To see an opera

[sunbaked_baker]

(Up in her room, Rae gets ready.)


When Sunshine comes down the stairs, today, she may not look wholly like herself. The baker is usually seen in the bar wearing bright t-shirts or sweaters, with colorful jeans and sneakers, her hair up in a ponytail or held back by a likewise colorful kerchief. One colorfully casual customer.

Today her hair is down, tumbling about her scarred shoulders in loose waves of red, and what she wears is not her normal style at all.

She takes care with her steps, and not just because of the silver heels that grace her feet. As she moves down the stairs, Rae consciously straightens her spine against the fluttery nervous feeling in her stomach, and hopes it will soon pass.

This is going to be an enjoyable outing. Rae refuses to let her feelings of self-consciousness mar it.



(ooc: Sunshine will likely be out of the bar for a while after this, so any and all threads are welcome, but will be millitimed to before her thread with Hannibal Lecter.)

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

"More than a bit," she murmurs, sipping her wine. There is so much that everyone knows is impossible that is turning out to be... not.

"There've been... heartening signs that it is having an effect, but it's small, and slow. There'll be a tipping point, eventually."

She expects it will only get messier as time goes on, if they continue being successful. Master Vampires will become increasingly aware that their way of unlife is in danger, and will retaliate. She is sure of it.

[cook_the_rude]

"I am sure there will be, and then your way will end up being the true and tried standard," Dr. Lecter says, sipping his wine as well.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I'm hopeful," she answers. "It's not what I planned on doing with my life, but it's what I'll do."

Even the difficult things.

[cook_the_rude]

"Sometimes, your vocation in life picks you, not the other way around," Dr. Lecter says. "You were born to be a baker, but life made you a vampire slayer."

[sunbaked_baker]

"No, I chose to do this," Rae replies, quietly. "But a vampire slayer is not what I am."

Slaying vampires is not what she does, at the heart of things.

The slaying is incidental.

[cook_the_rude]

"Because you are able to do it, and they know, you can choose not to do it," Dr. Lecter points out.

[sunbaked_baker]

"That's... no. I am not a vampire slayer, because slaying them is not why I go out to them," she says, feeling that there's a point being missed. "We go to talk to them. To talk and convince them there's a better way than what they've been taught. The younger ones are more likely to listen - they're not as invested, yet, and have more to gain by considering other options than what's traditional for them."

"We don't go out to kill them, but to convince them not to kill people."

[cook_the_rude]

"You can do that," Dr. Lecter points out, "because you can do the other thing as well. You carry the power for your own argument in yourself."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Preferably, it's because our argument is sound, though the other would be an incentive for them to listen to us in the first place. In the current system, young vampires are dependent upon the protection of the gang they belong to, because they are weak. Old vampires are dependent upon their gangs because they cannot go out and hunt for themselves."

"The way we're suggesting will give them back their autonomy."

[cook_the_rude]

"Once they listen, your argument will make sense," Dr. Lecter says. "But let's not argue about this now, as we have much more pleasant things to look forward to."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae smiles a little more, sipping her wine. "Yes, I don't suppose vampires figure heavily in operas."

Though it's not like she's familiar with the story - there could be vampires.

[cook_the_rude]

"Not in my world," Dr. Lecter says, smiling. "There are some from the early 19th century, though, and one of them, Marschner's The Vampire, is being revived in New Orleans this season, actually."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae can't help the look of interest. Still, even when they figure too heavily in her real life, the representation of vampires in fiction never fails piques her curiosity. Blame Mrs. Yanovsky.

"I've not heard of Marshner, or his opera," she remarks. But, early 19th century vampire works? "Did he base it on Polidori's The Vampyre?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Of course it is," Dr. Lecter says. "If a book is really popular nowadays, it gets turned into a movie, or two, or three; in that time, it was operas. Neither the movies nor the stage musicals of our time can quite live up to the level of enthusiasm people had about opera. Nowadays, it's still very lovely and deeply emotional, but a cured fur curled up pleasantly when compared to the live cat opera used to be from the late 18th to early 20th century."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I wonder if the fans of the books in those days get as upset as fans now over character and plot changes that happen when the book is translated into a different medium," she smiles.

A few intense fans in a 19th century opera audience, muttering, 'What? That's not what happened at all!'

[cook_the_rude]

"Plot changes happened in that one," Dr. Lecter says.

He goes to a nearby bookshelf and takes a book without looking, handing it to her.

It's a handy guide of opera synopses.

[sunbaked_baker]

Oh dear. "Do I want to know?" she says as she takes the book, only half in jest.

Because of course she does.

A momentary glance through two places in the index, and she turns to the entry for The Vampire.

All the changes in relationships, she's mostly okay with. And it makes sense for the events of the opera to be happening over the course of two nights and a day rather than for over a year as it is in the book. But...

"...They changed the ending?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Horrible, isn't it?" Dr. Lecter says. "When the fact that he got away with everything was a great part of the book's appeal. It's like some dreadful fix-it fan fiction."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae reads it again, her face showing her displeasure. "It cheapens the whole thing. Instead of dramatic horror, it's now a... rom-com with a vampire as a villain."

Meh. Vampire-opera or not, Rae isn't sure she'd like to see that one.

Willingly leaving it behind, she turns in the book to the page with the synopsis of Nabucco.

[cook_the_rude]

"If you're interested despite the rom-com aspect," Dr. Lecter says, "I'll ask my friend to get in touch with Dr. Warren in New Orleans; I am sure he can get us tickets."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae thinks about it, as she turns the pages. "I might be," she allows. "I'm not really sure."

It might still be interesting to see, despite the vast departures from the original story. She could probably get past them. But, being unfamiliar with opera in general, she doesn't know for sure how she'll adjust to the medium.

"Let me test the waters with Nabucco, first, and we'll see?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Absolutely," Hannibal says, smiling.

He sips his wine.

[sunbaked_baker]

"There is a lot going on at once, in this one," she smiles faintly, reading. Two sisters of the king, both in love with the same slave... one of the sisters isn't really her father's daughter but was secretly the child of slaves, but determines to steal the throne from her father and seal the fate of her sister... and the king decides he's a god... and falls into madness when he finds his true daughter has allied herself with the slaves, and the other daughter takes the throne...

Such drama. "It sounds like an interesting tale. Ah, and the king regains his senses when he promises to convert." Of course he does.

"...And the elder daughter poisons herself?" Um.

[cook_the_rude]

"Presumably because her grab for power failed," Dr. Lecter says. "It sounds like an odd reason for suicide, but perhaps she felt she was preventing execution."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I figure it was for just that reason, but the way it's worded it felt a little out of nowhere."

The newly-sane king and the soldiers who were loyal to him save his actual daughter, both of them having converted to the 'correct' religion, and he frees the slaves, and the false daughter shows up having poisoned herself off-stage.

"Her hold upon the throne must not have been very good, even with her sister and mad father both imprisoned. Once they got out, her rule came crashing down with little effort."

Like the statue of Ba'al, falling by itself upon the king's word.