Whispers of Vivaldi

by Beverle Graves Myers

  As long as I stayed within these scarlet-and-gilt walls, I was safe. And once the curtain had fallen on The False Duke’s grand finale, I would gladly quit the theater, perhaps for the last time.

  Events proceeded quickly. The Doge’s party entered the imperial box, and Balbi struck a chord that signaled his musicians to launch into a triumphal march. The entire audience rose. For a brief moment, chatter ceased. Even our ruler appeared infected with the prevailing Carnival gaiety. Tonight the Doge’s usually stern face crinkled with pleasure and pride. His jaws spread in a stiff smile as took his seat besides his brilliantly jeweled Dogaressa.

  A thrill of anticipation passed through the crowd. Now the opera could begin.

  Niccolo Rocatti plunged out of a side door and made his way to the harpsichord. Balbi and the other musicians acknowledged him with bows. Tepid bows, I thought. The director’s white wig and new coat of silver brocade suited him to perfection, but his glassy expression was a study in nerves.

  Appearing deaf to the rash of applause from the audience, Rocatti took his seat at the harpsichord. Balbi raised his instrument to his chin. A look I couldn’t decipher passed between them. Then Rocatti lifted his right hand, sounded a chord with his left, and they were off.

  The orchestra played the overture with a heavy hand, but few noticed or cared. The entire theater was agog to catch a first glimpse of Angeletto, the now infamous castrato who had captured the ears and hearts of Naples and Milan. As the overture drew to a close, the curtain rose, slowly, inch by inch. Had Aldo been ordered to make the suspense last as long as possible?

  Finally, there he was. Alone on the stage, surrounded by the marble arches and endless corridors of a duke’s palace—all trompe l’oeil effects of Ziani’s art—a grandly costumed Angeletto stood in profile with one hand resting on an outsized globe of the world. Wild cheering, applause, and rhythmic stomping arose from all sides. Already wise to the ways of the theater, the singer spent a long moment allowing the thirsty eyes to drink him in before he turned and processed to the footlights.

  Andrea spoke near my ear: “Your prize looks a damn sight more like a Devil than an Angel to me.”

  I had to agree. Angeletto’s wide-skirted coat was a bright orange-red, threaded with gold that seemed to run with flame in the massed glare of the footlights. And though his painted face and tall powdered wig were as polished as could be, the smoldering look he cast over the house was far from that of a heavenly creature.

  During this display, Rocatti remained hunched over his keyboard, back curved in a tense bow, waiting for Angeletto to signal that he was ready to begin the recitative. This sing-song dialogue explains the details of the opera’s story, while the soaring arias give the performers free rein to express their emotions regarding each new turn of events. Once the audience had quieted a bit, Angeletto raised a finger, Rocatti struck his keys, and the singer’s mouth opened.

  My eyes took it in, but my ears heard less than two minutes of it. A fight broke out in the rear of the pit. First came contemptuous shouts:

  “Take your culo back to Naples, Signorina.”

  “Put on a skirt, Puttana.”

  “Give us Majorano!”

  Hoarse, violent cries responded. Gondoliers sprang off their benches, intent on silencing the interlopers. Then, from the first tier of the cheapest boxes, a large wine bottle flew through the air and crashed onto the pit floor with a loud explosion. Women screamed. People pushed and shoved. Panic began to take over.

  Andrea and I had both jumped up. My hands were white as I grasped the railing. I yelled to my companion, “No one will be able to hear Angeletto’s aria with that uproar going on!”

  He shot me a look of gruff disbelief. “I’m more interested in seeing that no one is trampled. I’ve got to disperse that crowd.”

  “Of course,” I responded bleakly as I watched the tail of his red robe disappear through the anteroom.

  The theater quickly became a maelstrom of noise. The pit’s screams and cries swirled up to the chandelier in the dome and echoed off the tiers of boxes whose denizens were adding their own shouts and whistles. Eggs, apple cores, candle stubs, and other debris hurled from the pit crashed against the front of the boxes like the drumming of a hail storm. I peered toward the Savio’s box, only to see the footmen drawing the scarlet drapes. I snorted—a brave man, our Savio alla Cultura!

