The Figaro Murders

by Laura Lebow

  Piatti shook his head. “I am a natural teacher. I couldn’t resist marking up your work. How stupid of me!”

  “It was Caroline who was paying you, not the baron?” I asked.

  “Yes. I saw her one day in the Prater. She took the closed coach. I saw Starhemberg climb out of the carriage. I could tell from the look on his face they were having an affair. I saw a chance to get some money from her.” He straightened and looked at me. “You wouldn’t believe the pittance they pay me! I trained at the best conservatory in Italy, and they pay me like I am the cook, insist I eat with the servants!”

  “Was Florian blackmailing you?”

  “He stole the notebook from my room. He confronted me with it, threatened to tell the baron. I needed this job, Lorenzo. My wife and sons back in Bologna depend on the money I send home.”

  “Did he demand money to keep quiet?”

  “No. He had already had the book for a few days before you came. I offered to pay him to give it back, but he preferred to play with me. He teased me, talking about what he would do. Finally, I had had enough.”

  “You were looking for him that day I first met you. I remember you rushed in, angry at someone.”

  “After you left that day, I confronted him here. I demanded he give the notebook back. He taunted me. He jumped up on the windowsill and pretended he was a judge, sentencing me to life in prison for blackmail. He told me he had decided to give the notebook to the baron.”

  “So you pushed him out the window.”

  He lifted his valise off the table.

  “After Florian fell, I rushed down and searched his body. I couldn’t find the notebook. Then I remembered that you had been here. I had heard you two arguing. When the police came, I told them you had threatened Florian and run from the house. When you came the next day, I thought you might have the notebook. That’s why I searched your room. But I couldn’t find it.”

  “So you began to feel you were safe, until that day that Marianne and I returned from our visit to Vogel in prison.”

  “Yes. I believed the boy’s father must have taken the notebook when he came to collect his things. No one would be able to tie it to me. I heard you tell Marianne to go to the police. I panicked. I thought perhaps Florian had told her about me, or she had overheard something.”

  “She believed her mistress killed the boy,” I said sadly. “You waited for your chance. You must have seen a figure in a coarse cloak leave the house. You rushed down and stabbed her, thinking it was Marianne.”

  “I was distraught when we turned the body over and I saw that I had killed the baroness by mistake.”

  I remembered our night together here in the library after Caroline’s death. What a fool I had been! I had supposed that Piatti had reached his breaking point, that he was terrified of the murderer. I had even advised him to go home to Bologna!

  “You gave me good advice, my friend. I am going home to Italy.” He took a few steps toward me, the valise in one hand. “Come with me. We will both be revered in Bologna. Your work will finally be appreciated, Lorenzo.”

  “You know I cannot.”

  He studied my face. “You loved her! She was the woman you were mooning over!” He laughed. “Poor Lorenzo! Let me tell you, my friend. You had no chance with her. She whored only with the highest aristocrats!”

  Rage surged through me. I lowered my head and charged at him, hitting him squarely in the chest and knocking the valise out of his hands. His surprised grunt sounded faintly through the roaring in my ears. We wrestled. I pinned him against the wall of bookshelves. Pain shot through my leg as he kicked me. I let go of his arms and stumbled backward.

  He turned and pulled a heavy volume from the shelf and with both hands hurled it at me. I ducked. The book struck my shoulder and thudded to the floor. He pushed me aside and rushed to the door. I ran and threw myself at him. We slammed to the floor in front of the sofa. His face was red, his eyes wild. We grappled and thrashed around on the small rug. “You can’t escape,” I said, panting. “The police are downstairs.”

  He kneed me in the groin. I howled with pain. He stood, raced to the window, and leaped onto the wide sill. I grunted as I pulled myself up. As I ran to the window, I tripped on the edge of the rug. The small table next to the sofa toppled over. The little Harlequin figurine cracked into pieces on the floor.

  I heard voices in the hallway. Piatti reached up and unlatched the window. I crawled over to the sill. “No!” I screamed. “I will see you hang!” I grabbed his left leg and pulled. He clung to the drapes with both hands. The soft evening breeze wafted into the room. I pulled harder.

