Hugo: A Fantasia on Modern Themes

In a dazzling, dome‑crowned apartment that seems to float above a London of the early twentieth century, a reclusive gentleman awakens from a dream of hats. Surrounded by turquoise and gold, he drinks precisely measured tea while a mechanised pianoforte fills the room with Chopin’s Fantasie, a performance funded by a fortune in patents. His world is a curated museum of books, Barbizon paintings, and a Steinway that reflects his current obsession: music, ritual, and the perfect accessory.

When the thought of a lady’s dark‑blue straw hat, trimmed with pink rosebuds, takes hold of his mind, he dispatches his devoted servant, Simon Shawn, on a discreet mission through the labyrinthine “Department 42” of his own colossal residence. This whimsical quest opens a window onto the protagonist’s eccentric control over his surroundings, hinting at larger questions of desire, status, and the strange interplay between art and everyday life in a modern fantasia.