  On the stage, incredibly, Angeletto was still voicing the recitative, even though Rocatti had stepped away from his instrument. The young violin master faced the melee squarely. His handsome features seemed to melt in grief, and his slumped posture shouted defeat. Giuseppe Balbi had also abandoned his music stand. One of the cello players was climbing over the railing, intent on joining the fray. Balbi was tugging on the tail of his black coat.

  Finally, thankfully, the curtain rolled down—much faster than it had risen. Good. Aldo must surely realize that there was no point in going on with the opera until Messer Grande had summoned his sbirri and restored order.

  I sat back down, chewing on a knuckle. How had The False Duke’s premiere gone so terribly wrong, and so abruptly? Paying for applause was one thing, but fomenting an outright riot was a crime and a scandal. Was Majorano behind this? Surely not. As a singer, he well understood that any tricks he employed to bolster his renown could be turned against him during the next performance. My thoughts ranged a little farther; Lorenzo Caprioli was the agent behind this, I’d be bound. His Venus and Adonis, starring that fatuous dunce Emiliano, was also opening tonight. Many from the audience wearied by the antics at the San Marco would seek entertainment at the Teatro Grimani.

  I stood again and scanned the sea of angry faces for Lorenzo Caprioli’s henchman. There he was—in a first tier box! A red-haired harlot was planting a kiss on his scarred visage. Had one of them tossed the bottle that started the panic? It had seemed to come from their direction.

  At least the sbirri had arrived and were fanning out amongst the crowd. The uniformed constables wielded fists and truncheons, barking commands and threatening arrest if they weren’t instantly obeyed. Gradually, the noise lessened. The pit was coming to heel.

  A tapping knock sounded at the door behind me. Was it Andrea, back already? Had he forgotten his box key in the excitement?

  I stepped through the anteroom, flipped the latch, and cautiously opened the narrow door. A woman stood before me. At first I thought it must be Signora Passoni. A blue feather decorated her wig’s white curls, and her face was hidden by a stick mask encrusted with multi-colored paste jewels. Then I realized that this woman was several inches taller than the petite Giovanna Passoni.

  She lowered the mask to reveal gray eyes and a long, straight nose with a moleskin patch beside it.

  “Tedi!” I whispered, at the same time reaching out to grab her wrist. The soprano wasn’t going to slip away from me this time.

  “I must speak with you, Tito.”

  “Then come in.” I gave her arm a gentle tug.

  “No! I can’t be seen.”

  “If we stay right here, no one will see you.”

  She shook her head firmly. “Messer Grande will. He’ll be returning any minute. I must talk to you alone.”

  I hesitated, loathe to leave my place of safety.

  “Please, Tito.” The mask sank still farther. She stepped closer. Now I saw that the black pupils of Tedi’s eyes had dilated so that only a rim of lighter gray remained. Her painted lips flared blood red against her powdered cheeks. I’d always thought of Tedi Dall’Agata as a confident, handsome woman who hid her forty-odd years well and could always be relied on to do the calm, sensible thing. At this moment, she was far from calm and confident. Tedi was afraid.

  “All right.” I dropped her wrist, angled through the narrow door, and cast apprehensive looks right and left. Except for several footmen and an elderly party toddling toward the stairs complaining a
bout the sad state of Venetian morals, the corridor was deserted. “Where?” I asked.

  “Just follow where I lead, Tito, but stay well back. It will be safer.”

  Dio mio, what sort of trouble had Tedi gotten herself into?

  I followed the soprano down the curving corridor behind the third-tier boxes, shaking my head at footmen who stepped forward with offers of assistance. More corridors and a set of stairs. At times, Tedi ran like a doe flaunting a delphinium-blue skirt instead of a white flag, and I was forced to pursue her like a huntsman starving for venison. I’d begun to think she had changed her mind about wanting to talk with me when she dove into a corridor that led to the second-floor gambling salon. Tedi slowed once she reached the tables. No matter what was going on in the auditorium, there were always a few punters who spent the evening losing their money to the wheel or the cards. There was enough action going on at the faro table that we attracted little attention from guests or servants, but Tedi still kept her mask to her face. Before she disappeared through an arched doorway in an inconsequential corner, she lowered it for an instant and shot a look back toward me.