  The drapes crashed down on top of me, taking Piatti with them. We rolled around in the soft velvet. He pulled away from my grasp and lifted himself to his hands and knees. I groped at him through the tangle of heavy fabric. He climbed back onto the sill. The door opened.

  “What the hell is going on here?” The baron, Troger, and Ecker stood in the doorway, gaping. I freed myself from the drape, reached up, and clutched at Piatti’s leg. My arms throbbed with pain as he pulled himself closer to the window.

  I gasped. “He murdered Caroline and Auerstein.” Piatti kicked at me. I lost my grasp and fell backward. The baron and Troger ran to me. I scrambled around and tried to grab Piatti’s leg again, but I was too late. He pushed the window open wide and jumped.

  Epilogue

  Friday, January 12, 1787

  Nine months later

  A soft snow fell as I followed the surge of people leaving the theater into the Michaelerplatz. A small group of aristocrats, the women shivering although dressed in luxurious furs, waited nearby for their lackeys to bring the carriages around. One of the men caught sight of me and waved me over.

  “Bravo, Signor Da Ponte!” he cried, pumping my hand. “I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed an evening at the opera so much!” His friend shook my hand and congratulated me. The ladies tittered and fawned over me a bit, asking me how long it had taken me to write the libretto, what it was like to work with such a talented composer, and how it felt to be the toast of Vienna.

  A Rare Thing, the opera I had finally found time to write for my Spanish friend Martín, was the hit of the Court Theater’s season. After it had premiered in November, tickets had been in such demand that hundreds of people were turned away from every performance. I was making a nice profit on requests for copies of my libretto. Everywhere one went in the city one heard our arias being sung. Society ladies dressed and did their hair to imitate the costumes and styles in the opera. I had even seen a few lady’s maids wearing their tresses à la A Rare Thing.

  My reputation had soared since the premiere. I was in high demand among the composers in the city. Rosenberg had called me into his office to congratulate me, and even Salieri had written from Paris, proposing that we should work together again. My only regret was that Casti was not around to witness my triumph. Last summer, the fool had written a long poem poking fun at the Empress of Russia and had presented it to the emperor. My Caesar had not been amused, since the empress was one of his closest allies. Casti was quickly given a large purse and invited to take his leave from Vienna.

  Over the last nine months, I had slowly recovered from my ordeal at the Palais Gabler. For a long time, my dreams were haunted by Piatti’s screams as he fell from the window. I often woke up in a cold sweat, my heart pumping wildly, imagining that I heard that dreadful thud when he hit the stones. He had not died immediately. Although his body was broken and the doctors proclaimed there was no hope for him, he had lingered a few days. After his death, his son had come from Bologna to claim the body. I had met him briefly—a sullen young man with none of his father’s charms.

  Two days after I recognized Rosa Hahn’s birthmark, the housekeeper had petitioned the court to release her son from debtor’s prison. I don’t believe that learning the identity of his birth parents has brought my barber the happiness and riches he had imagined when he asked for my help that fateful da
y in April. True, Rosa forgave the debt he owed her, but Urban Rausch had refused to legally acknowledge that he was Vogel’s father.

  The pompous doctor had married his rich widow in June. Vogel and Marianne were married a few months later. Vogel’s business is thriving, and I recently learned that Marianne is expecting their first child in the spring. I had taken Rosa to meet Josepha Hassler at the Deaf School, and that good lady was happy to take the housekeeper on to her staff.

  As far as I know, Gottfried Bohm is rotting in prison, awaiting trial for his attempt to kill the baron. Marianne had invited Antonia to live with her and Vogel, but the girl had run away after a few months. I had helped Marianne search for her for days, but we could not find her. I hoped that she had found her way back to her old home somehow, and had been taken in by her mother’s family. The streets of Vienna are no place for a young girl to be on her own.

  I could not bring myself to tell Troger that Ecker was a Protestant. He and the baron left for St. Petersburg last month.

