghost was there, around them, behind them, beside them; they felt his presence without seeing him, they heard his breath, close, close, close to them!}
It's not polite to just stand there and breathe down people's necks without saying anything, Erik. At least give them something ominous to haunt their nightmares! (Or, alternatively, the quacking incident has put the managers so on edge that they're just imagining things.)
{THEY FELT THAT THEY WERE SMARTING UNDER THE GHOST'S ATTACKS.}
WOAH SUDDEN ALL CAPS TO EMPHASIZE THE DRAMA (seriously, Leroux really likes sudden all caps)
{"I feel without alarm ...
I feel without alarm—co-ack!
With its melody enwind me—co-ack!
And all my heart sub—co-ack!"}
That feeling when you get the hiccups.
{And, at last, they distinctly heard his voice in their right ears, the impossible voice, the mouthless voice, saying: "SHE IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING THE CHANDELIER DOWN!"}
Okay, just because you can't see who's talking doesn't mean he doesn't have a mouth!
{The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier was slipping down, coming toward them, at the call of that fiendish voice. Released from its hook, it plunged from the ceiling and came smashing into the middle of the stalls, amid a thousand shouts of terror}
So, is Erik up there with the chandelier throwing his voice, or is he down in Box Five with the manager and somehow remotely crashing the chandelier? For that matter, was Carlotta really quacking, or was that him throwing his voice? And if he messed with her throat spray, then why did it fail at that exact moment and not earlier, while she was being Carmen-esque?
no subject
Date: 2019-01-13 12:49 am (UTC)That might be my new favourite insult.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-13 08:29 am (UTC)Boyish as in 'immature', not as in 'male' -- the French actually reads "larmes d'enfant", the tears of a child. De Mattos obviously decided that would be misleading in this context (which I think was the right call for once).
Yes, that's the point that the book is making. Carlotta is performing the role in an inappropriate (indeed vulgar) manner.
(And guess what? De Mattos has abridged a huge chunk of text about Carlotta here -- about a page's worth. There are great bleeding hunks of this book missing...)
Leroux never bothers to explain how Erik contrived the chandelier episode -- indeed, he denies to the Persian having had anything to do with it -- but I assume he must have had it rigged in advance when he learned that Carlotta would be performing and not Christine, and had some means of triggering it remotely, though I can't imagine what!
I also assume that he was throwing his voice to make it sound to everybody, including Carlotta, that her notes were cracking, and that the sheer shock of it was enough to cause her to break off. Although it seems a risky strategy, since the psychological warfare might not have worked, and it might have become clear that she was singing stubbornly away and someone else was attempting to interrupt from the wings.
And hitting the unfortunate concierge and killing her (and only her) must surely have been a dramatic coincidence -- not even Erik could arrange that, or predict exactly what the result of crashing the chandelier would be in advance.