High City on a Hill (Ch5)

Unusually I ended up deleting several sentences from this chapter altogether rather than editing them, because I decided they were just unnecessary -- I remember thinking that the subtext in the chapter was very clever at the time, but it may have been a little too clever for its own good, because after a year or so's delay I can no longer remember myself exactly what all the characters were supposed to be assuming respectively about what was going on :-(

I note that Meg somehow turns up in the corps de ballet after the quick scene change despite supposedly being dressed for a walk-on part (did she execute an incredibly quick change into block shoes and tutu?) -- I suspect that's left over from the movie, where Meg is in the cast but *not*, so far as I remember, in the Act 3 ballet, and possibly I ought to change either the one reference or the other... The trouble is that I'm reluctant to lose either, which is simply authorial laziness!

[Edit: time for some more cuts, I think, to make credible Hertha's momentary assumption that Christine is talking about Raoul when she says 'he' will never let her go -- and to omit the whole paragraph about Raoul looking relieved to have their embrace interrupted. We've already got Hertha saying that he basically looked trapped rather than guilty, and it makes more sense of her assumption that Christine is running away from her as a result.

Edit: no, we need something in there, or it makes no sense that Hertha accepts his protective behaviour at the end of the chapter without feeling betrayed by it.]

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Chapter 5 — “An Accident... Simply an Accident”

It was another opening night. Another glittering, chattering crowd, with the orchestra playing a well-worn warhorse of an overture: Albrizzio’s “Il Muto” had been a staple feature at opera houses across Europe for over eighty years, since the days when Italian opera reigned supreme. The new management was playing it safe in their choice of programme, and to judge by the packed house tonight it had been a prudent decision. ( Read more... )