Chapter 44 - The Stolen Ballet
Not being allowed to go to lunch and try the seasonal Beaujolais Nouveaux that just had arrived in the restaurants, and being told the team was going to review her work the day after tomorrow, were not the only thorns in Gale’s side that day. Helstof’s phone rang with information about the return trip of the Gulfstream. Stephan and Ingrid were pleased to have been offered a free, luxury plane flight to Charleston, and they jumped on it. Whoever controls the plane told Helstof it would land in Charleston at 6am the next morning. That would give the pilots a decent layover in Paris, and worked for Stephan and Ingrid. When she told Gwen, Gwen told Gale she was making the airport pickup. Which meant getting up at 4:30am. Gale wondered if she should even go to bed. Gwen told her to take them to a hotel, let them decompress, and then bring them to The Hall. Gale wasn’t so sure about this stuff called hard work.
Ingrid and Stephan were installed in a suite at the Charleston Place Hotel by 8:30, and arrived at The Hall shortly after lunch. Helstof introduced them to the rest of the team, minus Henric, who was on an overnight sail down to St. Augustine, where he wanted to see Castillo de San Marco, the seventeenth-century Spanish fort. The Ps took them on a tour of the theater and showed them the renovations. They pretended to be impressed, the pretense stemming from the fact that they worked at the Palais Garnier, built in 1875, and one of the grand theaters of Europe. The Whosey and the dancers interrupted their practice, and the group sat in a circle on the stage. Selgey, Bart, and the woman all had heard of the Derenencourts, but had not met them.
Gwen walked them through the genesis of the project and its subsequent history. She told them how they had discovered the Stravinsky score in the old desk from Saint Petersburg, leaving out the part about the borzoi dog crashing head first into it, as she thought that might diminish some of the mystique. Nor did she mention anything about Stirg and his objections to the ballet being produced by a couple of Americans, in Charleston, rather than in Russia. Ingrid, the musician, asked Townshend how he had come to be involved. He told her about the ad in The Times of London that had mentioned Paul McCartney, and McCartney’s score for the The New York City Ballet production. That had intrigued him, and he had contacted Roger and Gwen, and soon he was on his way over the pond. He didn’t mention the five million dollar fee he was earning.
Stephan asked, “What about the story of the ballet? Did Stravinsky give any hints about that?”
Roger told them about the copious notes Stravinsky had left in the margins of the score describing the four paintings by the famous artists, which express his interpretation of the paintings. Act I, the Van Gogh field of crows; Act II, the stone quarry of Cezanne; Act III, the Matisse wooded glade with nymphs; and Act IV, the cubist factory by Picasso.
Stephan said, “That is fantastic. What material; four stories based on the art of four of the world’s greatest modern artists. Unbelievable. And he left you his notes, his guide to the source of his musical composition, and a guide to his vision of the dance. Fabulous. I’m envious of the stories you have to work with. Producing a new ballet is the greatest of challenges. How is the choreography going? And the dancers?”
Selgey talked about the process of melding the stories with the music to form the dance movements. About her love for Stravinsky, and the feelings she had for the opportunity to create the first choreography for a new ballet. Gwen could see there was no fear in Selgey, no uncertainly or insecurity regarding her capability to do this. Everyone could sense this in her enthusiasm and commitment to the project. She brought the experience of her years as a dancer to this new mission, this new way for her to express her love of the dance. Bart spoke with equal assurance, though with a more intellectual orientation to the creation of the choreography. His perspective was rooted in an appreciation of the four storylines, and how they could be realized on stage, in concert with the music and the movement. Everyone could sense that his energy and motivation came from his feelings about, and understanding of, the four paintings.
Gwen said, “Tomorrow morning we would like to talk with you about the dancers. But now, maybe you would like to hear a little of the music, and see some of what Selgey and Bart have come up with so far?”
Of course, and with that, The Whosey went to the synthe, the choreographers did some stretching exercises, and an impromptu performance commenced. Townshend went right into the pas de deux they had worked on the day before, after Gwen had slapped his Deneuvian stricken head, and gotten him back into working shape. Selgey and Bart started dancing on the stage, but it couldn’t contain their exuberance, and their dancing leaked down the stairs at stage left, up one aisle, down another. Townshend pounded out heavy poly-rhythms that mimicked the sounds of hammers and workers in Cezanne’s stone quarry, and the choreography reflected these rhythms in the bodies kept low to the ground, arms flailing up and down, up and down, heads donging from left to right, right to left, dripping the sweat of heavy labor.
Gwen left the Derenencourts to the spectacle, attended by the Ps, and the rest of the team went back to work. Soon Ingrid went to sit on the bench next to The Whosey, while Stephan watched the dancers from his seat on the stage. Two hours later the team stopped for the day, the intricacies of the pas de deux worked out to Selgey and Bart’s satisfaction. The hours of practice had been captured on video by the Ps, using cameras installed on the overhead gantries. Gwen invited Ingrid and Stephan to her house for drinks and dinner, but they begged off, saying they wanted some time at the hotel to shake off the jet lag, so they would be fresh for tomorrow.
