All the World's a Stage

A dread possibility cut from Gazetteer IV to accompany the entry for Lechberg.

Many Borcan plays are based on existing stories, so it was normal when Cezar Vercezzo based his 749 work, The Blind Gypsy, on a common tale. In the opera, a Vistana whose family is killed seeks to prevent future tragedies by trading his eyes to an evil hag for a pair of gems that can see the future. However, every future he sees depicts the subject being murdered by an unseen creature. The Vistana is soon cast out and forced to live among the giorgio, most of whom rashly try to use the “seer’s” visions for themselves. One by one, the giorgio fall to the curse, including a kind girl who has sheltered the Vistana. In the end, the Vistana races to save her, but discovers the girl dead in the hag’s arms. In the climactic aria, the hag chides him for tempting fate and gloats that her gems did show him the future: her own.

On opening night, a blindfolded beggar accosted Vercezzo, warning him that he had “stolen” the man’s tragedy. “If you dare steal the pain of the world for your art, then the world will steal it back.” Since then, whenever a performer in Vercezzo’s operas plays a role for a few months, her real life slowly and subtly comes to mimic her character’s experiences. Sadly, the dominant themes in Vercezzo’s oeuvre are uncontrolled passion, romantic betrayal, scheming women, violent men, and third acts awash in blood. In Lotharia, a woman plays three suitors against each other; when two kill each other in a duel, the third kills her to avenge his friends. In The Silent Child, a poor serving girl — traditionally played by a halfling — falls in love with the oblivious master of the house and turns him against his family to win him for herself. Vercezzo has only recently started to comprehend the power his operas have over his casts, and he is considering the best approach to take. He is unlikely to change the themes that keep him in Lord Ivan’s favor, however.