  As for my opera with Mozart, Figaro had premiered a week after I confronted Piatti. Although I was sleeping poorly and still ached from my encounter with Rausch’s men, I did not miss the performance. The house had been full, and except for some hissing from the galleries, the opera had been well received. The audience had demanded that many of the arias be encored, and Mozart had taken numerous curtain calls. Yet by June, merely a month later, Vienna had lost its enthusiasm for Figaro and was ready for the next new thing. The opera has been performed only five times in the last six months, and no performances are planned for this new season.

  Constanze Mozart had given birth to a son in the middle of October. Three weeks later, I had had the sad task of mourning with my friends at the Stephansdom, after the babe succumbed to the dreadful suffocation spasms that take so many newborns. I had been so busy with new work the last few months that I hadn’t been able to see the Mozarts, but I had heard from Rosenberg that they had left a few days ago on a visit to Prague. It seems Figaro is popular there, and Mozart had been invited to conduct a performance. As the summer turned to fall and then to winter, I slowly stopped mourning Caroline. My memories of her faded, and it was only when I caught the scent of lavender on a woman passing by that I felt a stab of grief. Perhaps Mozart had been right when he told me to find an uncomplicated woman and settle down. I was too much like the boy in my aria, the one I had read to Caroline and Marianne the first day—in love with the idea of love.

  My relationship with the emperor has grown even stronger since Casti was dismissed. He had thanked me for helping to solve the murders, and had jokingly offered me a position in the new investigative service Pergen was setting up. I had laughed and quickly demurred. Since then, I have heard whispers about strange goings-on in Pergen’s office. Many men were being hired; much money was being spent. I tried to avoid being drawn into such discussions.

  Occasionally I would think, though, about my experience at the Palais Gabler, and dark suspicions would cloud my mind. Who had hired Bohm to spy on the baron? Had it really been agents of the King of Prussia, or had someone with another, more complex agenda placed him in the household? I wondered if I had not been a pawn in some larger game Pergen had been playing with the emperor. I remembered the baron telling me that night in the library that the emperor had insisted I play detective so that he could save the expense of creating a professional secret police department.

  It was natural for a minister like the count to want to expand his area of influence. And Pergen had never given me any details about the documents that had disappeared from the Palais Gabler. Had Pergen himself paid Bohm to spy on the baron, in order to show the emperor that he was under threat, and needed a secret police force? Perhaps when Piatti had killed Florian Auerstein, Pergen had argued for greater authority. But maybe the emperor still would not listen to him, and, to save money, had suggested that I investigate the crime. Had Pergen willingly gone along with his sovereign, certain that I would fail, and that the emperor would finally agree to fund a secret police force? My mind would invent scheme after scheme. Then my head would clear, and I would laugh at my imaginings.

  I smiled as another group of well-wishers congratulated me on A Rare Thing. I stood in the cold for a bit longer, warmed by the soft velvet coat of my new suit under my cloak. When the crowd had finally dispersed, I crossed the plaza and headed down the Kohlmarkt toward my lodgings, the wheels of the fancy carriages clattering all around me. I could not help but think again of Venice, where late at night, after the theaters had let out and the revelers had straggled home, the only noise a solitary pedestrian can hear is the rhythmic gliding of the gondolas—

  I shook my head. Enough. I pulled the collar of my cloak up to shelter my neck and walked on, toward home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Mozart’s mature years in Vienna were a time of transition for musicians and composers. In 1761, twenty years before Mozart rebelled against his father and took up permanent residence in Vienna without a job, Joseph Haydn began his long employment with the family Esterházy. Although he held the post of director of Prince Nicholas Esterházy’s large musical establishment, Haydn was treated as a servant: required to wear livery, attend daily upon his master, compose what his employer required, and refrain from travel without the prince’s permission. Twenty-eight years after Mozart’s death in 1791, three wealthy noblemen would promise Beethoven a lifetime stipend, with no strings attached, if he agreed to remain in Vienna and compose whatever he wished.

