The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (37 page)

Without the great army of people who helped me research and write this book, I would have written maybe ten pages and then run off and hidden on a remote island until Penguin forgot I owed them a book. So many brilliant people opened up their wonderful musical and theatrical worlds, luckily, and in so doing they saved my skin. Heartfelt thanks to all! But especially …

Elizabeth Gottschalk and Adam Music for getting me started with opera.

Garsington Young Artists Programme for allowing me to come and watch
Magic Flute
rehearsals.

The wonderful British Youth Opera for allowing me to be present all through rehearsals of their fantastic production of
The Bartered Bride
. Everyone made me feel welcome, nobody threw me out of their dressing room and when I saw the finished production I finally understood why opera is such a magical, wonderful thing.

Special thanks to the very talented and inspiring soprano Katy Crompton.

To Frazer Scott for becoming my singing teacher (!).

Thank you to my great grandparents for their own contribution to the opera world, and for sparking my curiosity.

To Rachael Wright and Lindsey Kelk for New York education and also Julian Ingle for sheltering me and The Man during Hurricane Sandy. That was crazy.

Thanks to Bridget Foster at the Royal Opera House for letting me poke around the wonderful wig and makeup department.

To Lynette Mauro for inviting me into the National Theatre’s magical wardrobe depratment.

Thanks to my amazing agent, Lizzy Kremer (‘Agent of the Year, every year’), who is so brilliant I still can’t quite believe she is mine. Or I am hers. Or something like that.

To Harriet Moore for being fantastically helpful with almost everything, Laura West for getting me Stateside, and Tine Nielssen and Stella Giatrakou – best of luck to you both.

The team at Penguin have been especially brilliant this year, which has been (I hope) a rather more unusual year in my life as a writer. Thanks to Celine Kelly for being a wonderful, clever and very diplomatic editor. To Mari Evans for her brilliant input and then Maxine Hitchcock for taking this novel by storm! Liz Smith, Francesca Russell and Joe Yule for putting me out there into the world, and Lee Motley for my beautiful book jackets. Anna Derkacz, Sophie Overment, Isabel Coburn, Roseanne Bantick and Samantha Fanaken for selling me so successfully. Nick Lowndes for pulling together my books into the beautiful things they become and Hazel Orme for rigorous copy-editing! Thank you to Lyn, Brian and Caroline Walsh for being my A team. I love you all very much. To George for looking after me and being the best thing in the world. My friends – all of you, thank you for getting me back to health. X

And to my wonderful, loyal, batty, brilliant readers who’ve really had my back this year. You guys and all the wonderful bloggers and reviewers are the reason I have a job and I’m so grateful to you all.

And I guess my final thank you goes to all of the composers, singers and musicians of times present and anterior who’ve blown my mind with their works. Sometimes, when I was meant to be writing, I’d just listen to arias and duets and bawl my eyes out.

Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England

www.penguin.com

First published 2014

Copyright © Lucy Robinson, 2014

Illustration by Leeman © Lemonade Agency

All rights reserved

Extract from
Look Down
from the musical
LES MISÉRABLES
By Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg
Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
Lyrics by Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel and Herbert Kretzmer
Publisher: Alain Boublil Music Limited/Editions Musicales Alain Boublil
Copyright © 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 2012
Lyrics printed with permission

Extract from
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
from the musical
LES MISÉRABLES
By Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg
Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil
Publisher: Alain Boublil Music Limited
Copyright © 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 2012
Lyrics printed with permission

The moral right of the author has been asserted

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes

ISBN: 978-1-405-91159-7