[The Phantom of the Opera] The Beast and the Canary

In the darkness, the sound of chaotic footsteps came from far and near.The curtain opened, a beam of silver lights hit the stage, and a man wearing a black top hat and a gray coat appeared in the middle.

Holding a gold-encrusted cane, he triumphantly introduced the members of the circus troupe to the cheerful and rapid accompaniment of the orchestra.

"When it comes to thrillers and mysteries, theater ghosts are long gone. Audiences hate mystery, they like the real thing."

At this point, the music stops abruptly, and the violinist strikes a comical string of notes, as a second light comes on on stage.

There was a neat exclamation from the audience.

The bearded woman seen earlier suddenly appeared on the left side of the gray coat.She spread out a folding fan inlaid with feathers, covering the lower half of her face, and raised an eyebrow charmingly: "If there is no beard, maybe you can win the hearts of men."

Then, the third light: a handsome brown-haired man standing on the right side of the gray coat.He was wearing a gentleman's three-piece suit and had a bright smile. In sharp contrast to his smile, he had four human legs, two of which had shrunk severely and drooped between his legs.

The fourth bundle: a man who lost his limbs and whose body is not as heavy as his head is lying at the feet of the gray coat.

The four looked at each other, and they sang a quartet in different postures.

Listening to operetta in a circus troupe is indescribably strange.However, whether it is pitch, rhythm, or positioning, the actors are perfectly controlled, as if they have been precisely guided by the masters in the industry, and there is no objection from the audience, which shows that the performance is essentially successful.

At this time, the flute gradually entered, and the music flowed out of the flute hole like a spring water.What is strange is that while the tune is getting lighter and lighter, the atmosphere on the stage is getting more dignified.More and more deformed actors suddenly appeared on the stage, with stiff faces, grotesque postures, and native stone statues singing in unison.

The tune is still accelerating, and the violin and piano are like two ballerinas who never let up, spinning tirelessly and rapidly.At this moment, the souls of the audience seemed to be crushed under their toes.

At the moment when the scale was gradually rising and the sound of rubbing the strings was about to break, a high-pitched trumpet pierced their throats like an arrow.

Before they knew it, people were holding their breath.

The stage fell into darkness again.

A bunch of golden lights lit up.

I saw the girl in the pink skirt who I had seen at the entrance of the tent, lying in the halo with messy blond hair.She struggled to hold herself up, with a sad look on her face: "My parents died on the cruise ship and left a huge amount of property. Relatives visited and said they would keep it for me. Why am I here...is there anyone?"

In the next second, the double bass pressed down like a heavy lead cloud, and the clarinet was short, twisted, and bright lightning, splitting sonorous patterns in the sea of ​​clouds.The lights shone on every inch of the stage like the rising sun, and all the deformed actors appeared, like an evil god that no one worshiped, surrounding the girl in pink skirt expressionlessly.

Even though I was mentally prepared, I was still scared into a few cold sweats by this scene.

The girl in the pink skirt backed away in horror, but bumped into the man who was also lying on the ground with missing limbs.The moment she turned her head and saw the man's appearance, she rolled her eyes and passed out.

The prelude ends here.

There was thunderous applause.

I couldn't help but look at the auditorium behind me. Everyone's expressions were very focused, and even some noble ladies clenched their hands.This kind of situation is really rare, because most of the aristocrats enter the opera house, either to show off their financial resources, or to chat and play chess. Even if someone occasionally sits upright and watches the stage, it is mostly pretending. (1)

Thinking of this, I couldn't help admiring the creator of this opera, and I was about to ask Hearst in a low voice when my jaw suddenly hurt, and he forcefully pulled it towards the stage with two fingers.

"Look carefully and don't move around." He ordered without squinting.

Me: "..." I really want to know who has a stronger desire to control, he or Phantom.

The curtain was lowered, and after a brief interlude, a pair of white lacquered tables and chairs were moved onto the stage.

A woman with red-brown curly hair and dressed as a lady stepped onto the stage sideways.She first sang the recitative by herself for a while, her tone was flat and nothing special.Some impatient audience began to whisper.

At this moment, the accompaniment stopped, the tune suddenly turned sharply, and the second voice joined in. Compared with the first voice, the voice of the second voice is more ordinary, and even the breath is not very stable, it should not appear in the Opera stage.The audience in the back row couldn't hear the singing clearly, so they buzzed into discussions.

Amidst the noise, I took a sneak peek at Hester.His long eyelashes remained motionless, his left elbow rested on the handle of the chair, and his index finger knuckles rubbed the tip of his nose. His expression seemed extremely calm.It doesn't quite resemble his character. Could it be that there is some reversal behind?

