by Donna Leon
La Fenice had given her a rehearsal room in which to prepare these roles, a generous concession on the part of the theatre, since she’d be singing both parts in another opera house. Her room was the last door along the corridor on the right side.
As she passed the first door, she heard a piano from behind it giving the chirpy introduction to an aria she recognized but could not identify. Plunky, plunky, plunk: it sounded like the cheeriest of airs, yet her musical memory told her it was quite another thing, the light-heartedness entirely false. No sooner came the thought than the music turned ominous. The low female voice entered, singing, ‘Se l’inganno sortisce felice, io detesto per sempre virtù.’ As the singer began to elaborate on that thought, Flavia remembered the aria. What in heaven’s name was Handel, and – even more incredibly – Ariodante’s enemy Polinesso, doing here? The voice soared off into coloratura whirligigs that made Flavia marvel that she was listening to a contralto, for the agility of these leaps by rights should belong to a soprano, but a soprano with a dark, musk-rich bottom register to go home to.
She leaned against the wall of the corridor and closed her eyes. Flavia understood every word: consonants bitten off cleanly, vowels as open as they were meant to be, and no more. ‘If the deception works, I will detest virtue for ever.’ The melody slowed minimally, and Polinesso’s voice grew more menacing: ‘Chi non vuol se non quello, che lice, vive sempre infelice quaggiù.’ Flavia gave herself over to the pleasure of contrast: the melody skipped along, beside itself with joy, as Polinesso declaimed the truth that anyone who always does the right thing will always be unlucky in this world.
Then back to the A section and off she went, coloratura chasing the notes all over the place, laying a light hand upon each one of them, and then again as if in a game of hide-and-seek. Flavia had seen Ariodante two years before in Paris, when a friend sang the rather thankless role of Lurcanio: she remembered three of the singers, but not the Polinesso, who could only dream of singing like this. The vocal flourishes grew ever more demented, shooting up only to slip down to the lowest range of the contralto voice. The final sweep up and down the scale left Flavia limp with physical delight and more than a little relieved that she would never have to compete with this singer, whoever she was.
Just as she reached this conclusion, a man’s voice came to her from her right: ‘Flavia, I’m here.’
She turned, but so strong was the spell of the music that it took her a moment to recognize Riccardo, the ripetitore with whom she had worked on Tosca and who had offered to help her prepare the Donizetti opera. Short, stocky, bearded, nose askew, Riccardo could easily be mistaken for a person given to aggression, and yet his playing was sensitive and luminous, especially in the soft introductions to arias, to which, he insisted, too many singers failed to pay sufficient attention. In the weeks they’d worked on the Puccini opera together, he had shown her more than a few nuances in the music she had not seen when reading the score, nor heard when singing it on her own. His playing had made them audible, halting after passages he thought required dramatic emphasis. It was only after the successful first performance, when his work was effectively over, that he admitted to Flavia how much he disliked Tosca. For him, opera had stopped with Mozart.
They kissed, he told her how wonderful her performance had been the night before, but she interrupted him to ask, ‘Do you know who’s in there?’ pointing to the door opposite her.
‘No,’ Riccardo answered. ‘Let’s find out,’ he added and knocked on the door. Flavia was too slow to stop him.
A man’s voice called out ‘Momento’, a woman’s voice said something, and then the door was pulled open by a tall man holding a few sheets of music. ‘Cosa c’è?’ he said as he stepped into the corridor, but when he recognized his colleague, and then Flavia, he stopped and raised the score in front of his chest as if he wanted to hide behind it.
‘Signora Petrelli,’ he said, unable to contain his surprise, or to say more. Behind him Flavia saw the girl who had waited at the stage door after the performance the night before, the one with the beautiful speaking voice and nervous manner. She looked much better today, hair brushed back from her face and no attempt at makeup. Without the badly chosen lipstick, she had quite a pretty face. She too held sheets of music in her hand, and Flavia saw in her the glow of someone who has just sung well and knows it.
