Mawrdew Czgowchwz (2 page)
The coined name
Clichette
says everything: in Clichette, who exists only for the moment McCourt inscribes her name,
cliché
(the
objet trouvé
realm of shopworn snapshots) meets Proust's Odette. McCourt's genius lies in his ability to weave the highest styles of twentieth-century literature and music with the gutsy vernacular of men/women (like Candy Darling and Myra Breckinridge) who modeled themselves after Jean Harlow and died in the process.
McCourt's subsequent works go even farther into the lunatic fringe, the only place where I feel at home. To the reader who enjoys
Mawrdew
, I highly recommend McCourt's other novels,
Time Remaining
and
Delancey's Way
, and also his short-story collection,
Kaye Wayfaring in
“
Avenged.
” It is not pejorative to call a work of art “minor.” Deleuze and Guattari, in
Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature
, claimed that Kafka himself was a minor writer, and more important for being minor. Robert Walser, too, is subaltern: a writer's writer, with the melancholy of music's minor keys. Like other noble practitioners of that strain of modern literature (an elect galaxy including Firbank, Schuyler, Butts, Cavafy, Pessoa, and Rhys), James McCourt has the gift of not assuming that writing is a way of being polite, accommodating, or sociable. Although his novels give comic delight, they also are willing to perplex their readers, and to suggest, in their language's bejeweled barbed wire, that pleasure is beyond our capacity to understand, and that we turn to literature not to see our desires made lucid, but to see a reflection of our transports at their most difficult.
âW
AYNE
K
OESTENBAUM
The Order of the Angels Who Have Watched over Mawrdew Czgowchwz
VICTORIA DE LOS ANGELES
KITTY MOORE
MARY CURTIS-VERNA
HARRY BLAIR
VINCENT VIRGA
DONALD LYONS
THEODORE SOLOTAROFF
ELAINE MARKSON
SUSAN SONTAG
MICHAEL DI CAPUA
LEO LERMAN
MARIA CALLAS
LEONTYNE PRICE
J.D. McCLATCHY
VICTORIA WILSON
CHRISTOPHER CAHILL
EDWIN FRANK
MAWRDEW CZGOWCHWZ,
the diva of the moment
*
RALPH,
the first to hear Czgowchwz and believe
ALICE,
the first to understand Ralph's message
DIXIE,
the first to question the transformation
CARMEN,
the first on line
THE REMAINING
SECRET
SEVEN...
always there together
HALCYON Q. PARANOY,
the paramount Gotham arbiter
TANGENT PERCASE,
the aesthetic prime mover elect
THE COUNTESS MADGE O'MEAGHRE GAUTIER,
the first fierce friend in New York
Pèlerin (PIERROT) DESLIEUX,
danseur noble
DAME SYBIL FAREWELL-TARNYSH,
the first advisor
GAIA DELLA GUEZA,
the first in fashion
CONTESSA CASSIA VERDE-DOV'è,
a fiscal woman and a good friend
CONSUELO GILLIGAN,
the seeress they all love
ARPENIK THE WISE AND KIND,
the magical woman who fed them
MEROVIG CREPLACZX,
a composer, the apparent Hollenius heir
JAMESON O'MAURIGAN,
poet, nephew to the Countess Madge
LAVINIA O'MAURIGAN STEIN,
Jameson's twin and confidante
JONATHAN STEIN,
her husband, a publisher and amateur of philosophy
LAVERNE ZUCKERMAN,
protégée of Mawrdew Czgowchwz
ACHILLE PLONQUE,
heroic tenor
WEDGWOOD,
butler to the Countess Madge
MRS. GRUDGET,
of the Plaza staff, attendant on Mawrdew Czgowchwz
*
MORGANA NERI,
a diva of yesteryear
*
(
I Neriani
)
LA PRINCIPESSA ORIANA INCANTEVOLE,
Neri's intimate vocal coach
OLD MARY CEDRIOLI,
a wicked woman
LUIGI MORBOSO,
a Fascist from Mott Street
THE NERIAC ELDERS
*
GENNAIO,
the principal restorer
MOTHER MAIRE DYMPHNA, O.A.O.H.,
a midwife from the past
MOTHER ST. MAWRDEW, a former captor
Cégeste,
a perruquier
FRAMBOISE,
a couturier
HIS SCARLET EMINENCE,
the dispenser of graces
MSGR. FINNEAGLE,
his deputy
in situ
Czgowchwz
*
FRANCOBOLLI,
TOMPKINS,
Kölnischwasser...
