Where did the chophas play the fiddle and why
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The audience should have been filled with hushed excitement that spring night in 1831 at London’s King’s Theatre as they awaited the debut of a renowned violinist. Instead, the air was marked by nervousness and fear. Ladies fanned themselves and glanced over their shoulders, while gentlemen stared fixedly ahead, crossing and uncrossing their legs. Their anxiety was born of rumors that had been spreading throughout Europe: Niccolò Paganini, the virtuoso violinist about to perform, was possessed by the devil.
The lights dimmed and a tall, hawkish figure dressed in black took the stage. Muffled screams could be heard as Paganini’s slender, grayish-white fingers grasped the neck of his violin. Then, wielding the bow like a weapon, he attacked the first chords of his opening concerto, “Il Streghe” (“The Witches”). The maestro played with wild abandon, his long black hair flying as he sweated over his wailing instrument. In a review for Athaeneum, a music critic referred to Paganini as “Zamiel” (a mythological demonic huntsman) and said of the performance, “The poor violin was a transformed victim in the demon’s hand, uttering the anguished complaints of his inflicted torture.”