  Vienna in the 1780s was the perfect place for a musician to break with tradition and attempt a career at what we would now call freelancing. A forward-thinking monarch, well read in the works of the Enlightenment, had recently ascended the throne. The power of the old, landed aristocracy was being superseded by a rising class of new nobles, who were merchants, bureaucrats, and professionals rewarded with a title for service to the Habsburg monarchy. A thriving middle class thirsted for new products to buy and new entertainment to enjoy. Vienna was a bustling world capital.

  Another artist attracted to the opportunities in Vienna was Lorenzo Da Ponte, a native of the Veneto, born a Jew but who converted to Christianity as a youth, a lover of poetry and literature, who had been banished from Venice for his political activities. He is the hero of this book, rather than Mozart, for many reasons, chiefly that too much is known about the composer and too little about the librettist. And the librettist has a grievance against history—if his name is included on a modern-day opera program it is usually as an afterthought, in much smaller type than Mozart’s; when lines from the operas are quoted, the words are generally attributed to the composer; and when scholars admire the plotting of a certain operatic scene or an elegant turn of phrase in the libretto, they prefer to believe that Mozart had been standing at Da Ponte’s side, dictating over his shoulder as the poet wrote. I thought it time to give the librettist a voice.

  All of Da Ponte’s character traits, habits, past experiences, and passions described in the book are factual. His misfortune concerning his teeth, his love of fine clothing, his quickness to anger, and his equally ready desire to help those in need have been documented by biographers. His story about finding books in his father’s attic comes from his memoirs, and he tells us that he kept a small selection of works from the great Italian poets with him at all times. I’ve incorporated excerpts from the Rime sparse, by Petrarch, Da Ponte’s favorite poet, into his lessons with the baroness and Marianne. And I’ve also given Da Ponte a chance to read one of his own poems, the aria Non son più cosa son, cosa faccio from Figaro.

  Many of the characters in The Figaro Murders are historic figures: Joseph II was a mentor to both Mozart and Da Ponte, and both men remained in Vienna probably because of his interest in their careers. All of the emperor’s reforms mentioned in the book were enacted. Frederick of Prussia attempted repeatedly to weaken Joseph’s power against the other princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and worked to stymie the emperor’s territoria
l ambitions. Count Johann Anton von Pergen was a longtime member of the Habsburg bureaucracy. At the time of the action of The Figaro Murders, he had recently been appointed minister of police. His power would grow over the next few years, as Austria went to war with the Ottoman Empire, freedom of speech was curtailed, and many of Joseph’s reforms were repealed.

  Count Franz Xavier Rosenberg-Orsini (Rosenberg in the book) was the director of the emperor’s opera company and one of Joseph’s closest advisors and confidants. His friend and Da Ponte’s nemesis, Giambattista Casti, was famous throughout Europe for his poetry, librettos, and wit. It is not known whether Rosenberg and Casti were in fact in league to get Da Ponte relieved from his position as theater poet, but Da Ponte was certain they were, and complains about them in his memoirs. Antonio Salieri was the court composer at the time Figaro was written. All of the singers in the novel, including the irrepressible Michael Kelly, were members of the original cast of Figaro. Da Ponte’s friend and the composer of his great hit Una cosa rara (A Rare Thing) was Vicente Martín y Soler. I’ve shortened his name to Martín for ease of reading.

  I’ve invented the character of Troger, Pergen’s assistant, as well as all of the people Da Ponte meets during his search for his barber’s mother. Readers familiar with Figaro will recognize the inhabitants of the Palais Gabler as the characters from the opera.

  Many of the scenes in the book are based on actual occurrences. The riddle Florian tells Da Ponte is one of a set that Mozart, dressed as a masked Oriental philosopher, presented at a party in the Hofburg in February 1786. The full set of riddles is presented and analyzed by Maynard Solomon in Mozart: A Life (HarperCollins, 1995). The tenor Michael Kelly claims in his memoirs that he performed his role in Figaro with a stutter. He also really did parody Da Ponte onstage during a performance of the librettist’s opera Il demogorgone, although the performance actually occurred in July, after the premiere of Figaro. The episode where Rosenberg bans the dance scene from Figaro comes from Da Ponte’s own memoirs.