The year is 1776 and the world is preparing for the ninth edition of The Antonio Vivaldi Cup, where the world's top music composers will face each other seeking for glory. Evaristo Padilla meets with several of his friends and meets Porfirio, who tells him that no, the year is 1970 and the world is preparing for the ninth edition of the Soccer World Cup, where the world's top soccer teams will face each other seeking for glory. There are two worlds both coexisting in dreams and they can turn one into reality. But they may not be the only ones trying to do that...
La Copa Antonio Vivaldi (The Antonio Vivaldi Cup) is a speculative novel published in 1995 by Mexican author José Huerta Ibarra that deals with parallel worlds, all inhabited by the same people, that coexist on the dreams of the other worlds. it is possible to tip one of these worlds to become stronger and more real than the rest, and the novel follows two groups of characters that try to do exactly that.
Three of these worlds are mentioned:
- One is Real Life, set in 1970, and most events in there are related to The 1970 FIFA World Cup
- One is set in 1776. In this world, the science of indigenous Mexicans was preserved and gave a push to progress so the technological level is on par with the 1970 world. Classical music is highly appreciated and great composers are treated as stars, and the Vivaldi Cup gets a similar hype to the FIFA World Cup in real life.
- One is set in 1570 (although the events narrated about it happened 40 years earlier), in which Leonardo Da Vinci's discoveries and science gave an even earlier push to progess and technological level is not on par with the other worlds, but much more avanced than in reality.
Evaristo meets Porfirio, who introduces him to the idea of many worlds and how they can try to turn the 1970 world into reality, since they prefer popular music and sports to classical music. But they have a problem: 1970 versions don't know each other, and when Porfirio tries to make contact, that version of Evaristo is creeped out by Porfirio and gets hostile to him.
In the meantime Esther, a friend of Evaristo (whom he has the hots for) also discovers that she shared a dream with him and asks for the help of Leopoldo, a friend of hers who does research on dreams. They manage to make their 1970 versions meet and they fall in love in both worlds. Later, they meet a researcher who tells them what Porfirio is trying to do, and they decide to try to save the 1776 world. But they have a problem: The 1970 version of Esther if she loves and trusts Leopoldo, is uncapable or remembering anything from 1776.
So both couples have to manage to get themselves to remember their worlds and turn them into reality, and at the end this turns into a race agains time that only one of them can win.
The novel has a lot of Author Appeal, narrating both some of the greatest moments of the soccer world cup, and some of the best works of great composers, including Joseph Haydn, Mozart and Christoph Wiliband Gluck.
This story features examples of:
- Almighty Janitor: Which world is reality and which are dreams can be changed, under the right circumstances, by reaching a hypermnesic person (someone who can remember all the dream worlds so well that they can confuse them with reality) and inducing them to recall one of the worlds more than the others. There is exactly one hypermnesic man known in the world, and there is nothing else remarkable about him. Porfirio, Evaristo, Esther and Leopoldo, who are trying to change reality and history for all humanity, don't have anything exceptional about them either.
- Arc Words: Life is but a dream, and dreams are achievable.
- Audience Surrogate: When Luis gets Evaristo up to date about the story of the Vivaldi Cup.
- Author Appeal: The author clearly likes soccer. He also clearly likes classical music. And he just wanted to imagine a world where Mexico is a world power.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The novel is much more sympathetic towards Esther and Leopoldo, but at the end they fail and the 1970 world becomes reality.
- Determinator: Porfirio has been trying to enact the world change for fifteen years and keeps trying after multiple failures.
- Dream Apocalypse: This will happen to one or more of the worlds, who will just lose continuity and become dreams from the main world.
- Dream Land: Turns out all the worlds, including Real Life, are this to each other.
- Exposition: There is a big dump of the 1776's world backstory right after the first chapter.
- Friendly Rivalry: Mozart and Haydn openly admire each other, and they're in so good terms that when Haydn's pianist suffers a panic attack in the final facedown of the cup, Mozart volunteers to fill in to perform Haydn's piece and he does it so well that Haydn wins. The final time we're seeing them is when each of them is insisting that the other should win the cup.
- Historical Domain Character: A lot of them. Pelé is the most notorious one in the 1970 world, and the 1776 worlds features Haydn, Mozart, Gluck, Boccherini, Piccini, and king Frederick of Prussia.
- Graceful Loser: Most of the composers in the 1776 cup are this. When Frederick of Prussia loses he takes his hat off and bows to Haydn. When it's clear that Gluck lost, he congratulates Mozart an leaves the hall without even waiting for the results. And Boccherini was so sure he would lose to Haydn that instead of presenting the most competitive music, he picked the one he wanted Haydn to hear.
- History Repeats: In 1970, Germany and Italy face in the semifinals and go to extra time with some of the finest soccer in the competition. In 1776, Gluck and Mozart face in the semifinals and go to an extra round with some of the finest music in the competition. The winners are respectively Italy and Mozart.
- Love at First Sight: Esther tends to cause this. The 1970 versions of Leopoldo and Evaristo get it (even if that Evaristo is in a relationship with somebody else at the moment). And in 1776, Mozart gets it even if he's supposed to be focusing for his performance.
- Love Epiphany: An unusual case with Esther and Leopoldo. They are friends in 1776 and although they have enough chemistry to make Evaristo jealous, there's nothing going on between them. Then they meet in 1970 as strangers and instantly fall in love, and back in 1776 they wake up also in love.
- Mistaken for Gay: José and Luis in 1970, specially Luis. He admits it himself and even Miriam thinks at one moment that he's making a pass at Evaristo.
- Mr. Exposition: Luis is this when he explains the music cup to Evaristo. Then we get the researcher that worked with the hypermnesic man and established the existence of multiple worlds, and explains it to Leopoldo and Esther.
- Noticing the Fourth Wall: Esther and Leopoldo at the very end.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The final of the soccer world cup, with Brazil winning for the third time and taking the Jules Rimet Cup home, gets basically zero attention.
- Race Against the Clock: Evaristo and Esther acquire their memories of the dream worlds the same day, which makes the whole competition a matter of who will get to the hipermnesic man first. Evaristo and Porfirio do, thanks to train delays.
- The Rival: Gluck and Piccini are this. They have an epic facedown in the preliminary face of the cup with both of them presenting full operas and ending in a tie. You could say Gluck comes out on top at the end: In the next round Piccini is defeated by Bocherini without much ado, while Gluck beats richter and moves on to the semifinals, where he forces Mozart to stretch to the limit before losing.
- Shallow Love Interest: Miriam is the only main character of 1970 to not have a 1776 counterpart, and the only things we know about her is that she's Evaristo's girlfriend and kind of an airhead.
- Shared Dream: The premise of the novel is that the entire world is this.
- Unnecessary Roughness: Uruguay and Italy during the soccer cup.
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Write Who You Know: Nearly all the characters are named after coleagues of the author.