As soon as this idea came up, there were applause from all directions.

The red-haired woman turns to face the audience.

No wonder the voice in the second part was so weak, it was the song from her other head.

This weird and absurd scene evoked wave after wave of applause.A man wearing a top hat on my left threw off his top hat and gave a standing ovation.

After a while, the applause gradually disappeared, and the girl in the pink skirt appeared again.As her libretto became more and more, I keenly felt that something was wrong, but I couldn't tell what was wrong.

Until the end of the first act, she was stunned by two money-grubbing relatives and sold to a circus troupe. When the two relatives looked at each other and smiled, and started a duet with one high and one low, I finally knew where the strangeness came from. — not a single note in her libretto!

This discovery made my heart beat faster and my palms moist.And the show goes on: The girl in the pink dress has forced herself to adapt to life in a circus troupe and makes a few friends, including a disfigured man with missing limbs whom she meets for the first time.

The disfigured man had extremely low self-esteem, and he was still unwilling to have direct contact with her.When night fell, he would lie outside the tent, staring at her silhouette obsessively and painfully; when the sun rose, he would hide in the thick shadows, treating himself as a dark shadow.

The girl in the pink skirt quickly noticed his strangeness.She thought he was just feeling inferior because of his own incompleteness, so she knelt down on the ground, hugged him lightly and tenderly, and pressed a compassionate kiss on his face.

The moment she kissed it, the note was a bird rushing out of the vast snow, spreading light and sad wings under the hazy sky.

An interlude begins, and the second act begins: the girl in the pink dress falls in love with a regular circus troupe.

The main melody is given over to the piano solo, and the melody is as if winter is passing and spring is coming, revealing the warm sunshine. The accompaniment of violin and double bass is always a beat slower than the main melody, as if the musicians are playing slowly in the deep blue sea.

Under the background of the stars and the moon, the two showed their hearts to each other and kissed passionately.According to common sense, the piano sound at this moment should be more ethereal and romantic, but the main theme has gradually fallen into a trough, drowned by the heavy wave of string music.

The atmosphere is gloomy and depressing.

At the same moment, a pale light hit not far behind the two of them.

There was a woman screaming in the audience.

The disfigured man crouched under the white light, his eyes were a boulder that was darker than the shadow, pressing heavily on the two of them.

The plot progresses to the third act.

As the last act of the play, the weirdness of the prelude, the absurdity of the first act, and the hidden dangers of the second act are fully displayed in this act.The tit-for-tat singing of the actors is sewn into an invisible lead, which seems to be ignited by conflicts and frictions at any time.

No one in the auditorium spoke any more, not even the cheers.

The true face of the circus regular was exposed. It turned out that he approached the girl in the pink skirt just to defraud her of her huge family fortune; the bearded girl was jealous of the girl's beauty in the pink skirt, knocked her unconscious, and threw her in the burning tent.

The flames on the stage were blazing, and the smoke was broken black butterflies.A billowing heat wave was coming.

The girl in the pink skirt woke up in the thick smoke, sobbing in shock and fear.At this time, a short figure came into her eyes.The disfigured man lay on the ground and crawled towards her with great difficulty.With each step he took, the violinist sarcastically used a jumping bow.

"You... really don't need to do this, I, I don't like you..."

"I know." The man was silent for a moment, then sang in a low voice, "But sometimes, for a monster, a kiss can win their loyalty... No one has ever been kind to me, and no woman has ever kissed me... …you are the first."

The red curtain fell.

All music stops abruptly.

The lights went out one by one, and the venue returned to darkness.

I looked sideways at Hearst, the flames on the stage were still burning, painting thick orange-red shadows on his browbones, eye sockets, and bridge of nose.He did not applaud emotionally like other audiences, but applauded casually.

Why did the heroine’s libretto have no bass, why was the performance venue chosen in a circus troupe, who was the creator of this opera... Questions came to my lips one after another, but I didn’t have the courage to ask, maybe I was afraid of getting an answer I didn’t want Bar.

The flames were also extinguished, and the surroundings were surrounded by the darkness of thick night.The lady's reserved weeping came from behind, and someone was comforting her intermittently.

I inhaled and exhaled deeply, clenched my hands, and slowly approached Hearst, intending to start with the simplest question of "who is the creator", but before I could speak, a sea monster-like charming The voice suddenly rang in my ear:

"do you know."

The moment he heard this voice, the blood in his body suddenly froze.

