Chapter 29Thessaloniki, the near future
“And so in the end, Puccini paid tribute to Doria in the person of Liù. He created a monument to her out of music. It remains for each of us to ask ourselves if it was enough, if art can ever be enough to compensate for what Shakespeare called ‘the evil that men do.’ Thank you, and now we’ll open up the floor to questions.”
Alex was listening to a lecture that Ellen Drew had given at the Festival Puccini in Terre del Lago some years back about her alternate ending for his Turandot, based on what she said was encoded in Puccini’s musical sketches for the opera’s conclusion. Alex was on a British Airways jet bound for Athens where he was to represent the United States in the Summer Olympics. He had won the French Open, the most difficult of the Slams
