Keeping Busy...

I have tried to keep busy during the past couple of days-- despite the horrific lack of a fainting couch on which to lie consumptively.

After all, an idle mind is the Devil's handiwork, and you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear after leading him to a stream and trying to make him drink... or something like that.

Anyway, I took the time to write a Great Tragic Opera while I was indisposed. Everything's sung in 14th century Italian and it has absolutely everything required for a really great opera: a beefy blonde soprano with braids, a chorus of Greek dwarves beating anvils, a mysterious letter sent terribly astray, dueling, sorcery, poison, love affairs, suicide, beheadings, insanity, stake-burnings, prison, abductions, stabbings, arson, treachery and unrelenting revenge.


************************************
Veleno e Decapitazione
(A Tragic Opera in Three Acts with Flourishes)

Background
The mad Count di Vino, suspecting a gypsy has practiced sorcery upon his favorite chambermaid, has the old woman burned at the stake. Before she dies, the woman curses the entire di Vino line, down to the infant son, who has clubfeet and a harelip. Marcellina, the gypsy's daughter then takes revenge by trying to poison the Count's oldest daughter, who is spared when she elopes with the gardener and moves to Vienna. In her frustration, Marcellina stabs the Count's chambermaid, poisons the priest, has a love affair with the Countess, goes insane, kidnaps the Count's infant daughter, Julietta, and raises her with the gypsies to await a day of reckoning.

Act One
When the opera opens, many years have passed since these dire events occurred, and the scene opens in the middle of the gypsy camp. Julietta, who now weighs four hundred pounds, sings "Sono un fiore molto piccolo e fragile" (I am a tiny and delicate flower) as she is surrounded by a group of suitors, who take turns stabbing each other to win her heart. After half the camp is dead, Julietta promises to wed the first survivor who can successfully exact revenge on the Count, whom she does not realize is her father. Realizing the impending tragedy, Marecellina then burns herself at the stake in a fit of remorse. When she discovers this, Julietta attempts to stab herself, but misses. In a rage, she sets fire to the gypsy camp and poisons the remaining gypsies.

Act Two
The scene opens at the Count's palace. He and his remaining family are being entertained by a travelling chorus of Greek dwarves who beat anvils and sing "Tutto che va morire" (Everyone's gonna die). The Count's son, Leonardo, is now a blind young man who has escaped from prison, where he was sent for stabbing his mother. Unbeknownst to his father, Leonardo has abducted Julietta and imprisoned her in the tower room where she lives on bread and water. After the show, Leonardo poisons the dwarf chorus in the middle of the night and then asks Julietta for her hand in marriage. She agrees to marry him, but only if he will poison his father, cut off his head and set fire to the castle. Meanwhile, a local hermit mails a mysterious letter which is accidentally delivered to the butler instead of Julietta, for whom it was intended.

Act Three
The scene opens to a duel between Leonardo and his father the Count, who has discovered he is being poisoned. Leonardo stabs him and cuts off his head before setting fire to the castle, which holds the rest of the family. He is then arrested and sent to prison, where Julietta smuggles herself in a bread basket. They sing their undying love and then stab each other in a murder-suicide pact. As they lie dying, the butler delivers the letter to Julietta. In it, she reads that the Count was really her father. In a fit of remorse, she stabs herself, stabs the butler and sets fire to the prison while singing "O, merda! ché disastro!" (Oh, shit! What a disaster!)

FINIS


I think it will be a hit.