‘They teach you very well in Paris, my dear,’ Flavia said, entering the room without asking permission and walking over to the girl. Flavia leaned forward and kissed her on both cheeks, patted her arm, smiled, and patted her arm again. ‘I’m amazed you’d try a role like that.’ Before the girl could speak in defence or explanation, Flavia went on, ‘But you’re perfect for it, even at your age. What else are you preparing?’
The girl opened her mouth to answer but seemed unable to speak. ‘I . . . I . . .’ she began, then flipped the papers and pointed to one.
‘“Ottavia’s Lament”,’ Flavia read. ‘It’s a heartbreaker, isn’t it?’ she asked the girl, who nodded but still proved incapable of speech. ‘I’ve always wanted to sing it, but it’s far too low for me.’
Flavia gave herself a sudden shake and said, addressing both the girl and the pianist, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt.’
‘We were just finishing,’ the man said. ‘The session is an hour, and we’ve been here more than that already.’
Flavia glanced at the girl, who seemed to have calmed down a bit.
‘Did you really like it, Signora?’ she managed to ask.
This time Flavia laughed outright. ‘It was beautifully sung. That’s why I came in: to tell you that.’
The girl’s face flushed again and she bit her lips as if fighting back tears.
‘What’s your name?’ Flavia asked.
‘Francesca Santello,’ she said.
‘She’s my daughter, Signora,’ the piano player said. He stepped forward and offered his hand. ‘Ludovico Santello.’
Flavia shook it and then offered hers formally to the girl. ‘Let me get to work myself,’ she said, smiling at both of them and turning to Riccardo, who stood in the doorway.
Flavia, with a friendly nod to the girl, left the room and walked down the hallway. The door behind them closed and they heard the sound of voices within. A few people, talking among themselves, came down the hall towards them, and as they passed, Flavia said to Riccardo, ‘That girl’s got a marvellous voice. She’s going to be a fine singer, I think.’
Riccardo took the key to the room from his pocket and said, ‘If you’ll permit me to say this, she already is.’ He opened the door and held it for her.
Still speaking, she entered the room. ‘It’s not often that people that young are so . . .’ The sentence was chopped off by the sight of the flowers: a single bouquet of them, in a simple glass vase. They stood on the top of the piano, a small white envelope propped against the vase.
Flavia walked to the piano and picked up the envelope. Without thinking, she handed it to Riccardo, saying, ‘Would you open this and read it to me, please?’
If he found her request strange, he gave no sign of it. He slipped his thumbnail under the flap, opened the envelope, and pulled out a simple white card. Turning to her, he read, ‘I’m disappointed that you gave away the roses. I hope you won’t do it again.’
‘Is there a signature?’ she asked.
Riccardo turned the card over, picked up the envelope and looked at the back; he set them on top of the piano. ‘No. Nothing.’
He glanced at her and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ She placed her folder of sheet music on the music stand and took the vase of flowers and put it out in the corridor. ‘I think we were working on the end of the second act,’ she said.
6
Brunetti and Paola talked about the performance on the way home, each having enjoyed it in a different way. Brunetti had seen Flavia sing Violetta only once, and that had been on television, during the years when the producers at RAI still
considered opera sufficiently important to merit broadcasting. Since then, it had disappeared from television, as it had from any serious consideration in the press. Of course, the occasional opera-related story did appear, but more space was dedicated to a singer’s marital status, or lack, or substitute, or change thereof than to their work as an artist.
It was impossible to believe that so much time had passed since he had last seen Flavia sing La Traviata and watched her die, his heart tight with the desire to step in and save her. He had known then, in the same way he knew that Paolo and Francesca would spend eternity chasing one another through the winds of Hell, that Violetta would cry out her joy at the return of life and vigour and then crash down, dead as only dead can be. It was just a story. So although Tosca had killed Scarpia and was set for the drop, he’d known she’d be back on stage in a matter of minutes, smiling and waving at the audience. But that could not change the reality of the murder or of her suicide. Fact was meaningless: only art was real.
