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'In the Shadows... — Description
Beneath the Opera House', two figures stir...

Aaaaaaah! *splodes* So what happens to your pencil marks when you work on a piece whilst listening to Dies Irae? Complete pandemonium! That’s what! (By the way, if you haven’t ever heard Dies Irae before, I command thee to go seek it out now! And play it really loud. It is a most amazing piece of music and I’m sure you’d love it. Actually, be sure to seek out the haunting In Paradisum too!)

Anyway, I digress… back to the artwork in question; this one really has been a labour of love. My hand has just about given up the ghost. Christine and Erik in the dark domain of music…

‘Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the wall. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I asked leave to look at it, and, on the first page, read, “Don Juan Triumphant.” ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I compose sometimes. I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.’ ‘You must work at it as seldom as you can,’ I said. He replied, ‘I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a time.’ ‘Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?’ I asked, thinking to please him. ‘You must never ask me that,’ he said, in a gloomy voice. ‘I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan burns, Christine; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven.’ Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano. He said, ‘You see, Christine, there is some music so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty colouring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something operatic, Christine Daaé!’ He spoke these last words as though he was flinging an insult at me.’

(Artwork © Leona Preston 2008 / ‘Le Fantôme de l'Opéra’ © Gaston Leroux)

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