The Last Castrato by Guy Fredrick Glass
This Play is the copyright of the Author and may not be performed, copied or sold without the Author's prior consent
Lights come up on MUSTAFA, standing before a gilded music stand and
looking at a musical score. He looks around to make sure he is alone.
He croons a few out-of-tune notes. Then he cups his hand to his ear
and listens in vain for an echo. PEROSI enters unnoticed and observes
him. MUSTAFA, thinking he is alone, repeats his ritual. PEROSI clears
his throat. MUSTAFA sees him. They embrace.
PEROSI: Domenico. Caro amico.
MUSTAFA: My other half.(chuckling) Have you overheard me?
PEROSI: Were you listening, my friend, for an echo of what you had
been?
MUSTAFA: (nodding) I came at the tail end of…the grandeur, and it
is all but gone now. (He has a nostalgic, inward moment.) Sound
floats around in here for an eternity. But there is no way to capture
it.(sighing) If I had had a son he would have carried on my name.
PEROSI: A…son? (jokingly nudging MUSTAFA) By immaculate conception?
MUSTAFA: (shrugging) It happened once. (beat) But there are other
ways to build a family. Do not forget the new musician arrives today.
PEROSI: Singers are not musicians.
MUSTAFA: (jokingly nudging PEROSI) My musicians are the backbone of
the Sistine Chapel Choir. They always have been and they always will
be. Singers not musicians! You are a regular Beelzebub, Lorenzo.
The SWISS GUARD enters and nods to PEROSI. PEROSI smiles sweetly at
MUSTAFA.
MUSTAFA: Very well, I can take a hint. There are only ten-thousand
rooms here, but I see this is the one where you must meet your old
friend. My little concert was over before it began. (MUSTAFA exits.)
SWISS GUARD: His Eminence, Cardinal Sarto, the Patriarch of Venice.
The SWISS GUARD exits. SARTO enters.
SARTO: The Holy Father?...
PEROSI: ...is not well. Consoles himself by drinking Vin
Mariani.(beat) A gift of Queen Victoria. A mixture of Bordeaux
and…cocaine.
SARTO: Cocaine?
PEROSI: A mild relaxant. Harmless stuff.
SARTO: And how are you faring since my influence made you director of
the Pope's own choir?
PEROSI: Joint director…in perpetuity.
SARTO: Joint director? What, still?
PEROSI: Perpetuity is a long time. Mustafa won't die.
SARTO: He won't die? Perhaps his strength, like Samson's, lies
in his long locks.
PEROSI: That race are astoundingly tenacious.
SARTO: Race? Ha. In my day we called them the sacred capons.
PEROSI: Then like a capon with his head cut off, he continues to run
through the barnyard as if nothing has happened. When does such a
chicken stop flapping his wings?
SARTO: Our time will come, Perosi. The Holy Father is Mustafa's
protector. And without his protector, an old capon is but a sitting
duck.
PEROSI: Your words reassure me. When you come right down to it,
Mustafa is nothing more than an elderly dodo. A soprano…
SARTO: ...with feathers!
They laugh.
SARTO : A few more bottles of the late Queen's Vin…
PEROSI: ...Mariani…
SARTO: And His Holiness will greet Victoria herself at the pearly
gates.
PEROSI: What a misfortune for the castrati!
SARTO: Che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!
They howl with laughter.
PEROSI: (suddenly serious) Of course, there is…a complication.
SARTO: A what?
PEROSI: Another…dodo's egg.
SARTO: Impossible!
PEROSI: One Moreschi, arrives this very day by special invitation of
the Pope. Another, well, you know what.
SARTO: (with disgust) Those "you know whats."
PEROSI: Who created a sensation, they say. (sotto voce) In an
oratorio of Beethoven.
SARTO: Beethoven! Would that he had never put ink to paper.
PEROSI: And he was a freemason too.
SARTO: (shuddering) A freemason! Never forget that you were moved
from Venice for a reason. You must assure me that the dodo is extinct.
And without the dodo to nurture it I can assure you that the dodo's
egg will not hatch.
