When the concert in question has been billed as the Very Last Ever Farewell Charity Concert, the atmosphere is heightened to such an extent that barometers are brought into the auditorium entirely at their owners’ risk. For the occasion the Galeazzo Brothers had built - over the course of centuries, naturally, and entirely funded by retrospective borrowing (which meant that the bank ended up paying them interest) - the biggest, grandest, most garish neo-Gothic auditorium ever. Every inch of the surface area of the huge massed banks of speakers was carved with intricate scroll-and-acanthus work, and the leads entered them through the mouths of grinning gargoyles. The stage itself was supported on slender pinnacles of stone at a dizzying height above the ground, and was roofed over with a breathtaking canopy of stained glass, providing an unrivalled light show without the expense of electric power. Up in his dressing room, Blondel wasn’t feeling the slightest bit nervous. As far as he was concerned, he was going to sing.