  I nodded, barely perceptibly, to demonstrate that I knew where she was headed. Through that archway curtained with a tapestry were side stairs left over from a building that predated this one. The stairs climbed up to a warren of attics where unused costumes and props were stored and descended into stone storerooms too damp to be used. They also connected to several corridors that ended in blank walls or other dead ends. I hurried through the curtain and paused. Though this area was cold and largely unused, wall lamps had been lit on each landing. From above came the tapping of Tedi’s spool-shaped court heels.

  My long legs took the stairs two at time. Hampered by her wide skirts, Tedi slowed so that I was able to catch up to her. Both of us were breathing in gasps by the time I pushed open the green-shuttered attic door with most of the slats missing. Attached to a spring mechanism, it swung closed of its own accord. Within the dark, slope-ceilinged chamber, Tedi’s skirts raised a cloud of dust that made a ghostly ladder in the dim light filtering through the slats.

  I glanced around at the banks of linen-covered gowns and tarnished Grecian and Roman armor hanging from rafters. Beneath them were barrels of wooden swords and scepters and leather-bound trunks piled on top of each other, all cobwebbed and furred with grime. I breathed in the smell of mildew. It could have been months since anyone had come up here, I thought, pinching my nose against a sneeze.

  I turned to face my panting quarry. “We should be safe now. What do you have to say?”

  Tedi’s pale face presented an eerie sight. Her paint had run, mingling with the powder from her wig. The black around her eyes etched streaks down her cheeks, her lip rouge made red rivulets in the wrinkles around her mouth, and sweat had carried her patch from cheekbone to chin. With a horrific moan, she raised her arm and threw her stick mask with the force of a cannon shot. It bounced off a lozenge-shaped shield with a metallic clang that made me jump. A sob broke from her chest as she covered her face and staggered sideways. I grasped her elbow.

  “No, no. Just let me rest.” She gently extricated herself from my touch and sank down on a heap of ragged petticoats and boned corsets. She was a broken doll atop a sea of blue-satin skirts. “Oh, Tito…”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Apparently, Tedi wanted to make her confession—with me as an unlikely priest. She craved heavenly absolution, or at least human forgiveness. Since she would have neither from Maestro Torani, I would have to do. Here was the stumbling block: Tedi preferred to remain hazy about the details of her offense.

  “I’ve made such a mess of things,” she began, then repeated several times.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.” After seeing her climb into Lorenzo Caprioli’s sedan chair on the day of Torani’s funeral, I wasn’t feeling very charitable toward the soprano.

  Her eyes puckered. Tears made a further mess of her cheeks. She tried to hide them in the crook of her satin-sheathed elbow. “Rinaldo would be so ashamed of me,” she finally said.

  Summoning patience, I settled myself beside her on the heap of rags. I handed her my handkerchief and waited while she wiped her face. “It’s hard to imagine that Torani would ever be ashamed of you, but he would have been surprised to see you in Lorenzo Caprioli’s chair. I certainly was.”

  She bowed her head and answered softly, “I know.”

  “Why, Tedi? Were you turning your back on Torani and his memory? Had you come to hate him because of his unrepentant gambling and his mounting debts?”

  Tedi looked up with fire in her eyes. I drew back. The woman looked angry enough to strike me. She said, “I loved Rinaldo. I loved him through everything, even if he did make me mad enough to kill him sometimes. I didn’t, of course. Don’t think that for one minute.” She wrung the linen square I’d handed her, then tilted her chin suspiciously. “How do you happen to know about Rinaldo’s debts, Tito?”

  “Maurino told me—the day you left to take the waters at some imaginary spa.”

  At least Tedi had the grace to blush.

