Maren finishes reading the story of A Flemish Flame, which she wrote during a production of Verdi’s Don Carlo. She gives a brief synopsis of the opera, and also discusses her struggles with deadlines, procrastination, and work-life balance.
The music played during this episode:
- Excerpts from Giuseppe Verdi’s String Quartet in E minor
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Transcript
(orchestra tuning)
Hello and welcome to The Bodice Ripper Project, an exploration of sexuality, feminism, and the journey to self-empowerment through the lens of romance novels.
I’m Maren Montalbano, opera singer, coach, and writer.
In this episode, you’ll hear the conclusion of A Flemish Flame, which I wrote during a production of Don Carlo, and I talk a bit about deadlines, procrastination, and work-life balance.
So make yourself comfortable, loosen your bodice, and let’s begin!
(intro music plays)
Hello there. And thank you so much for pressing play.
I’m recording this on a Monday, February 15th, so I can upload it by Tuesday morning. That is the plan. And the reason I’m telling you this is that very clearly, I’ve been struggling with getting episodes in on time. And I recognize that you probably haven’t even noticed, but I have noticed, so that’s part of what’s going on with me and I figured I’d share.
There have been a lot of challenges that I’ve been facing. Pressures that I’ve been putting myself under to adhere to an artificial deadline that really nobody, nobody cares about, except for me. And I find that actually kind of fascinating, like what, what the heck is going on there? You know?
Deadlines are great until they’re not. They can be super motivating, but they can also be a cudgel with which we beat ourselves. And, um, that’s never good.
I am sure I am not alone in this feeling: trying to just get stuff done by a specific time, because that’s how I’ve been trained to do it. As a musician, we have deadlines, which is the production of whatever show that we’re in, the concert, recital, whatever. Or even just coming into a lesson and having your music ready. Those are all deadlines and those are things that I’ve been very used to pushing myself towards.
As far as the podcast is concerned, the consensus is that when you want to build an online audience, on whatever medium, the key is to show up consistently. So this is one of the reasons why I want to get episodes out every Monday morning.
But in order for me to do that and do it in a healthy way, I have to batch record. And I just, I haven’t been able to find time to really record a whole lot of stuff.
All of these are really great lessons to learn. And I know I don’t need to explain myself to you, but the reason I’m talking about this is because I have a feeling you’ve gone through this too. And this is just a way for us to connect.
You know, I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently with people, mostly musicians, about work-life balance. Even in pandemic!
You know, it’s funny because when the shutdown happened, when it first started almost a year ago – oh, gosh, almost a year ago – it forced all of us to slow down. All of a sudden we didn’t have anything to rush towards.
And I know that a lot of people, myself included, were breathing a sigh of relief. Like, oh, man, this is great. Now I actually have time to do those extra things that I keep putting off.
And now we’re still in COVID world. And we’re still kind of shut down. But we’ve all found a way to get the engine running again. Doing something.
Now, for some people that means trying to find jobs, you know? For some people that is, I got a new job and now I really need to prove myself. Or, I’m working on a project and this is really special and I want to get it done before we go back to quote/unquote “normal.”
And I often say that musicians are keenly aware of this feeling of pushing, pushing towards a deadline, because we are conditioned to practice. As I said before. But I bet there are people who are not musicians who also feel this way. So I think this is more of like a societal thing.
Surely there’s a better way to be living our lives than to constantly be doing, doing, doing. And that’s part of the conversations that I’ve been having, is to try to not just be in that masculine energy of do-do-do, but also the feminine energy of being and just showing up and being yourself and having that be enough.
That’s hard for me to recognize within myself. I often forget that I have an off switch. I start doing something and I just keep going. And I forget to take breaks and I forget to like, eat lunch, to the point where I’ve actually had to schedule those things into my calendar so that I get a little reminder to eat lunch.
And, you know, I ended up having to take all of yesterday off, when I was planning to record this, because I tweaked my back. And, uh, I mean I’m, I’m 46 years old. So I think a little back tweaking is, uh, probably pretty normal for people my age. But I needed to be horizontal for most of the day. So I really couldn’t, you know, sit up and record this.
The good news is, I was able to rest, and my body really appreciated that. And I did some stretching and really slowed down the way I tell people to do. You know, I have to learn that lesson for myself too. I just really, really slowed down. And this morning, I felt a lot better. And I felt like I had energy to do all of the things that I’ve been complaining that I didn’t have time to do.
But enough about that. I did want to talk a little bit about the opera Don Carlo, which is the opera that I wrote this story in. Mostly because I didn’t talk about it very much when I recorded Part Two. And I do reference a few things about the world of this opera in the chapter that you’re about to hear.
I went back through my notes and realized I hadn’t even given you a synopsis of Don Carlo. So you get one now. Lucky you.
