Chapter 40 – Preparing the Announcement
While Nev searched for tins of fish caught five years ago in the eastern North Atlantic, the woman was putting the finishing touches on the PR package she and Gwen had worked on for the last month. She knew she should have been searching for dancers at the same time, but she was avoiding that task. She was scared she wouldn’t be able to find enough of them, and then where would the production be? Gwen knew she was avoiding it, but decided to let her do her job her way. She had more faith in her than the woman had in herself.
On the other hand, the PR package was comprehensive. There were press releases, social media postings, a long email list of people and organizations in the biz, appointments for TV and press interviews, and a beautiful webpage. The webpage had an account of how the score had been discovered. It wasn’t a true accounting, of course, but only the team and Stirg knew that. Fabricating the account had been Roger’s task for the last week.
He had concocted a story of how the score had been found in an antique Russian desk the Junes had received as a gift. The fake part of the account consisted of a provenance for the desk, which charted a path from Saint Petersburg, circa 1914, to Paris at the advent of the Russian Revolution (1917), to Charleston a year ago. The part of the provenance documenting the move from Russia to France was forged by an English friend of Roger’s, Harmond Flourcroft Richland IV, aka, Henky. Henky lives in London, and is a shady antiquarian of the type made so wonderfully famous by the British fiction writer, Jonathan Gash. Only, Henky is the real deal. He knows a lot about a lot of old things. Among other subjects, he knows watercolor paintings, old wine, Roman ceramics, and illuminated manuscripts. Roger knows him from the wine business. Henky was involved in the international scandal over fake Thomas Jefferson Bordeaux bottles that had implicated a bunch of rich and famous wine connoisseurs around the world. Henky had stayed out of jail, but his reputation had not. Roger knew him from wine, but now thought of him for manuscripts. Henky can forge just about anything, given the right monetary incentive. He can produce sixteenth-century Italian invoices, eighteenth-century wills, and twentieth-century contracts. Henky loves to forge documents.
Henky’s first document done for Roger showed an inventory list of possessions of the aristocrat from Saint Petersburg who had owned the desk in 1914. He had been a patron of Stravinsky, and had scampered the hell out of Saint Petersburg when Lenin’s boys began their reign of terror in 1917. His second forgery showed the sale of the desk, along with other objects, to a Parisian dealer, now long out of business. The third forged document, another receipt, had been given by the dealer to a wealthy Parisian family when that family bought the desk in 1964.
Not only was this wealthy Parisian family real, but Roger and Gwen had close connections with the patriarch. They had made this connection one day when they were in Burgundy on holiday, walking through the region, tasting wines and eating Burgundian foods. At a restaurant, the wealthy Frenchman was with his family enjoying a late lunch, and the Junes were at the next table, also enjoying a late lunch. Then something happened. A young boy, the son, had inhaled when he shouldn’t have, and a piece of food got sucked into his windpipe. His gasping alerted everyone to the problem, and the rapid change in color of his face from pink to ashen emphasized the problem. The members of his family did not react with the Heimlich maneuver, but Roger did. He grabbed the boy, executed the squeeze successfully, and from that minute forward became a de facto VIP in the father’s eyes. A very special person. Indeed, the person who had saved his son’s life.
In a straightforward manner Roger had told the man part of the story of the discovery of the score in the desk. He didn’t tell him they had stolen the desk in Saint Petersburg, only that he had a desk in which he had found the lost ballet score. He asked the man if he would allow Roger to put his family’s name on a document showing the desk had come into their possession in 1964. They guy understood what was going on, and was glad to help. He was a man of the world of business. Roger also asked him if he would write a letter in which he gave the desk to Roger and Gwen on the tenth anniversary of the date on which Roger had saved the boy’s life, as a token of gratitude. The man said, “That and more, Roger, that and anything else you ask of me.”
This account of the discovery of the score was one page on the ballet’s website. The website homepage gave the basic information about the production: newly discovered music by Stravinsky, choreography by Selgey Landkirk and Bartholomew Thorley, costumes by GALE, music performed live by Pete Townshend, at The Hall in Charleston, and the dates. Gwen didn’t think they needed a lot of detail. She knew awareness of the production would spread by word of mouth when people in the business came to understand about the lost ballet score, who was doing the choreography, and how the Stravinsky score for small orchestra would be performed by The Whosey.
