Death and Transfiguration

Chapter 1

At last, my moment had come.

When I looked upward, I saw the Palais Garnier in all of its splendor, the bronze busts of some of the world's greatest composers staring out at me, the gilded figures atop the facade welcoming me in. I still couldn't quite believe I was here, in the City of Lights. Between two train rides, the ferry, and the carriage ride, the whole day had all felt like a dream, but here I was, at the opera house, where Bergmann was surely inside, worrying over his latest composition, at this very moment.

There was a large poster in front of the building, and I scrutinized it carefully. The years of French I had taken in secondary school were not helping me nearly as much as I thought they would, but I understood enough. Tonight, the Paris Opera would perform the world premiere of Johann Bergmann's new opera, The Lost Shadow.

All I needed was to somehow find a ticket.

"Get your tickets!" a young man proclaimed, his voice cutting over the noise of the crowd that was quickly gathering around the opera house. "Tickets for sale here!" I immediately walked up to him, and in broken French, I asked him how much the tickets were. "Fifteen francs, and they're the best seats in the house!"

I gave him fifteen francs, and he smirked and handed me a ticket. As I got in line for the performance, I looked down at my ticket and grinned, knowing that I was only minutes away from seeing Bergmann's new opera. I continued to wait, and despite the anticipation, I soon grew bored, so I looked toward the poster one more time.

THE LOST SHADOW

World Premiere

Music by Johann Bergmann

Libretto by Ernst Klein

Starring Clément Chesneau and Léa Valencourt

Tickets starting at 2.50F

Perhaps I should have thought this through a little bit better.

As I waited in line for what seemed like forever, I chastised myself for falling for what was in hindsight an obvious trick, but my thoughts soon drifted to the upcoming performance. It had been ten years since I first heard Bergmann's music, and I had listened to it many times since. Whenever I heard that the Philharmonic Society was playing one of his works, I saved up every penny I had, just to feel once more the joy I'd felt when I was a girl, hearing his music for the first time. The anticipation for this, the premiere of his very first opera, was torture. I thought I would drop dead if I had to wait one more second to hear the first note of The Lost Shadow.

Yet, it was another hour before I even made it to my seat. The interior of the Palais Garnier was breathtaking, of course, with its huge ceremonial staircase and the bronze and crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, but by that point, I couldn't take it any longer. All I wanted was for the opera to finally begin.

When I finally got to the auditorium, I soon discovered that the ticket salesman had lied to me once again. My seat was far off to the side, where it was nearly impossible to get a good view of the stage. Yet, I was still certain that all of this would be worth it in the end. As I waited for the curtain to finally rise, I flipped through the program notes.

The Lost Shadow

Johann Bergmann

Johann Bergmann, best known for his nine symphonies, written in his imaginative and inimitable style, takes a step into the world of opera with The Lost Shadow. Adapted from the German-language play of the same name, with a libretto by Ernst Klein, the composer describes the score as "provocative, perhaps too much so, but also my greatest work yet" and hopes that the music and the story will...

That was when I heard a grand fanfare from the brass section, finally announcing the beginning of what was supposedly Johann Bergmann's greatest work yet.

The story was strange and difficult to follow - I constantly found myself consulting the program notes, but all I could discern was that it had something to do with an overly complicated love triangle, a woman with terrible luck, and a horrible monster who was invisible purely to save money on the special effects budget. The music, however, was nothing short of spectacular. It was certainly unusual, with the flutes playing far outside of their normal register and the constant repetition of a strangely dissonant melody, but it was also grotesque yet haunting in a way that perfectly suited the opera.

The other singers were passable, but it was the soprano who fascinated me. She was dressed in an elaborate costume, her light brown curls were piled high on top of her head, and her bright blue eyes gazed out at the audience as she sang Bergmann's music with such passion and expression that it moved me to tears.

Not everyone felt the same way I did though. The woman next to me looked disgusted with the performance the entire time, while the man on the other side was just as thrilled as I was. The audience was tense, and in retrospect, it was only a matter of time before those tensions would surely begin to boil over.

I think it was when the soprano stabbed herself with a knife, with so much blood splattering across the stage that I thought for a moment that she had actually done it, that someone in the row ahead of me hurled a small metal case into the orchestra pit.

Soon, the auditorium erupted into chaos. A fistfight broke out in the row in front of me, with a few bohemian types rushing to attack the young man who had thrown the case into the pit, while others rushed to his defense. A few more audience members tossed whatever they had toward the orchestra pit and toward the stage, booing loudly as they did so. There was so much yelling, shrieking, and screaming that I could hardly hear myself think, much less hear anything that was happening on stage.

I tried to sit back and enjoy the opera, but it was nearly impossible. I couldn't hear the music anymore, but the conductor looked hopelessly distressed as he beat out each note and gestured for the orchestra to play louder and louder. Thankfully, my row stayed relatively calm, but when the woman next to me jumped into the next row to berate a young man who was singing the praises of Bergmann's music, I knew that it was too late. Before too much longer, all semblance of order in the auditorium would be gone.

A handful of people, including the man next to me, ran out of the building to find a policeman, hoping that he might finally bring peace to the opera house. Meanwhile, I tried to watch the opera, again struggling to follow the story. Without the music, it was nearly impossible to make sense of whatever it was that was happening onstage.

It was perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes before three policemen arrived on the scene. They immediately kicked out some of the unruliest patrons and then stood directly behind me, watching over the crowd. Over time, the audience began to calm down, and for a few minutes, I could hear the soprano's piercing voice, backed by the complex, jolting rhythms of the orchestra. For a little while, it seemed like everything would be just fine.

At one point, the youngest of the three policemen left, but when he returned, he looked sick to his stomach. "Are you okay, Robiquet?" one of the other policemen asked.

"There's a dead body," Robiquet said.

"Where?" the other policeman asked.

"In the corridor," Robiquet replied. "I think he fell from the grand staircase. There's a lot of blood, and it could be someone from the audience, but I...I..."

"Just say it, Robiquet."

"I think...I think it was Johann Bergmann."