Okay, this is going to be very brief. Don Carlo is basically the Crown Prince of Spain. He’s the son of Philip the Second. And remember, this is very much like Shakespeare’s histories. They’re not really true to the way actual history worked out. It’s just a kind of a historical fiction, essentially.
Anyway, in this story, he’s in love with Elisabeth of Valois, who is the Queen of Spain. She married Philip, his father. That was an arranged marriage. So she’s actually in love with him, but she can’t say that because, especially in this opera, she’s very, very, very virtuous. So, even though she’s in love with him, she’s not going to do anything.
He, on the other hand, spends a great deal of time in this opera moping about it kind of Hamlet style. there is also some intrigue as well. It’s very complicated, but basically Philip the Second accuses his son of adultery with his wife and he arrests him.
Don Carlo is very, very popular with the people, and Verdi sets up this scene of like the populist versus the monarchy. So that the people are kind of ready to rise up and defend Don Carlo, but the Grand Inquisitor, The Spanish Inquisition. 🎶 What a show! 🎶
He comes in and he basically silences everybody and they’re so afraid of him that they kind of back down. The Grand Inquisitor is definitely in this opera very much of a villain. He later convinces the king that he should go ahead and kill his son because of the adultery and the king’s kind of like, “I’m not so sure. I kind of love my son.” And the Grand Inquisitor is like, “Look. I have made and broken monarchies bigger than yours. So you’d better do what I say.” it’s pretty intense.
Anyway. So they go ahead and, have a trial for Don Carlo and everything. Before he’s killed, however, this mysterious monk emerges from the tomb of Emperor Charles the Fifth and drags Don Carlo into the tomb and closes the entrance. That’s the end of the show.
Depending on the production, this whole opera can get very mysterious. And personally, I draw some parallels between this mysterious monk and the ghost of Hamlet’s father, you know? There there’s a serious Hamlet vibe going on with Don Carlo, for sure.
And then there’s the Grand Inquisitor and how much power the Spanish Inquisition holds over Spain. So I really keyed into that and I wanted to write something about that. It’s something that was a little bit more magical and mysterious than true life.
Also in this synopsis, I left out the whole subplot about Princess Eboli, who is the king’s mistress. She’s in love with Don Carlo too, jealous of the queen. There’s this whole thing. But I saw a portrait of her, the real Princess of Eboli, Ana Mendoza, and I was really intrigued. You should Google it. She looks really bad-ass. She’s got an eyepatch.
And I just figured this court must be full of women who were surprisingly bad-ass. So that’s how Marguerite ended up with this crazy martial arts background.
Anyway, let’s get on with the story.
When last we left Marguerite and Julian, they had just been attacked by some scouts – presumably sent by the Spanish Inquisition. We had learned that Julian was a member of the Order of Saint Odo, which was designed to root out corruption in the church. And we also learned that they were chasing Marguerite because she was in possession of a special amulet.
Marguerite unconsciously raised her hand to the pendant dangling from her neck…when she did so, she lost control of the rope holding him aloft, and his swift fall to the floor knocked him unconscious again.
“That’s enough,” Julian said, as he grabbed her arm to lead her outside. “We must away.”
A Flemish Flame
Chapter 5
Julian squinted at the mountains to the south. It would take more than a day to get to the Order’s stronghold, and he knew Marguerite would not travel with him even another mile without some sort of explanation for the trouble she was in.
Not that he blamed her. He had watched her from afar for months and had grown to admire her. She was intelligent, quick on her feet, and generous to her friends. And, of course, he thought ruefully, she was handy in a fight.
Remembering how deftly she fought off her attacker at the abbey brought a smile to his face. His heart quickened. She was perfect. No wonder Jean married her.
They had been on the road for hours and had hardly said a word to one another. She sat stiffly in front of him on the horse even though it must be uncomfortable to maintain that position for so long. She did not give up easily, and he loved her for it.
He nudged the horse off the road, following a small path back into the woods.
“Where are you taking me now?” she asked, her voice laced with impatience.
“We are getting close to another town,” he responded. “I don’t want to encounter anyone who might be able to identify us.”
They traveled in more silence until they reached a creek, where the horse stopped and eagerly dipped his head down to gulp at the water.
“Time to stretch our legs, señora,” he murmured into her ear. He loved the way she shivered when he got that close to her. “Spartacus is not the only one who needs a drink.”
She dismounted quickly, but her stiff posture over the last few hours caused her legs to wobble beneath her. She stumbled, steadying herself against a tree.
He was at her arm in the blink of an eye, making sure she didn’t fall. She glared at him and looked away.
Julian sighed. “I suppose it is finally time to tell you the whole story.”
“Past time, I should think,” she sniffed. “You can begin by explaining what is so important about this amulet.” Marguerite held up the silver pendant the queen had given her. It flashed brightly in the sun.
“For heaven’s sake, put that away!” he exclaimed.