Maybe one day, I will forget my name and the memories of my previous life, but I will never forget this voice.

he is……

As if aware of my stiffness, the next moment, the voice got closer to me, mercilessly split my chaotic thoughts, and invaded my ears, but I don't know if I was too nervous or too shocked, but I didn't feel his body temperature and breathing at all.

"For a monster..."

As soon as he sang the first line, I couldn't hold back my tears.

It's him, Phantom.

"One kiss will earn their loyalty."

Hot thoughts filled my chest, my teeth trembled, my thoughts went blank, I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know whether this moment was real or illusory.

There was a warm and soft touch from the earlobe, and it was he who kissed it lightly.I became more stiff, and my heart almost jumped out of my chest.He wanted to turn around, but his cheeks were firmly fixed in place by his fingers wearing leather gloves.

The neck became a wooden stick, and only the sound of crazy heartbeats vibrated in the eardrums.His shoulders sank, as if his chin had leaned over.Still no body temperature, still no breathing, he shrouded behind me like a ghost.

"Meg Gilly," compared to the inferior and infatuated singing of the disfigured man, his tone was unwavering, "No one has ever been kind to me, and no woman has ever kissed me. You are the first."

After the voice fell, I didn't even have time to react, and all the lights were turned on again.

The weight on the shoulders is gone, as is the texture of leather gloves on the face.I looked back with wet eyes, only to see Hester standing up with a calm expression, holding a pair of black gloves in his hands.Seeing me staring at him, he lowered his head slightly, and slapped my face lightly twice with his black gloves: "Go back."

Suddenly waking up, I grabbed his gloves and said, "You..."

He paused, raised my chin with his backhand, and lowered his voice, which turned out to be a little gentle: "What's wrong?"

No, no... His voice is completely different from Phantom's, and even the texture of the gloves is different... It's not him...

Get used to it, get used to it, it's not like you haven't experienced this kind of thing before.Although I thought so in my heart, tears still fell down.Speaking of which, this was the first time in three years that I had close contact with him. I could see him, touch him, and talk to him as soon as I turned around, but I still passed by.

And his words, that kiss...

What the hell does he mean?

For a moment, my mind was in extreme chaos.

For any ordinary person, even Hearst, I can understand this kind of thing as a show of love, but when I think that it is a phantom, I have no way to make a correct judgment.

Thinking of his straightforward tone, I always feel that he is warning me about something...

But if it was a warning, why did he kiss me?

Maybe it wasn't a kiss?

On the way back, I hugged my shoulders, rested my chin on my knees, and remained silent.Hearst tilted his head slightly, looking at the cold-colored street, but didn't speak.

It wasn't until the carriage was about to arrive at the theater that he stretched out his hand abruptly and flicked my forehead: "Why are you crying?"

Is it true that men like to deliberately make intimate moves so that women can think about them?I leaned back, avoided his movements, sniffed, and said in a nasal voice, "I want to cry..."

He really did it on purpose.After noticing my disgust, he calmly withdrew his hand, took out a checked handkerchief from his breast pocket, and was about to hand it to me, asking casually, "Is it because the circus troupe is too scary?"

"No." I buried my face in my arms, the cloak was slightly wet with grievances, and said in a muffled voice, "I ran into an annoying person."

Not seeing each other for three years, doing misleading things at the first sight, and running away after finishing, it's really annoying.

"Is that so?" He asked coldly, the movement of handing the handkerchief paused in the air for a few seconds, then he stopped handing me the handkerchief, turned around and walked out of the carriage, even ignoring me when I said goodbye to him.This man was as strange and annoying as the Phantom.

Back at the theater, I rubbed my flat stomach, went to the kitchen to find something to eat, and then went back to the room and got under the covers.

Early in the morning, I was slandered and taken to a circus troupe to watch an opera. My body was exhausted, but my brain was inexplicably active and excited. Whether I closed my eyes or opened them, my eyes, my brain There are phantom faces in the middle.Thinking of his soft kiss on my earlobe in the tent, my heart felt like a piece of hot iron, and my whole body was about to melt on the bed...

"Meg, wake up—"

It's Christine.

"Meg, Meg, the public casting for "Shepherdess" is about to begin!"

I rubbed my eyes and sat up in confusion.Outside the window, the sun was overcast, thunder and lightning, and heavy rain poured down.I actually fell asleep until the evening.

***

Note (1): This passage is taken from the type and genre of opera in the second section of "Introduction and Appreciation of Opera": "Although any aristocratic and wealthy family thinks that they must book a box for themselves in the opera house, they Almost no one among them listens to music seriously...just to put on a show." It mainly describes people's attitude towards opera from the end of the 17th century to the 18th century.Slightly exaggerated here, used to render the atmosphere.