The Derenencourts showed up at The Hall the next morning at 11am, which Gwen thought was a little odd. They had come all the way from Paris, and it seemed they weren’t putting their time to good use. In the meantime, the team reviewed Gale’s and Helstof’s costumes, which went well. When the Derenencourts arrived, Gwen took them into the woman’s office, where they talked about the availability of high performing dancers. They didn’t have much of value to offer in the way of suggestions, saying simply that world class dancers are in short supply. Gwen and the woman knew that. After this chat they went out to the stage and listened to Townshend working on the music. Like the previous afternoon, he played music for Selgey and Bart. Ingrid sat on the bench next to him, watching him, and watching the dancers work. More than once she eyed the video cameras mounted on the gantries.
After lunch, before the three artists got back to work, Ingrid asked Townshend how he did the transcription. How did he get the music from the Stravinsky score into the synthe and the computer? He waved Pater to come over, and said, “Show Ingrid the score. Show her how we work with it and get the new stuff into the computer.”
Pater reached into a box under the synthe and took out an oversized file folder. From inside the folder he took out a thin stack of oversized paper, and spread them on top of the synthe. He pointed to them, and said, “Stravinsky.” Ingrid looked at the sheets, and saw the newly printed copies of a few pages of the original score, complete with Stravinsky’s hand-written story notes.
She said, “Where’s the rest of the score?”
Pater pointed to the computer, said, “The original is in the bank. The working copy is in the computer. When he finishes transcribing a few pages, we print out a few more. The system is working great. He works on transcribing every other day. The in-between days, he plays for Selgey and Bart to do the choreography.”
Ingrid nodded, and stared at the computer, saying, “What a system. Fascinating.”
At the end of the day, profuse in their praise of the Charleston production, Stephan thanked Gwen and the rest of the team, saying he and Ingrid had to get back to Paris. This surprised the team a little, but at the same time they were thankful to be left alone. They had lots of work to do, and distractions were just that.
Roger thought Ingrid was a very hot woman. He didn’t mention that to Gwen, but he did say he thought
they should take her and Stephan out for a top of the line dinner, complete with fine wine, supplied by him. Gwen agreed, and after checking with the team members, reserved the private dining room at McCrady’s for that night. When she suggested 7pm, Stephan asked if it could be a little later, say 9pm. He said they still were in Parisian cultural mode.
Gwen and Roger arrived at McCrady’s at 8:30pm so Roger could unload the box of wine and discuss them with the sommelier. The others arrived at 9, including Henric, who they hadn’t seen in a while, and who wanted to meet the couple from the Paris Opera Ballet. The sommelier poured champagne aperitifs, and everyone relaxed and chatted. At 9:20 a waiter appeared with a tray of hors d’oeuvres. At 9:30 Gwen asked Gale to give them a call, which she did. No answer, which everyone thought was odd. Gwen wasn’t one to dally around, and gave the order to serve dinner. After the second course Gale called again, and again, no answer. After the third course, Gwen took Roger out of the dining room to a private alcove, and said, “I smell a rat. Where are they? Why no answering machine when we call their cell? They have Gale and Helstof’s cell numbers. If they are held up by something, they would call. Right? Something’s up, and I have a bad feeling about it.”
Roger nodded, knowing that his wife’s intuition rarely was wrong. He had nothing to suggest. They returned to dinner, where they just shrugged their shoulders and told the others they had no idea. Roger was miffed that he had brought some special wines; not that he begrudged sharing them with his friends; just that they were, special. He had wanted to impress the heavyweights from the Paris opera. When the last course of food had disappeared, and coffee had appeared, everyone looked at Gwen. By now, everyone smelled a rat. She looked at Helstof and Gale, said, “How did you meet them? Did you go to the offices of the ballet? Did you call them there? How?”
Helstof said, “In Paris we got your email telling us to meet them at the show. The email had the time and place, and that’s where we met them. We never went to their offices, or called there, or anything.”
Gwen turned to Selgey and asked, “How do you know them?”
She said, “I know their names, as people high up in the business. He has been a producer in Paris for many years. She’s a musician. I never had met them until the other day here. Why?”
“How about you,” Gwen asked, looking at Bart? “You ever actually met them?”
He shook his head, no.
“How did they contact you?”
“I got an email from Ingrid. She introduced herself and Stephan. Said they had heard through the grapevine about our show. Someone had shown them the ad from The Times of London, and they said they knew about McCartney’s score for the New York City Ballet’s recent premiere of Ocean’s Kingdom. She said they were intrigued by the components of our production, and asked if they could come over for a visit. That’s it.”
Gwen and Roger looked at each other, then Gwen said, “Let’s go. To The Hall.” A five minute drive brought them into the alley behind the theater, and they were through the back door. Pater turned off the security system and turned on the lights. The team came out from the back, onto the stage, where they looked around.
Immediately Peter said, “The computer. It’s gone.” The table was empty except for the keyboard and the mouse; cables lay on the floor.
Gwen said, “Let’s check everything. The offices, especially.”
Reconvening at stage center, Roger looked around at the team and said, “They weren’t from the Paris Opera Ballet. They were from Stirg. They were his agents.” This was getting old.