The woman had been fielding questions about the production since the Sunday when Roger had posted the full page ad about Townshend and McCartney “doing ballet” in The Times of London. At that point she and Gwen had devised a strategy for answering these inquires, which was to confirm the existence of the production, with Townshend as Musical Director and performer of the Stravinsky score, but to provide few details, saying that press releases, a website, and a full press conference were coming in the near future. It was getting to be that time.
When Gwen showed the website to the rest of the team, the Ps asked, simultaneously, “What about the dancers?” With an understanding look on her face, Gwen turned to the woman.
“We’re not, ah, there yet.”
Pater said, “I know we’re not there yet. When are we gonna get there? You can’t have a ballet without dancers.”
Peter said, “How can we do a press conference and launch the website when we don’t know who the dancers are? That’s what people come to see. The dancers.”
Gwen, understanding their frustration, didn’t challenge the Ps on their dancer-centric view of ballet. She said, “Look, we know we have to do that. But we have a lot of firepower in the names of Stravinsky, Landkirk, Thorley, and Townshend. We can play this like the seventh game of the World Series, when the two managers wait until the last minute to announce who is going to pitch for their team. Or when Spielberg says he’s going to direct a new movie, but doesn’t say who’s going to star in it. It’s possible we can turn this deficit to our advantage by playing up our search for the best dancers in the world. Everyone will wonder who we’re going after, especially dancers around the world. When word gets out about the details of the production, everyone is going to want to know all about it. And,” she paused, “we may want to leak something about our budget. Who else has had that amount of money for one production? Lots of people have that for a movie, but no one has had that for a single ballet.” This placated the Ps, but it didn’t do a lot to mitigate the fears of the woman. She was on the hot seat.
Helstof said, “When’s the formal announcement of the production? The press conference and website launch?”
Gwen looked at the woman, who said, “Following Gwen’s strategy, we’re ready now. The Mayor, the Senator’s wife, and Catherine have agreed to make the announcement at City Hall. We just have to tell them when. How about a week from today?”
Bart said, “Catherine’s coming? Oh, wow, great. Perfect. If she says something about the production, half the population of Paris will fly over for the show.” The Ps nodded. They loved her. The team had met her during a visit to Charleston.
The Whosey said, “Catherine who?”
“Deneuve.”
“You’re kidding. Catherine’s coming? Here? You know her? You can get her here, to announce the show? How?”
Selgey interrupted the woman’s explanation, asking The Whosey, “YOU know her?”
He said, “Yeah, from way back. From the Polanski days. I wrote a song for Repulsion. We met him and the cast, including Catherine, duri
ng the filming, at a party. It was filmed in England, outside London. He asked me to write a song, then the bastard never used it.”
“How well do you know Catherine?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. Code of the English gentleman.”
Gale said, “You’re an English gentleman? I thought you’re a rock n roll star.”
“I was a rock n roll star. Now, I’m a gentleman, playing Stravinsky for girls in tutus.”
Selgey said, “You know Catherine Deneuve, and you imply some sort of relationship, and you’re not going to tell us about it?”
“Can’t. Sorry. Code.”
Gwen said to her, “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you later.”
Townshend said, “How do you know?”
“She told me. Catherine lives by another code. French. Not so squeamish as the English gentlemen’s code. Also, we’re friends. Close. When she heard you were part of the show, she spilled it.”
At this, Townshend looked very pleased. The secret was out, and he had maintained his oath.
Gwen said, “Ok, then. We announce one week from today. I’ll call Catherine.”
Helstof said, “Tell her we’ll send the Gulfstream for her, wherever she is.”
Gale said, “How do you know if it’s available? When I asked you about it, you said you didn’t know if you owned it, and didn’t know where it went, or when. Don’t you have to ask Henric if it can pick up Catherine?”
Helstof looked at Gwen, rolled her eyes, looked at Gale, sniffed the aristocratic sniff, and said, “Don’t worry, darlin’. Wherever and whenever Gwen and Catherine want it to be, that’s where it will be.”
The Lost Ballet Page 40