3.
Christine Daaé leaned her weight on her left leg before she raised her right leg
without bending it to level with her hips. There she stopped and then arched
her back to raise her leg higher till it touched her forehead. She held it
there with her mind focused on maintaining her balance. She then slowly
lowered her leg and feeling the blood circulating there into her legs once
more.
“Your posture is good but your movement are too …rigid.” Christine
looked to the lady who was her coach and mother. She closed her eyes on that
but her mind perked up when she heard the pianist played the tune from Faust.
Her grievances were forgotten and she was into her Marguerite alter ego
character from Faust.
“Christine, do it once more but relaxed your muscles.” The younger lady heard
her mother and the dancer went back to her routine. Her move was then told off
by the older lady and Christine then snapped back.
“Mother…Why …”
“Mother? Its Madame Giry to you like all the others. Go back to your
lessons.” Christine stopped her tantrums and resumed her lessons. It was always
the same for her mother; her daughter was to be better. It mattered not for the
others.
“They are not Daaé.” That was the simple answer given by her mother.
It was easy being the daughter of Major Fabian Daae Giry of the French Dragoon
but not that of Madame Giry. She recalled from the age of three she was coached
in the dance lessons.
“Mama, I can’t.” Christine then screamed out when she was forced to do
the split. She cried out louder when her mother then insisted that she do it or
there would be no supper. It drove the neighbour over but her mother shooed
them away. She went through all that in the evening when her mother was back
from work till the hour to sleep. One night she cowered in the corner and bawled
her voice out. It was so loud that it made her mother sat up to look at her.
“Christine, I know you are hurt but darling, that is price we pay for
fame. You have to be better than me to outlast the others.” Her mother saw in
front of her with the pleading eyes. “I was there but I gave it up for you. I
gave birth to you and lost my …postures.”
There she met the man known as Lenier. He was always Lenier and never
Uncle or any last names. The man was the one who took the mother and girl to
their new accommodation.
“It’s not much but it’s comfortable and warm during the colder nights.”
Lenier patted the heater on the wall by the window. “I changed the mattress for
a newer one but we have not the money to buy one so I took it from the Coligny’s
bed. He won’t notice the difference for he seldom lie on it.”
Lenier indicated to the two beds that he had arranged there. They were
identical in design but the one by the window was with a floral bed covers.
Christine recalled jumping onto the floral bed cover mattress and laughed. It
was softer than her old one. It was not that they could not afford one but not
the softness there.
“From here, you can see the circus there. I can bring you there if you
want.” Lenier looked to the lady but she declined him casually.
“Well, that’s all then.” Lenier then took leave of the mother and child
who had then leaned out to see the circus even though it was close. Lenier did
not see the young girl turned to see him. She was smiling then.
It was the first man in her life that shown her kindness.
The second one was the pianist.
Jean Valerian the elderly man whose fingers could bring out the
beautiful music from the ivory keys on the piano. He taught her the lyrics of
Carmen then with Christine seated next to him on the piano seat.
Car
tu n'avais eu qu'à paraître,
Qu'a jeter un regard sur moin
Pour t'emperer de tout mon être,
Ô ma Carmen!
Et j'étais une chose à toi
Carmen, je t'aime!
Pour t'emperer de tout mon être,
Ô ma Carmen!
Et j'étais une chose à toi
Carmen, je t'aime!
“Try that , my dear.” The pianist hummed the tune to the Christine then
at fourteen of age. It was her break from the dance routine then of the Swan
Lake. She rushed to the pianist who was ever willing to play some chords for
her. He had heard her scream a year ago when she fell on her routine and hurt
her left heel. She screamed out loud on the pain then at her mother.
“Mother, I am in pain. I need to rest.” The tone of her voice and the
resonance it emit caught his attention. He has a keen ear for voice as Madame
Giry was good at picking the dancers. The pianist had taken the girl to the
side and applied ointment for her.
“Monsieur Valerian, I will take care of her.” The mother had come to
retrieve her daughter. It may be a personal fear of her of a man may be
molesting her. She was however assured when another lady approached her
daughter.
“Madame Giry, I will take care of her.” The other elderly slapped at the
pianist’s hand then took over the task. Christine soon took her rest next to
the pianist. The Carmen was played out with his fingers with every tap delicate
to the spring below the key to vibrate the strings beneath the cover and the
tune came out with its sweet melody.
“Christine, you are a good dancer but your true talent are in your
voice. You could sing.” The pianist then asked her to sing the basic vowels
AEIOU. It came out beautifully but Christine was not able to continue on then
for she was asked to resume her dancing lesson. Madame Giry had then turned to
whisper to the pianist.
“Never intrude in my dancers.”
It was not for another month before Christine was to hear the conversation
of her singing lessons. She was seated with her mother at the table having
their evening meal when the elderly lady joined them.
“Madame Valerian, I did not invite you.” Madame Giry glared at the
other. “I am the one who trained the sopranos. And your role was for the
dancer. We can share her talents. If she failed as a dancer, she could be a
soprano.”
“Do we agree?” Madame Valerian asked.
“She is my daughter. I will train her…”
“And I will sponsor her training
as well.” Madame Valerian handed over the purse. “I am doing it because she
holds a talent inside her. With this, she may be the next soprano that will
bring the audience to their feet.”
“She is not to be sold.” Madame Giry made her point to the other. So
that ended the first bout between the two over Christine.
4.
“She is an angel ….No, she is the angel for the role.” Madame Valerian
sat herself on the dining table after having served the dinner spread for her
husband, he pianist. “If only Margot was around, she may surpass ….No, she may
not. I know…”
“And dinner is getting cold.” The man across the table spoke up. He was
not a man of many words for his voice was the piano music that he tap with the
ivory keys like his teeth. “And you ought to eat first.”
