The music formed a solid volume, obliterating for the moment every fear, and he felt himself carried along in it rather than driving its rapid tempo.
The curtain had gone up. Applause had greeted the figure of Bettichino above. And one glance told him the man was the perfect image of a god, his blond hair gleaming under the lights, his fair skin brilliantly highlighted with white powder. Guido knew men were bowing to him from the boxes. He could see from the corner of his eye that Bettichino was returning the bows. Rubino had come on stage, and now, and now, glancing up, he saw Tonio.
Even over the music, he heard the gasps and murmurs of the house, like the gentle roar that had accompanied the earlier spectacle of the chandelier.
And indeed it was a spectacle. An exquisite woman standing at the footlights in scarlet satin and gold embroidered lace. Tonio’s eyes, etched in black, were like two shimmering pieces of glass. An air of command emanated from him, though he appeared lifeless as a mannequin, the spotlight beautifully accentuating the bones of his face.
Guido glanced up again quickly, but he could gain no recognition from Tonio who appeared to be serenely surveying the house. Only now, as Bettichino completed his little promenade of the stage, did Tonio respond to the greetings being offered him. Glancing slowly from the right to the left, he made a grand feminine bow. As he rose, his slightest movements had an immensity to them. Surely he had drawn to himself all eyes.
But the opera bore inexorably down upon Guido. They were already half through the opening recitative. Bettichino’s voice was full of polish and power.
And suddenly he launched into his first aria. Guido had to be ready for the slightest change; the strings were reduced to a strumming continuo along with the harpsichord.
The singer had stepped to the front. The blue of his long coat caused his eyes to flash almost as if they were detaching themselves from his face, and his voice rose in stultifying volume.
Now ending the second part, he commenced the repetition of the first, which was the standard form of every aria, and as he must, he commenced to vary it, slowly, with more and more fanfare, yet nothing of the true power that Guido knew he would show later. But soaring to the last note, he commenced a magnificent swell, the note growing louder and louder and louder, and all executed in one long breath until the audience in the midst of it was totally silent. Guido was silent. The strings were silent. The singer, motionless, was unwinding an endless stream of sound into the air without the slightest symptom of stress, and just as he tapered it off and all thought he must conclude or die, he swelled the note again bringing it up to an even louder peak and then suddenly stopped it.
Applause rang from all quarters. The abbati were shouting in sharp, almost begrudging voices, “Bravo, Bettichino!” while the same cry came from the gallery and from the rear of the pit as well as the boxes. The singer left the stage as each man would do after his aria. And plunging back into the music, Guido led those assembled before the lights through the ongoing story of the opera.
Guido could feel his face aflame. He did not dare look at the stage. He had commenced, his fingers sweating so badly he felt them sliding on the keys, the introduction to Tonio’s first aria. And then unable to prevent himself, afraid that in this moment he would fail Tonio if he did not, he swallowed his fear long enough to look up at the still figure of the woman standing there.
Tonio did not see him. If he needed him he did not show it. Those exquisite black eyes were fixed on the first tier as if confronting every person in it. And with a great rush of energy, he started in, his voice as clean and pure and absolutely translucent as Guido had ever heard it.
But the noise had already begun everywhere, the stomping of feet, the hissing from the back, the catcalls from the ceiling.
“Go back to Venice, to the canals!” came the strident roar from the topmost gallery.
Some of the abbati had risen from their seats, fists clenched at those above, screaming out, “Silence, silence.”
Tonio continued to sing, unmoved, his voice never straining to drown out the din, which would have been