Paola had grown fonder of opera in recent years and had admired Flavia’s performance without reservation, though she judged the plot ridiculous. ‘I’d like to see her in an interesting opera,’ she said, just as they reached the top of the Rialto Bridge.
‘But you told me you liked it.’ He started down the steps, suddenly tired and wanting only to have a drink and go to bed.
‘She was thrilling at times,’ Paola agreed. ‘But I cry when Bambi’s mother is killed: you know that.’ She shrugged.
‘And so?’ he asked.
‘And so I’ll never be carried away by opera the way you are; I’ll always have reservations about how serious it is.’ She patted his arm as she spoke, then latched hers in his as they reached the bottom of the stairs and started along the riva. More thoughtfully, she added, ‘Maybe it comes of your reading so much history.’
‘Excuse me?’ he said, completely lost.
‘Most history – at least the sort you read – is filled with lies: Caesar forced to accept power against his will, Nero playing the lyre while Rome burns, Xerxes having the waters of the Hellespont thrashed. So much of what gets passed off as truth in those books is just rumour and gossip.’
Brunetti stopped and turned to face her. ‘I’ve no idea what point you’re trying to make, Paola. I thought we were talking about opera.’
Speaking slowly, she said, ‘I’m merely suggesting that you’ve acquired the gift of listening.’ By the way she slowed both her speech and her pace as she said the last words, Brunetti knew she was not finished with the thought, so he said nothing. ‘In your work, much of what you hear is lies, so you’ve learned to pay attention to everything that’s said to you.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Paying attention to words is always good,’ she answered immediately. She resumed walking but had to pull at his arm to get him moving again.
Brunetti thought of the newspapers and magazines he read, the reports of crimes written by his colleagues, government reports. She was right: most of them were as much fiction as fact, and he read them with that knowledge. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s often impossible to tell the difference.’
‘That’s what art’s all about,’ she said. ‘Tosca is a bunch of lies, but what happens to Tosca isn’t.’
How prophetic those words were Brunetti was to learn two nights later when they met Flavia for dinner at Paola’s parents’ home. He and Paola arrived at eight-thirty and found il Conte e la Contessa in the main salon, the one that looked across to the palazzi on the other side of the Canal Grande. There was no sign of Flavia Petrelli.
He was surprised by how casually his parents-in-law were dressed until he realized this meant the Conte’s tie was wool and not silk, while the Contessa was wearing black silk slacks and not a dress. Brunetti saw, slipping out from the sleeve of her jacket, the bracelet the Conte had brought back for her from a business trip to South Africa some years before. Well, he brought her chocolates from Zurich, did he not? And so diamonds from South Africa were only fitting.
The four of them sat on facing sofas and talked about the children and their schools and their hopes, and their own hopes for them: the sort of things families always talked about. Raffi’s girlfriend, Sara Paganuzzi, was study-ing in Paris for a year, but Raffi had not yet gone to visit her, which led the four adults to endless speculation about what might be going on between them. Or not. Chiara seemed still resistant to the lure of adolescent boys, which the four adults understood and applauded.
‘It won’t last much longer,’ Paola said, voicing the eternal pessimism of the mothers of young girls. ‘Some day soon she’ll show up at breakfast in a tight sweater and twice as much makeup as Sophia Loren.’
Brunetti put his hands to his head and moaned, then snarled, ‘I have a gun. I can shoot him.’ He sensed the three heads snap in his direction and ran his hands slowly down his face to reveal his grin. ‘Isn’t that what the fathers of teenage girls are supposed to say?’
The Conte took a sip of his prosecco and observed drily, ‘I begin to suspect I should have tried that when Paola brought you home the first time, Guido.’
‘Do stop it, Orazio,’ the Contessa said. ‘You know you stopped thinking Guido was an interloper after a few years.’ This information would have served as little comfort to Brunetti had his mother-in-law not reached across to pat him on the knee. ‘It was far sooner than that, Guido.’ How nice it would be to believe this, Brunetti thought.