“Eat? Is that all you hold in compassion for missing Margot?” Lady Valerian
was upset then. “Margot is our daughter.”
“And she is missing.” The man slumped in his frame while he lowered the
fork he was holding. “The war is a sad event and people get…”
“Margot is not dead. She is only missing.” Lady Valerian recalled the
day they had to leave their home for the borders of France. It was the year of
1876, when the Montenegrin declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. The Valerian
then a middle aged couple had migrated from the southern part of the continent
to Montenegro playing their trade as pianist and soprano to the elites there. They
had moved there when the music scene there accepted the beauty of the operas.
It was great for some years and then the war came. It was then to flee for
freedom from tyranny. They took their valued daughter Margot then a young
soprano who had yet to find her place on the stage. Their fled to freedom was
running with the others in the same predicament but not all of them shared the
same trauma like the Valerian.
“Margot missing!” The wife called him. “She was next to me.”
The man stood up from his rest by the tree. They were in the woods with
five families trying to found the shortest way across. The lady went frantic
and started calling the name loud until she was told to quiet down by the
others.
“Your shouts may bring the soldiers.” It shut her up but not her search.
The couple split up to find their daughter. She was not seen but the soldiers
saw them. They came rushing towards the man and he fled with the bullets
whizzing past him. The man jumped the obstacles and finally found cover to
evade his pursuers. He then found then in his run he had forgotten his love.
His only love left then in his life..
He went looking for her. He did not find her until the next day break
hiding in a fox hole. She did not dug in but tried to burrow there. He pulled
her out and then held her close.
“My love, we will not be apart again. We will flee together and if it
happened die together.” That vow carried them across the borders and then to a
new life where he plays with his fingers and she coached with her voice but
every moment, they have in their mind was their daughter, Margot.
“Old man! Are you deaf? I want to coach Christine. She is a gem.”
“Madame Giry won’t approve.” The man replied. “Can we go back to our
dinner?”
The dinner went on like many to others to be repeated every day and so
was the lady her insistent with Madame
Giry. She did it until Madame Giry loathed the conversation.
“Madame Valerian, I do appreciate your … generosity but Christine is my
daughter. She may not be what you want.”
“Madame, from one mother to another. Do we not treasure our only child?
It’s from our body that the child came to this world.” Madame Griy gripped her
hands together in prayer. “We did it out of love. And our love extent to giving
them the best. You are doing your best to make her the best. I am also trying
to do that.”
“You are not her mother.” Madame Giry laid out in simple words.
“Yes, I am not but I would like to be her Guardian. I like to be a part
of her life.” Madame Valerian made it simpler.”
The process to be a Guardian was simple; you shake your hand and kiss
the child. One day, Madame Valerian for her wish and it was that momentous day,
the piano played this tune.
LA MUSICA
Dal mio Permesso amato a voi ne vegno,
incliti eroi, sangue gentil de' regi,
Di cui narra la fama eccelsi pregi,
Né giunge al ver, perch'è tropp'alto il segno.
Io la Musica son, ch'ai dolci accenti
So far tranquillo ogni turbato core,
Et or di nobil ira et or d'amore
Poss'infiammar le più gelate menti.
Io su cetera d'or cantando soglio
Mortal orecchio lusingar talora;
E in questa guisa all'armonia sonora
Della lira del ciel più l'alme invoglio.
Quinci a dirvi d'Orfeo desio mi sprona,
D'Orfeo che trasse al suo cantar le fere,
E servo fé l'Inferno a sue preghiere,
Gloria immortal di Pindo e d'Elicona.
Or mentre i canti alterno, or lieti or mesti,
Non si mova augellin fra queste piante,
Ne s'oda in queste rive onda sonante,
Et ogni auretta in suo cammin s'arresti.
Claudio Monteverdi Mantua, Italy, c1607 L' Orfeo Libretto
Music
From my beloved Permessus I come to you,
illustrious heroes, noble scions of kings,
whose glorious deeds Fame relates,
though falling short of the truth, since the target is too high.
I am Music, who in sweet accents
can calm each troubled heart,
and now with noble anger, now with love,
can kindle the most frigid minds.
Singing to a golden lyre, I am wont
sometimes to charm mortal ears;
and in this way inspire souls with a longing
for the sonorous harmony of heaven's lyre.
Hence desire spurs me to tell you of Orpheus,
the immortal glory of Pindus and Helicon,
Orpheus who drew wild beasts to him by his singing,
and who subjugated Hades by his entreaties.
Now while I alternate my songs, now happy, now sad,
let no small bird stir among these trees,
no noisy wave be heard on these river?banks,
and let each little breeze halt in its course.
From my beloved Permessus I come to you,
illustrious heroes, noble scions of kings,
whose glorious deeds Fame relates,
though falling short of the truth, since the target is too high.
I am Music, who in sweet accents
can calm each troubled heart,
and now with noble anger, now with love,
can kindle the most frigid minds.
Singing to a golden lyre, I am wont
sometimes to charm mortal ears;
and in this way inspire souls with a longing
for the sonorous harmony of heaven's lyre.
Hence desire spurs me to tell you of Orpheus,
the immortal glory of Pindus and Helicon,
Orpheus who drew wild beasts to him by his singing,
and who subjugated Hades by his entreaties.
Now while I alternate my songs, now happy, now sad,
let no small bird stir among these trees,
no noisy wave be heard on these river?banks,
and let each little breeze halt in its course.
Like the first opera pieces to be enjoyed then, Christine found
acceptance in her life then. She was fifteen then. It was not her only joy then.
