Score!

‘Young Carlos reach France in disguise, wanting to see if he has been lumbered with ugly cow, but when he see Princess Elisabetta out hunting in the woods,’ Rannaldini gesticulated at the Bois de Boulogne, ‘he find her utterly beautiful, with dark hair to her waist. When he reveal he is Carlos, her future husband, she fall in love too. They will live ’appy ever after.’ Jumping a red light, Rannaldini made a V-sign at an outraged crone in a Volvo.

‘Then awful thing ’appen. Carlos’s father, Philip II, decide he want Elisabetta for himself and marries her instead. This is very selfish because King already has beautiful girlfriend called Eboli.

‘Poor Carlos, however, cannot stop loving Elisabetta even though she is now Queen of Spain, married to his father, and she still love him. But everywhere in Spanish court they are spied on. I won’t spoil the ending.’

They were approaching the opera house.

‘Rannaldini, Rannaldini,’ shouted admirers, surging forward.

A group protesting against nuclear tests was also lurking. One, a handsome but ferocious blonde, banged on the Mercedes window, which Rannaldini lowered a fraction.

‘How would you like your testicles shrivelled by radiation?’ she yelled.

‘Sounds interesting,’ murmured Rannaldini, closing the window as her furious face disappeared in a tidal wave of fans.

‘I’m getting a bodyguard,’ he complained, as a couple of doormen finally dragged him and Tristan through the stage door.

Tristan was unfazed, particularly when Rannaldini, while donning the splendour of white tie and tails, offered him a birthday glass of Krug. All down the passage, singers could be heard warming up.

A white gardenia in a glass box for Rannaldini to slot into his buttonhole was delivered to the Maestro’s dressing room. Most of the flowers arriving were for Cecilia Rannaldini, his second wife, who was singing Eboli, and who now could be heard screaming, ‘When will people learn I only like red roses,’ as she hurled everything else on to the floor.

Chic and svelte for a diva, Cecilia had done much to advance Rannaldini’s career, not least by changing her famous name to his. Having barged into the conductor’s room and smothered Tristan in kisses, she started rowing with Rannaldini in Italian.

Carlos was being sung by a plump, good-looking Italian, Franco Palmieri. Rannaldini’s latest discovery, an unknown South African called Hermione, was making her début as Elisabetta.

The packed audience was too old to interest Tristan but, with his chin resting on the front of the red velvet box, he gazed down in wonder at the glittering instruments in the pit. Opposite him were the cellos and behind them towered the double basses, red-gold as beeches in autumn. But once the action started on stage, and hunting horns heralded Hermione as Elisabetta riding in on a real grey horse, Tristan hardly noticed the orchestra. Hermione’s thick brown hair did indeed curl to her waist and he couldn’t take his eyes off her cleavage, which seemed to part like curtains whenever she hit a high note — and how gloriously she sang!

Rannaldini’s black hair was drenched with sweat, as his dark eyes sent laser beams to singer or musician so they responded almost without realizing it. Now he was smiling at Hermione, magicking increasingly beautiful sounds with a twitch of his baton.

Cecilia Rannaldini had a pure, clean voice. But, not realizing that shouting and crying all night can harm the vocal cords, Tristan thought she sounded very rough. She was, however, a great actress and, as she glared at Hermione, put him in mind of the wicked queen in Snow White. King Philip, on the other hand, was so stern and cold with his son Carlos, he reminded Tristan of his own father, Étienne.

Alone in the big box, he was also terrified by the Grand Inquisitor, blind, hooded, bent over his sticks like a black widow spider, and when the flames began to flicker round the poor bare feet of the heretics, Tristan leapt to his own feet screaming, ‘No, no they mustn’t burn,’ which was luckily drowned, by orchestra, church bells and chorus loudly praising God and the Inquisition.

Every role in Don Carlos is demanding, but it was the young Hermione who drew the most rapturous applause. Tristan clapped his hands until they were as pink as the carnations that cascaded down on her.

After more champagne and hugging, as people poured backstage to congratulate them, Rannaldini, Cecilia, Fat Franco, who’d sung Carlos, and Hermione swept Tristan off to the Ritz, where he still couldn’t speak for excitement. Everyone was sweet to him because Rannaldini made sure they knew both of his birthday and of his famous father.

The management presented him with a frothy fruit cocktail filled with coloured straws. Rannaldini, who never minded what the boy ate, allowed him to have lobster Thermidor with sizzling cheese topping, followed by blackcurrant sorbet.