critics, champions all
CHIAVE,
the maestro of the Czgowchwz debut
DOLORES,
the biggest snoop in all Gotham
GLORIA GOTHAM,
the upstart snoop with the saber style
THE TALK OF THE TOWN,
always anonymous
GRACE JACKSON-HAIGHT,
the big Society sport
DOLLY FAROUCHE,
the chanteuse with the notions
TRIXIE GILHOOLEY,
the showgirl with the heart
ROTTEN RODNEY BERGAMOT,
a scamp about town
THALIA BRIDGEWOOD,
comedienne, the toast of Broadway
RHOE,
a loyal waitress
LOIS,
the switchboard girl at the Old Met
ROXANNE SAUVAGE,
mezzo-soprano, a game girl
TURIDDU STAMEGLIO,
a gallant tenor
VALERIO VORTICE,
a designer-director of genius
THE NAMELESS PRESENCE
THE CAPTAIN OF THE STUDENTS ON LINE
DOM GESUALDO SVELATO, O.M.F.,
confessor
OLD MARY CEDRIOLI'S MOTHER
DR. ZWISCHEN,
an eminent alienist
LEDA FREITAG,
the greatest Isolde in living memory
FRAU LANGSAM,
a Viennese voice teacher
TATIANA GEHTOPFSKAYA,
prima donna assoluta, People's Artist of the U.S.S.R.
DAME EVANGELINE TABLOWE,
a former diva of Great Britain
FANDOLE,
Britain's prima ballerina
ODO BOST,
a massive Cornish bass
PERCIVAL PENPRAZ,
director of the Aion Music Consort
ORPHREY WHITHER,
the pantheon director
THE COMPANY OF NEW YORK'S DIVAS, STARS, MANAGERS, AND AUDIENCES
THE TOWNSPEOPLE OF NEAPORT, ON THE ISLAND OF MANITOY
*
and
JACOB BELTANE
T
HERE WAS
a time (time out of mind) in the sempiternal progress of
divadienst
, at that suspensory pause in its career just prior to the advent of what was to be known as “Mawrdolatry,” when the cult of Morgana Neri flourished in the hothouse ambiance of the Crossroads Café, in the shadow of the old
Times
building, across Broadway from the very hotel (a ghostly renovated ruin) where Caruso had sojourned in the great days, whose palmy lobby, once ormolu and velvet, had been transformed into a vast drugstore, and in Caruso's suite a podiatrist had been installed. There at the Crossroads Café, November after November (for Neri was a dead-center Scorpio), the great world's concerns were blithely ignored, controverted by ponderous, grimy rituals. The rolling electric
Times
sign might proclaim in its career the end of the modern world; I Neriani, unbothered, would rant on over the latest Neri triumph at the house, on record, in Paramus, at the stadium. Neri's opinions on everything and everyone in music were recited in antiphon over tables littered with clippings, reviews, vile coffee, and majestically autographed glossies of the diva, in black and white and in sepia (none of a later vintage than the last year before the war). Neri was considered ageless, her voice deemed eternal. The elders, who could actually speak of the Neri debut, were revered by initiates as prior saints. Wire recordings of Neri broadcast performances passed like transcripts of the Orphic mysteries from fool to fool. For many years Neri recordings outsold those of her every rival at Macy's, at the Gramophone Shop, on Mulberry Street and Mott. With a degree of justification the partisan critic Francobolli could speak of the “seemingly endless Neri Era.”
It ended. Time told on Neri, whence the
Neriad
took a turn for the tragic, thought better of the route, and devolved into near-farce. A contretemps absolute in its severity beset I Neriani. The walls fell from the fantasy temple of Morgana I'Ultima. Mawrdew Czgowchwz had come to town. Mawrdew Czgowchwz became the diva of the moment and the moment went on. She gave a new meaning to “presence,” becoming, as Halcyon Paranoy decreed, “of the moment its life, its persona emblematica, itself.” She wedded music to mimicry to create “musicry.” She was the definitive diva; she still is.
Time may be said to waste and to lose and to kill; all the rest is precious. One saw truth, heard it in key perhaps three times in one perfect week, then perhaps (like as not) not again for the entire season. One relished, one hoarded the grand moments as the hints of a promise that would leave no “Next?” in its wake, whence there would be sufficient remembrance. Meanwhile, one waited on lines...
Her picture was on every front page that week, just prior to the vernal equinox, the full moon, and the earliest Easter there could be. The
Times
spread, four columns across at the bottom, featured a studio photograph of her Octavian, bearing the silver rose:
NEW YORK, March 17âThe celebrated “falcon contralto” Mawrdew Czgowchwz landed last night at midnight from Rome at International Airport to be met by a crowd of some three thousand persons. Miss Czgowchwz arrived here a scant day prior to her first appearance of the season, tonight at the Metropolitan.