  I repeated all that the valet had explained concerning Torani’s unrestrained and imprudent behavior, finishing on a sigh. “I only wish the old man had come to me for help. I understand the nature of the malady as well as anyone who hasn’t experienced the lure of the tables himself.”

  “Your father,” she stated simply.

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “Rinaldo didn’t want you to know that he shared your father’s weakness. He wanted you to look up to him—to think he was well-nigh perfect.” She studied me for a moment, then reached out to touch my hand. “He loved you so much, Tito.”

  I bowed my head. Oh, yes. My mentor loved me so much that he contrived to put me into a position where I could become the laughingstock of Venice’s musical world.

  Tedi let me sit in silence. She pulled her wig off and ran its blue feather through her fingers. Her own hair twisted into a tight, flat bun had more silver in it than I recalled. When she spoke again her voice was strained. “I want to tell you how I came to be in league with Lorenzo Caprioli.”

  “Go on.”

  “You know about the debts—and about how Maurino and I found Rinaldo in an alley, beaten and bleeding—then the attack on his gondola. That was the last straw for me—I sold my jewels, used every soldo I could raise to pay those debts. They were wiped out. The bravos from the casino didn’t kill Rinaldo.”

  “Yes, yes. But, Tedi, why Caprioli? The maestro’s sworn enemy? The man who’s been trying to steal the Senate’s backing for his own theater?”

  Tedi scooted closer. She crushed my hand in hers. “I went to Caprioli precisely because he was Rinaldo’s enemy—the only person I could think of who actually hated him.”

  “You believe Caprioli killed Torani?”

  Tedi nodded her agreement so vigorously that a lock of silver shook loose from her bun. “I thought if I could gain Lorenzo’s trust—become one of his inner circle—I might be able to find proof of what he had done. I offered myself to him as prima donna and…more.”

  Anger coursed through me. Without knowing how, I was suddenly on my knees, then my feet.

  “Tito, it was the only way! I was certain he killed Rinaldo, and I was willing to do anything to prove it.” She struggled up from the filthy nest. “You hate me, don’t you?”

  “No, Tedi.” I shook my head sorrowfully. “Just tell me this—do you still think Caprioli committed the murder?”

  She took a deep breath. “No. These past few days I’ve gathered all the threads that seemed to have promise, but they unraveled in my hands.” She nibbled on a thumbnail. “Tito, I’ve put some other clues together—things Rinaldo said in unguarded moments, something Peppino said, too. I’ve come to a totally different conclusion. Rinaldo was harboring a secret—it’s that secret
that killed him.”

  I took her hands in mine. “I know what it is.”

  “Do you?” she tilted her head in a gesture of disbelief.

  “Yes.” The glow of true understanding settled around my heart. The ghost of an idea that had been haunting me for so long became rock solid. “Niccolo Rocatti didn’t write The False Duke. Antonio Vivaldi did. Signora Passoni gave Torani the score to pass off as Rocatti’s. He’s the son of Vivaldi and Signora Passoni.”

  Tedi shook her head. She jerked her hands from my grasp.

  “What?” I felt like the floor had disappeared beneath my feet. “Vivaldi isn’t the opera’s true composer?”

  “Yes, yes, he is,” she said. “Years ago, believing it was too radical for a public performance, Vivaldi gave the score to Giovanna Passoni as a lover’s memento.” She peered into my face. After a brief pause, she said, “I think you must have found Rinaldo’s hiding place.”

  I nodded. “The bust of Minerva. Why on earth did he stick the score in the statue?”

  She gave a wistful smile. “Rinaldo spent a great deal of time considering Signora Passoni’s scheme. At first, he objected to the deceit, but she refused to give him the entire manuscript unless he agreed to produce the opera her way. I suppose she felt she was killing two birds with one stone. Her lover’s gift would finally see the light of day, and their son’s career would receive a much needed boost. Once Rinaldo agreed, he set about carrying out the plan in the wisest way possible. He was casting about for a place to secrete the score and I suggested Minerva. ‘Consign it to the Goddess of Wisdom,’ I said, ‘and perhaps she will smile on your project.’”