“For heaven’s sake, why?!”
“Because it is the key…to unlocking the Grand Inquisitor’s power.” Julian looked down in embarrassment as he said the words.
Marguerite opened her mouth to insist that he was lying, that the idea of the Grand Inquisitor was some kind of dark wizard was preposterous…but she had witnessed too many strange happenings at El Escorial to dismiss it altogether. Ghostly sightings of Emperor Charles V, inhuman screams in the dead of night – they could point to only one thing: the use of sorcery. She nodded thoughtfully. “Go on.”
Emboldened, Julian continued. “When it is placed on the Grand Inquisitor’s throne, it activates the dark power that allows him to hold the country – and even the entire Catholic church – under his influence. Elisabeth of Valois discovered it and meant to give it to us so we could destroy it, but…” He saw the raw emotions play across her face at the mention of her friend and stepped towards her, his hand reaching for hers.
A part of her wanted to grasp his hand in return. But she knew that if he got too close, her body would betray her, so she grabbed a canteen from the saddlebag and walked past him to fill it up at the creek.
“So you want to destroy the only gift that I have from my dearest friend.”
“I want to destroy the amulet, yes. The love your friend has for you will not diminish.”
“And those monks wish to retrieve it for His Eminence?”
“At any cost, yes.”
She took a long drink from the canteen, then filled it up again and passed it to Julian. “I am a Catholic, sir.”
“As am I. As was your husband.”
“I certainly do not condone the use of witchcraft in the church.”
She watched him drink from the canteen, admiring the way the water dripped from the side of his mouth, running down his cheek in rivulets. He was as sweaty and dusty as she was, and she loved it.
Something inside her clicked. She wanted to be on the road with this man. She wanted to go on an adventure with him…and if that meant she could save the world in the process, even better.
Marguerite removed the necklace, kissed it once in remembrance of the queen, then held it out to him. “Fine. It’s yours.”
He nearly dropped the canteen in surprise. He reached out to take it, then wrapped both his hands around hers. “It is yours, señora. The amulet can only be destroyed by a woman.”
She looked down at his hands and then up into his deep chocolate eyes. His touch was sending heat up her arm, and she licked her lips unconsciously. He stepped even closer and moved one hand up to cup her cheek. “The ritual – the process is very dangerous. It could cost you your life. I do not want to ask you to do this.”
“I…can do anything,” she protested, her voice shaking with bravado and passion.
He smiled gently. “I don’t doubt it.” He rubbed his thumb up and down her cheek.
She frowned. “Brother Julian…” she started.
“No need to call me that anymore, Marguerite,” he murmured as he lowered his head ever so slowly. “That is an honorific of the Order, but I have taken no monastic vows.”
“Oh, thank God,” she cried, as she tipped her mouth up to meet his. Their lips locked, and passion erupted as they clung to each other tightly. Tongues dueled and competed for dominance until he broke their kiss to drag his mouth down her neck towards her bosom. She leaned her head back in delight and ran her fingers through his hair.
He pulled at the ties on her bodice but was soon confounded by the knots. She laughed and whispered, “Let me do it,” into his ear as she nibbled on his earlobe.
Reluctantly, he let her go and she deftly shed herself of her wardrobe as he watched, amazed at how many deadly weapons had been sewn into pockets all over her dress. Soon, she stood naked before him, save the amulet around her neck. With a teasing smile, she walked straight into the creek, beckoning him to follow.
And follow he did.
It was a wonder they were able to stay hidden from their pursuers. Marguerite’s sighs of pleasure soon turned to screams of delight that echoed through the forest as they frolicked in the stream.
When they were both thoroughly sated, they got back on the road and began to plan their next move. It would be a long and difficult journey to take down the Spanish Inquisition, and they knew there was much danger ahead. But now, at this moment, each rested comfortably with the knowledge that they had met their match. Together, they could conquer anything.
And I will leave it there.
Join me next episode, in which I interview soprano Claire Galloway.
In my soul, I just said, no, I’ve had my aha moment. And it’s that I need to start trusting my gut more. And I need to start building teams around me that really are with me on that. That we’re kind of seeing eye to eye and that they’re there to stoke the fire that I have within me, instead of trying to quench it.
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And of course I love hearing from you guys. If there was anything that particularly struck you about this or any episode, please reach out to me. I’m on Instagram most days @supermaren, S U P E R M A R E N.
The Bodice Ripper Project is a production of Compassionate Creative, and was conceived, written, and edited by me, Maren Montalbano. The background music during the story was excerpts from Giuseppe Verdi’s String Quartet in E minor because there are no public domain versions of Don Carlo! Plus I figured I’d keep the music consistent across all three parts of the story. The theme music was also written by yours truly. If you liked what you heard, I invite you to give this podcast a 5-star rating – you think it doesn’t make a difference, but it does! – and I’ll see you next time.