1 - Interrupted Aria

by Beverle Graves Myers

  Orlando rushed backstage at the fall of the curtain. Full of high spirits, he was carrying a bottle of French brandy and offering a pull to everyone he encountered. He slapped Crivelli on the back and said, “Congratulations, old man. You pulled off another one.”

  Crivelli nodded with a rueful smile as Orlando eyed me appraisingly. The composer finally said, “I have to tell you, Amato, I’ve always considered you castrati an abomination, but you certainly did justice to my music out there.” He gave me an awkward cuff on the shoulder and stuck the bottle in my face. “Not too soon to celebrate. We have a triumph on our hands.” I shook my head at the brandy.

  Torani appeared through the forest of ballet dancers who were adjusting costumes and shoe ribbons as they waited for their entr’acte. He took the bottle from the composer’s grasp. “Better slow down on that, Orlando. You are needed out front for the ballet, and we still have two acts of the opera to get through.”

  Crivelli soon recovered his breath and was ready to go up. We mounted the stairs slowly and were surprised to meet Felice on the way down. There was no reason for an orchestra musician to be on the upper floors.

  He responded to my questioning look as he squeezed past us. “Just wishing Caterina good luck. Her big scene is in the next act.”

  When we reached the third floor, we found the door to Adelina’s dressing room standing open but no one inside. Her make-up table was piled high with sticks of grease paint and jars of powder. Bottles of amber scent and a decanter of red wine were illuminated by the oil lamps on both sides of her mirror. No rustle of fabric came from behind the folding screen.

  “More rouge I think, right under the cheekbone.” Adelina’s voice floated down the hall from the last place we would expect her to be.

  Crivelli and I moved down the hallway to Caterina’s door. The young singer was seated before her dressing table with Susannah, Adelina’s maid, carefully applying color to her face. Adelina stood behind the pair, watching in the mirror and making suggestions.

  “This is a surprise,” I said to Crivelli in a whisper.

  “But a very welcome sight,” he responded, fingering his chin thoughtfully.

  We had barely gone into our own dressing rooms before Grisella burst in my door. “Did you see me, Tito? I clapped and clapped for you. I wanted to buy some flowers to throw but Father wouldn’t let me.”

  She gave me an exuberant hug as the rest of my family followed at a more restrained pace. Alessandro put his arm around Grisella’s shoulders and shook his head. “She was leaning so far over the railing we thought she would fall. We had to grab her by the waist and make her sit down at least ten times.”

  “I just wanted to see everything,” Grisella said excitedly.

  “You won’t be able to see anything lying in the pit with a broken neck,” my father said sourly. He spoke to me in a lighter tone. “You have made quite an impression, Tito. The audience went mad for you. Can you keep it up?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  He took a pinch of snuff from the filigreed box that Alessandro had given him, inhaled deeply, then closed the lid with a decisive snap. “You should ask Viviani for more money. If you keep his theater full, you should be properly compensated.”

  “I think that might be premature,” I answered, not surprised that Father went right to the financial heart of the matter.

  Crivelli provided a welcome interruption to this discussion by sticking his head around the screen that divided our dressing rooms. “Do I hear my little friend Grisella?”

  My sister made the old man a pretty curtsy. “Your Jupiter is wonderful, Signore. Next to Tito, you are my favorite singer.”

  “If you like worn-out windpipes,” my father said, not quite sotto voce.

  Annetta spoke up quickly, “Grisella, if you would work on your lessons and practice more, you could be in the opera some day.”

  Grisella was working up a petulant sigh when we heard a commotion in the hallway. Signor Viviani and his brothers, with a nervous Torani and an inscrutable Bondini bringing up the rear, were coming up to congratulate the cast. We came out of our dressing rooms and made an impromptu receiving line in the hallway. My family was pushed to the end of the hall, wedged in between a dusty costume trunk and a discarded throne. Viviani had a good word for each of us but, true to form, he lingered over the women. He stood appraisingly before Caterina and at last pronounced himself pleased with her performance and her newly polished appearance. Her cheeks flushed with color. She dropped a small curtsy but kept her mouth shut.