She was interrupted by the arrival of Flavia Petrelli, who was shown into the room by the maid. She seemed less tired than she had been the other night and smiled warmly at them all as she entered. The Count was instantly on his feet and moving towards her. ‘Ah, Signora Petrelli, you have no idea how delighted I am you could come.’ He took her hand and bent to kiss the air a few milli-metres above it, then linked his arm in hers to lead her towards the others, quite as proud as a hunter who’d bagged a plump pheasant to bring home for dinner.
Brunetti got to his feet at their approach but contented himself with shaking her hand and saying what a pleasure it was to see her again. Paola stood, as well, and permitted herself the liberty of exchanging kisses with Flavia. The Contessa remained seated but patted the cushion next to her and asked Signora Petrelli to sit beside her. When Flavia was seated, the Contessa told her she had admired her singing since hearing her debut at La Fenice as Zerlina. The fact that she did not mention the year of that debut reminded Brunetti that the Contessa’s family had contributed a large number of diplomats to both the Vatican and the Italian state.
‘That was a lovely production, wasn’t it?’ Flavia asked, a question which led to a discussion of the dramaturgy, the sets and staging, and to the quality of the other singers in the cast. Brunetti noted that she never referred to her own performance and seemed not to have the desire, nor the necessity, to summon up praise for it. He remembered the scene-stealing woman he’d encountered years before and wondered where she had gone, or whether this quiet conversation was merely another example of the remarkable acting skill he had seen in the past.
The Conte handed Flavia a glass of prosecco and took a seat opposite her, leaving it to his wife to engage the singer in reminiscing about a performance he had not seen. When the conversation moved closer in time to the Tosca, he said he’d already ordered tickets for the last performance because their plans had changed and they would stay only briefly in London.
‘If it happens,’ Flavia said to universal confusion.
‘I beg your pardon,’ the Conte said.
‘There’s talk of a strike for the last two performances. The usual story: a contract hasn’t been renewed, so they say they won’t work.’ Before they could give voice to their surprise, she held up calming hands and said, ‘Only the stage crew, and it’s unlikely anyone else will join them. So even if they do strike, we can still stand on the stage and sing.’
The maid appeared to tell them that dinner was ready. The Conte stood and offered hi
s arm to Flavia; Brunetti took his mother-in-law’s arm, and then, in a shocking breach of etiquette, pulled Paola up by one hand and, still holding it, took both women into the dining room, all of them leaving behind talk of the possible strike.
Brunetti ended up opposite the singer, who continued speaking to the Contessa, their topic having moved to Flavia’s impression of the city, she having been away from it for a long time.
As the maid served involtini with the first green asparagus of the season, Flavia looked around at the faces at the table. ‘You’re all Venetian,’ she said, ‘so perhaps I should keep my opinion to myself.’
A silence fell. Brunetti used the pause and the way the people at the table dedicated themselves to their food to study Flavia’s face. His original assessment was wrong: far from being relaxed, she bristled with tension. She had eaten little, he noticed, nor had she touched her wine. He remembered how deeply he had been struck, years ago, by the beauty of her speaking voice, not only the tone but the fluidity with which she moved from phrase to phrase, each word pronounced clearly, distinct from the others. This evening, she had occasionally stumbled over words and once had not completed a sentence but seemed to have forgotten what she was saying. The tone, however, had the same peach-ripe softness.
Unfamiliar with the stress singers faced in their work, Brunetti asked himself if they ever fully relaxed before the run of an opera was finished and they were freed from worrying about their health, their voice, the weather, their colleagues. Following this train of thought, he tried to imagine what it would be like to spend the whole day thinking about going to work, like athletes condemned to compete only at night.
When he tuned back into the conversation, Brunetti heard Flavia ask the Conte what other operas they had seen that season.
‘Ah,’ he answered, exchanged a glance with his wife, cleared his throat, and finally smiled. ‘I have to confess I haven’t been able to see anything yet,’ he answered, and Brunetti heard in his voice the same nervousness he’d heard in Flavia’s. ‘Yours will be the first.’