We have had two previous fairly complex Listener crosswords from Gnomish and the preamble of this one looks as though we are in for a third.
This Listener is by any measure a complex one making it hard to get an early purchase on the theme though something musical and SOLFA (which somehow the circled letters had to become), and Italian with the -ZA, were looking likely from quite early on. I suppose having lots of moving parts, as it were, is one of the features of some top-class Listeners.
The Numpty writing this week’s blog needed help from the other members of the team with some of the clue wordplay and particularly with understanding how those extra words worked out, but she has set one on the same opera and ROSA RAISA, appearing at 19, 26, was a help, suggesting that those two jumble solutions ICAIICO PCUMOGN would give GIACOMO PUCCINI.
But first the gridfill. Difficult, with some really tough ones, especially with words being extracted or letters added to the clues, but there were some smiles: ‘Egg, for example, is 50 per cent fat free (4)’ had to produce an I to give us that little Scottish ISLE, Eigg. ‘Discharge endless pasta sauce on chef’s fist (9, two words) gave us a bit more Italian. It could only be an added R (into fist), so we had unfinished CARBONAR[a] on C giving CARBON ARC. ‘Dressed two peers in neon fabric (9)’ Which words were we going to anagram to get a nine-letter fabric? Ah, we needed the periodic table Ne for Neon to give us PERSIENNE with ‘two’ being removed as the extra word.
One of the trickiest was a sort of key to the puzzle at 17a “What’s this? 40s key special, ringing sixth note of six (6)” The answer CLAVIS is of course bog-standard Latin for a key, but Chambers gives it as the word for cipher key, and the clue parses as “What’s this?” as the definition then C (which is the key of the scale of CDEFGAB at 40a: 40’s key) and S for special round LA (sixth note in the SOLFA scale) and VI for six. “of” is the extra word. Phew!
So a full grid but with all those extra words to decipher.
IT’S INVOLVED IN PROPHECY. We needed a clue to the English for I. The answers to those first two riddles in TURANDOT were ESPERANZA (hope) and SANGUE (blood) so we have HOPE from a partial anagram [involved] of PROPHECY.
SANGUE has appeared diagonally in our grid but we are instructed that we must SUBSTITUTE TWO OF ITS LETTERS. We change the S of SANGUE to F and the G of PROG to O and hey presto! ALFANO. The preamble – and co-solver Wiki – tell us that he was the ‘work’s finisher’. Apparently he did that after Puccini’s’s death.
GRANDILOQUENT AND TESTY INITIALLY is ‘wordplay for III. This must be TURANDOT so we back-solve to {ROTUND + A(nd) T(esty)}*
PRINCE’S SIXTH NOTE ENTERING DIMINUTIVE BISTRO is the final clue, to IV, and parses as the sixth note of the SOLFA scale LA inside a short CAF(e) with “PRINCE” as the definition. It has to be the suitor Prince CALAF (who solves the third riddle while ‘nessun dorma’, saved the nation and won the riddle game and the princess by knowing her name (It could only happen in a Puccini opera!). [If we are allowed a slight niggle it’s – if we’ve got this right – that CALAF is not the answer to the fourth riddle (the Prince’s real name) which Turandot has to solve if she really still wants to kill him – but LOVE. Ahhh! (She doesn’t of course…)]
IV IN MAD SOPRANO TRIALS is the message from the down clues. We’ve established that IV is CALAF. If we put CALAF ino S(oprano)TRIALS, what do we get? LA SCALA FIRST (2,5,5)
And that final preamble instruction, ‘… then complete 40 as 41. to represent the event’s venue, using the circled system for one letter to make a relevant word in the starred cell’: well, the circled letters spelled SOLFA and if we replace the second C with its SOL-FA equivalent, UT, we get a starred DEBUT – ‘La Scala First’
What a compilation! No problem confirming Gnomish’s retention of his Listener Oenophile permit.Two of his extra words took us to a diminutive bistro and later we had a number of Italians consuming a new French spirit brand (giving us TRADEMARK) – it was probably Pastis, so “Cheers, Gnomish!”