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Notturno Veneziano

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THE SCALENE TRIANGLE


Like a bolt from the blue, the bombshell falls on the corps de ballet assembled by Madame Chloé: the Sicilian Romeo, the woman-slayer, has pulled out without any explanation –some female’s ruined him, for sure. What is certain is that we’ve wasted more than a month of rehearsing, and more time will be lost - a primo ballerino cannot just be replaced with another, he’s not a car part, not a component of a film cast, where, if one runs off out of the studios you just look around, see one with a stupid face and ask him: 'Do you want to be Romeo in our movie?', and if he says yes, he’ll be as good as, maybe even better than, the original. But a dancer is a unique creation, one who brings with him all his own style and technical skills. And dancers suitable for this part, performing to this music, you don’t find them round every corner. There are very few really good dancers - it's like replacing Nureyev in the Nutcracker or in Petrushka, where do you find another like Nureyev? Even those who are here in our corps de ballet, and there aren’t many, among us women there are only four men – there are only twenty of us altogether – and they’re young, they’ve not got the personality for such a difficult role.

Madame is in a rage, I expect any moment she’ll come out with a string of blasphemies such as have never before been heard. I pluck up courage, get up, approach her, she makes a gesture as if she wants me to go away, but then we hug, she starts crying, and I do too.

But we can’t cancel everything just because of an arrogant oaf who first makes promises and then breaks his word, we must start looking for someone right away. Time’s been wasted, but not entirely, we’ve all already worked on our part, we already know it all through, the music, the steps, the scenes. The search won’t be easy at this stage, we have to find a star who’s not already been snapped up. The Italian men, as far as I know, are all already booked, and for some time, here or overseas, there are only a few possibilities, foreigners, who’ve hardly been heard of, and what we have heard we can’t judge how reliable.
 
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All this walk in Venice was a great moment of this story ... We discovered what nobody , coming like tourist, never could imagine , mainly about the Renaissance'architecture which is a part of my job in France ... Decidely, a day I'll do visit Venice but with all these descriptions in my hand to do not let on the side all the treasures that you made us viewed ...
Thanks l' bogo !:clapping:
 
messaline said:
All this walk in Venice was a great moment of this story ... We discovered what nobody , coming like tourist, never could imagine , mainly about the Renaissance'architecture which is a part of my job in France ... Decidely, a day I'll do visit Venice but with all these descriptions in my hand to do not let on the side all the treasures that you made us viewed ...
Thanks l' bogo !:clapping:
Click to expand...

True, l'bogo is a real conosseur of Venetian architecture, and and gastronomy! :)
 
Good Friday

Yes! Yes, I’m sure of it now – I’ve suspected it for a few weeks... I am being spied on... spied on by a ghost, a ghost who is visible even during the day... I see it every time I stop, I look round, it’s a female figure, with long, straight, black hair, it follows me from the moment I leave the theatre, along the streets... but it’s always turned away from me, it anticipates any movement I make with perfect coordination, I've never been able to see its face. It’s reflected in the shop windows, but then it disappears. Always turning away, always going away, a two-faced Janus whose faces are always invisible. Always too far away for me ever to reach it...

I'm afraid, I'm afraid.

What does this lost soul want from me? Why does it follow me as if it were my own shadow? I am opressed by its phantom presence. I’ve even thought it might be the ghost of Vio, disguised as a woman, who’s spying on me. I entered a church, I looked for a priest, with the excuse of wanting to remember in my prayers my poor lost love. I asked him to celebrate a votive mass for his soul, to free him from Purgatory, if by chance he was still imprisoned there...

While Madame Chloé is travelling around Europe like Diogenes, looking for a male dancer, I have to go today to the Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, to continue rehearsals with the whole corps de ballet. I’m feeling insecure, not to say terrified – it’s near where I think one would find the Casina della Contessa, as I call it, but it’s also close to the Casin de i Spiriti, where those fearsome ghosts of murderers lurk. I shudder at the thought of walking alone along the narrow streets that lead into the Cannaregio quarter, I'm afraid I may get lost in that maze, I’m scared that I’ll find myself face to face with the ghost, and I’ll find out who’s behind the mask that hides its features...

'Hello architect!'

'Good morning, to what do I owe the honour?'

'You know Venice better than your own pockets. I need to get to the Fondamenta Nuove, but Cannaregio is like the labyrinth of Knossos.'

'I understand, I understand – it’ll be a day lost, but at least I’ll see you dancing!'

'Don’t be silly, I won’t be nude. Hurry up, we'll be late otherwise.'

I wait, watching from the window. There it is! The ghost is there, already waiting for me... but in a moment, as if by magic, it’s gone, round the corner of the church that faces onto Campo San Fantin.

'Have you had breakfast?'

'No not yet.'

'Then we’ll stop along the way.'

A cup of tea, a croissant, a fresh orange juice - they’re very sweet at this season, sitting at a table near the window...

‘There...!' I cut short the exclamation that’s on my lips.

'Who?'

'I don’t know...'

'I didn’t see anyone...'

'No, someone was there, they turned into the Canton de l'Ostrega.'

Yes, it was there, it passed by, a few steps from the window.

'Let's go, it’ll take twenty minutes to get to the Fondamenta Nuove.'
 