SARTO pats PEROSI on the back. They exit. We hear the offstage
sound of someone moving a heavy item. MORESCHI, enters, dressed in
street clothes. He is pushing and pulling a large cumbersome piece of
luggage. He drops it, and takes a good look at his surroundings. He
studies a painting. CESARI enters, almost invisibly, dressed in
liturgical garb. He studies MORESCHI. And he stealthily approaches
him.
CESARI: (transfixed) You are….like me.
MORESCHI: (taken aback) I am…a singer. (A pause. Then,
remembering himself, he offers his hand.) Alessandro Moreschi.
CESARI: I am Cesari. Giovanni Cesari.
They shake hands. MORESCHI quickly backs away from CESARI who is too
close for comfort.
MORESCHI: It must be a blessing to live surrounded by such
masterpieces.(He gestures at the walls.) Raphael…Veronese…
CESARI: Do not spoil the moment by saying anything trite. I will
remember the first time I set eyes upon you…wordlessly.
Melismatically. Like the sweet descant…
MORESCHI: Your intensity. It…it…
CESARI: Yes. They say that about Cesari.
MORESCHI: Can you bring me to Domenico Mustafa? He is expecting me.
CESARI: We are all expecting you.
MORESCHI: All?
CESARI: There's Ritarossi…Giuseppe. What they call a
"choral" soprano. Clearly not soloist material.
Salvatori…Gustavo. A nice strong alto voice. But an alto? I mean,
why bother?...And Sebastianelli…Vincenzo. He's a good sort. But
he's got…(leaning over and whispering) ...intonation problems.
MORESCHI: I see. Then you are all…
CESARI: Members of the choir…Yes…And you…you're the anointed
one. The one we have been waiting for. The heir apparent.
MORESCHI: I didn't realize I would be working with so many other…
CESARI : Circus freaks? Yes, we all end up here sooner or later.
Where do you come from?
MORESCHI: I was born in the Colli Romani.
CESARI: Good. Then you were born a subject of the Holy Father.
He's a jolly fellow, that Leo Thirteen. Jolly and holy. Even
jollier when he's had a swig of Vin Mariani, but I really
shouldn't be telling you about that.
MORESCHI: It is a thrill to think I'll soon be singing for him. Is
he exacting in his standards?
CESARI: Tone deaf. Can't tell the difference between a bass clef
and a bass clarinet. But he's not the one you need to worry about.
Beat
MORESCHI: Worry about?
CESARI: They don't like us. (beat) You know. Us. Say we all come
right out of a dusty history book that would have been better off left
shut.
MORESCHI: But the music of the choir. Palestrina wrote it for us.
CESARI: Yes, yes. But the truth is that we are not what we once
were. Having your son mutilated and turned into an instant soprano
has sadly gone out of fashion. That's where you come in. Our
savior. They say that when you sing Vespers at the Lateran, the
church is so crowded one can hardly get a place to stand.
MORESCHI: I do not know what to say.
CESARI: They say that grown men at mass weep like babies, who are
usually bored to tears, that fine ladies swoon and have to be revived
with camphor and sandalwood oil, that all those who fall under the
ethereal spell, the magic of your voice, forget themselves utterly and
turn into blathering idiots.
MORESCHI : That is an exaggeration, surely.
CESARI: You, Moreschi. You have sounded a chord that has not been
heard for a hundred years.
MORESCHI: I am just a poor singer from the Colli Romani who is
striving to make music for the glory of God.
CESARI: You are more than just a singer.
MORESCHI: I am not anybody's savior.
CESARI: You will be the savior of the Capella Sistina, of the Capella
Musicale Ponteficia. You will revivify the ancient cry, not heard
here since the days of Farinelli, of Senesino: Long live the knife!
(He grabs MORESCHI's wrist and stares at him with intensity.)
MORESCHI : Can you please find Domenico Mustafa? He is expecting me.
CESARI: You will fulfil your destiny, Moreschi. And you will fulfil
mine.
MORESCHI shakes loose of CESARI.
CESARI: (stammering) You will be the greatest of us all, and the last
one too. That will be your cross to bear. You will be the last
castrato to tread these hallowed halls, Moreschi. And at the end of
the cadence, you'll be the last castrato to tread the earth.
CESARI and MORESCHI freeze. We hear the voice of the castrato, as in
the prologue. The lights go off.
[end of extract]
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