Miss Czgowchwz's public feud with the management was settled amicably last weekend in the wake of a hunger strike in which several thousand of her admirers had participated, and which resulted in a two-week sitdown demonstration in front of the opera house on Broadway and 39th Street. Placards proclaimed the strikers' intention to sit out the season unfed. (Miss Czgowchwz acknowledged this tribute last week by singing Mahler's “Kinder otenlieder” from the steps of the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.) A settlement has now been reached and Miss Czgowchwz has decreed that “all is forgiven.”
In addition, the diva has made the startling announcement that she now feels ready to move into a new vocal category, that of the dramatic soprano “d'agilità .” In a daring artistic move Miss Czgowchwz will appear tonight for the first time in her career as Violetta in Verdi's “La Traviata.” The performance is completely sold out. Standing room was sold yesterday to five hundred persons out of the thousands who had remained on the sidewalk in weakened condition after their hunger strike. The performance is to be broadcast on the opera network. Last-minute negotiations for a partial telecast are being held through the night.
Miss Czgowchwz does not intend, however,
Continued on Page 37, Column 1
to forsake the realms of the mezzo-soprano repertoire in which she has won triumphant notices in every capital of the Free World. The diva has coined a new category for herself, which she calls the “oltrano.” Explaining the move in her press conference at the airport early this morning, she announced: “I am nearing my fortieth year. I will this year sing forty roles, three times each, here and there.” The roles are:
Violetta, in “La Traviata”; Desdemona, in “Otello”; Leonora, in “Il Trovatore”; Azucena, in the same opera; Lady Macbeth, in “Macbeth”; Mistress Quickly, in “Falstaff”; Amneris, in “Aïda”; the Princess of Eboli, in “Don Carlo”; “Norma,” the title role; Elvira, in “I Puritani”; Donna Elvira, in “Don Giovanni”; Donna Anna, in the same opera; the Countess, in “Le Nozze di Figaro”; the Queen of the Night, in “Die Zauberflöte”; Orfeo, in “Orfeo ed Euridice”; Poppea, in “L'Incoronazione di Poppea”; the Marschallin, in “Der Rosenkavalier”; Octavian, the title role in the same opera; “Elektra” and “Salome,” the title roles; the Dyer's Wife, in “Die Frau ohne Schatten”; Sieglinde, in “Die Walküre”; Brünnhilde, in the same music drama; Elisabeth, in “Tannhäuser”; “Manon” and “Thaïs,” the title roles; “Louise,” the title role; Dalila, in “Samson et Dalila”; “Carmen,” the title role; Cassandra, in “Les Troyens”; Dido, in the same opera (in the same performance); “Rusalka,” the title role; “Turandot,” the title role; Minnie, in “La Fanciulla del West”; Cio-Cio-San, in “Madama Butterfly”; Marie, in Berg's “Wozzeck”; Jocasta, in Stravinsky's “Oedipus Rex”; Emilia Marti, in JanácÌek's “The Makropoulos Affair”; Leonore, in “Fidelio”; and Romeo, in Bellini's “I Capuletti ed i Montecchi.”
Miss Czgowchwz currently claims a working range of three and a half octaves, from C below middle C to F sharp in alt, and frankly admits to having three register breaks and four “voices.” “One for each season of the year,” she explains, “like the air.”
Mawrdew Czgowchwz was given police escort to the Plaza Hotel while many of the crowd at the airport marched back. Some went barefoot. At the hotel a mob filled the lobby while the singer was further interviewed and photographed by the press. Early this morning the crowd was dispersed, and most of the demonstrators retired to Central Park or sat on the grandstands put up for today's St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Miss Czgowchwz is to be carried from the Plaza to the opera house at noon today in an elaborate sedan chair especially constructed for the occasion by the prominent furniture designer and “découpagiste” Gaia della Gueza, a close friend of Miss Czgowchwz. A party of café society and theater celebrities is expected to join stars of the musical world for lunch at Louis Sherry's restaurant in the opera house, at which time Mawrdew Czgowchwz, oltrano, will discuss her plans in more detail.
Before retiring, Miss Czgowchwz appeared at the window of her tower suite to sing Schubert's “An die Musik,” accompanied by Dame Sybil Farewell-Tarnysh, the renowned British keyboard virtuoso. Her final words were, “Yes, it is good to be back.”