WIth my apologizes for the delay and many many thanks to l'bogo and Eulalia! :)

_____________________________________________________________________________

We proceed through streets, across bridges, then turn right into the labyrinth of Cannaregio. Ancient walls, plaster eroded by time and salt, the wood of locked doors in vacant doorways looks as if it has been devoured by ravenous termites, but it is only the passing of the years, humidity and neglect that has reduced them to bodyless skeletons. I’m heading towards the Rio di Noale, but my guide is an Ariadne’s thread, I would already have got lost.

Suddenly I stop dead, a dark figure on the bridge in front of us seems to be blocking our way...

'Who's that on the bridge?'

'Just a couple of lovers, kissing.'

'Ah! I didn’t realise!'

'There’s something strange about you, you seem to be afraid of someone, you keep looking back, peering suspiciously at every corner, as if someone were following you.'

'No, it's just your imagination, I’m simply looking around to see where we are, and what direction we are taking.'

I can’t tell him I'm being followed by a ghost, he wouldn’t believe me, he’d think I'm unhinged. I have to simulate indifference even though my legs are trembling.

Now I recognize the bridge that crosses the Rio di Santa Caterina, we walk along the Fondamenta of the same name, reaching Calle Lunga Santa Caterina, and from here down to the end of the Fondamenta Nuove quays.

On the left, beyond the small port of Cannaregio, cluttered with piers and boats, one can see the gloomy shape of the Casin de i Spiriti, with its dark, vacant eyes, its walls that fall straight down to the sea, without any landing place. In front of the Isola di San Michele, there’s a tug at my heart at the thought of poor Vio. Just to the right is the theatre: for some time unused and abandoned, but now the stage-sets are there for our ballet, Romeo and Juliet.

I can’t understand, I don’t see any building here that could be the House of the Countess, and yet from the windows I could see the cemetery just as I see it from here, in front of the entrance to the theatre. Is the house also a ghost?
 
Another bit :)

______________________________________________________________________________

The architect tells me the names of the islands in the Lagoon that can be seen from here.

(I was born in Treviso and I lived there until I was eighteen, the last six in an orphanage run by the Nuns of Charity, because my grandparents died when I was twelve, my father had fled to South America and he had not sent any news of himself, and my mother had gone off with a new lover - but I’d been able to continue at the dance school because of the generosity of my teacher who, although she couldn’t adopt me, had continued to take care of me as if I were her daughter.)

The furious barking of a dog, scarcely held on a leash by his mistress, frightens us - the dog growls, shows his teeth, howls and barks, seems to want to attack us. We try to enter the theatre but it is locked from the inside. When we hammer on the panels of the door waiting for someone to open, the furious animal, tearing the leash off its collar, leaps towards us. I try to protect myself, the architect shields me with his body, pushing me against the wall, but the dog hurtles past us, continuing his trajectory in the direction from which we’ve just come. Then he stops, I think I can see the black shadow of the ghost disappearing, haunting me. Frozen in surprise, peering around, looking for his quarry... he returns to us, now meek, wagging his tail, almost begging to be stroked.

'Good dog! Good little dog. What did you see?'

Unfortunately, he cannot answer me.

‘I’m sorry, so sorry, he’s never done such a thing, my dog... I don’t know why ... he even broke the ring off his collar...'

'We were really scared, whatever caused the attack?'

The architect is staring in amazement. I cannot tell him I know why. The mistress of the dog ties the leash under its collar, holds it firmly and walks away. The dog turns to look at me with gentle eyes, moaning and whining as if he wanted to tell me something. At last someone came to open the door, we enter, a little shaken by the incident.
 
The dancers on stage are practising the scene of the fight between the Montagus and Capulets. Long poles simulating spears are swung about, they look like Japanese Samurai practising ritual combat without ever hitting one another. We sit on the front row seats to observe their dance.

Madame Chloé, phoning last night from St. Petersburg, has instructed me to rehearse the scene that I’m most shy about, when I make my entrance onto the stage completely naked, spread out on a framework of stakes. I shall be transported by the dancers towards the proscenium , then turn towards the wings on stage-right.

I’m not convinced by the idea of the curtain opening onto the scene in complete darkness, I would like something to precede the sad, funeral procession of my 'corpse’.

‘What do you think,’ I ask my architect, ‘supposing there were a veil of black fabric, only just transparent, behind which the figures of two dancers, a girl and a man, move as if they were souls in torment – at first subtly, while they touch the veil with their hands , and then more defined when their bodies collide with the fabric, which suddenly opens as if it were ripped apart - and the two dancers disappear, sweeping the veil to the sides, as if their souls have been whisked away? It would need a continuous sound, a single note, I think F sharp, played by an oboe ... '

'It seems like a good idea, but we’d need to add the veil behind the main curtain. We'll have to talk to Madame.’

'I’d like to try the scene now, as soon as they’ve finished. We can experiment with the curtain, the spotlights will focus on the contact of the hands and bodies, and those two oboes in the orchestra can play the note. Meanwhile, you can film the scene with my smartphone, so we can suggest it to Madame ... And then you can film and take photos during the procession, when I’ll be being carried by the dancers. I will not be naked, not this time, I'm sorry if I disappoint you!’

‘Tease!’

The orchestra has finished playing the music for the fight scene, I approach the conductor to explain what I would like to try, while the architect gives careful instructions to the stagehands.
 
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