  He saved the most lavish praise for Adelina. At the end of his speech to her, he ran his fingers over her hair and down her powdered cheek to take her chin in his powerful grasp. Adelina’s eyes widened as he pulled her face close to his and whispered a few words next to her ear. Every eye in the hallway was on our patron and his leading female singer as he gave her mouth a rough, deep kiss. If any of us had been unsure about the relationship that existed between them, that kiss, and the intimate, probing caress that accompanied it, left no room for doubt.

  Viviani finally released Adelina and looked around the hallway with a lofty smile. There was an uneasy shuffling of feet and several bowed heads. Muffled strains of ballet music wafted up the stairwell and underscored the embarrassed silence.

  Bondini was the first to speak. “Excellency, we should be getting back to the box. The ballet is almost over.”

  “Ah, yes.” The nobleman rubbed his hands together and gave us a parting command. “Keep it up, my singers. Make the second act even better than the first. We don’t want to lose any of our audience to the San Moise.”

  As our patron turned to descend the stairs with his brothers and Bondini hovering in his wake, Torani emerged from his deferential silence. His frizzled wreath of gray hair stood on end and he paced the crowded hallway, barking instructions. “Crivelli, why have you not changed? Get into your next costume at once. Tito, you need to change, too. Why are all these people up here?”

  “My family, Signor Torani.” I gave Annetta and Alessandro a pointed look. “They are just leaving.”

  The director nodded brusquely. He stepped to the door of Caterina’s room and spoke to the women who had retreated there. I could see that Caterina’s cheeks were still red and Adelina had a firm, angry set to her mouth. Susannah was fussing nervously with the pleats in her mistress’ costume. Torani softened his manner and, by the time he had hurried in pursuit of the Viviani retinue, our Juno and Callisto had calmed down and were conversing in low tones.

  Crivelli shut himself into his dressing room as Annetta took both of my hands in hers. Alessandro stood behind her, smiling but anxious to be off. She chuckled. “Don’t worry, we’re going. Father didn’t want to come backstage but I had to tell you how wonderful you were in the first act.”

  Father had his head in my door, searching from side to side. “Grisella? Where has the girl got to?” He called more loudly, “Grisella!”

  Our little sister stepped from behind a pile of trunks near the top of the stairs. Father may have been right about the opera making her overly tired. The bluish smudges under her eyes had deepened into her pale face. “I’m here, Papa,” she said in a small voice.

  With my family headed back to their box, I hurried to change from Arcas’ tunic into his hunting garb. Over the top of the screen I could hear Crivelli whistling the melody to one of Jupiter’s arias. I smiled to myself. Nothing could shake his pleasant disposition. He would remain an optimist to the end.

  Fully costumed, the singers gathered in the hallway by our dressing rooms. Thanks to Susannah’s art, Caterina’s lips and cheeks had a lush glow, but I noticed something else about her. Her eyes had lost their worried look. This was the first time Caterina had appeared truly relaxed and happy since I had met her.

  Our other female singer was not at her best. Adelina was leaning against the doorframe, fanning herself with one hand and rubbing her armored midriff with th
e other. Her face and neck were flushed. Susannah hovered behind her with the wine decanter. “Have another swallow, my lady, it’s nice and cool.”

  The maid emptied the decanter into a glass and handed it to Adelina. The soprano drained the glass, then made a face. “That one was bitter at the dregs. Susannah, get me a cool cloth. It’s so hot in here.”

  One of Torani’s lackeys was puffing up the stairs. “You are wanted. All of you. Places in five minutes.”

  Adelina waved her hand at the three of us. “Go on. You are all on before me. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Are you all right, my dear?” That was Crivelli.

  “Yes, just very warm all of a sudden. It happens sometimes. Go on, go on.”

  I followed Caterina and Crivelli down to stage level, and Torani signaled Orlando to start playing the prologue to Act Two. My fellow singers took their places with their attendant nymphs and trainbearers while a muscular stagehand turned the winch that raised the heavy curtain. I watched Jupiter and Callisto romp through their flirtatious duet but didn’t hear a note. I was focusing on my next aria, repeating the phrases and embellishments over and over in my head. My concentration was so intense that I didn’t hear the first screams.

  Susannah’s piercing voice finally got through to me.

  “Help! Someone help. My mistress is poisoned.”

  The backstage area exploded into chaos. I pushed through bodies running hysterically back and forth and took the stairs two at a time. When I reached the first landing, I saw Adelina clutching the banister and swaying at the top of the next set of stairs. Her face was a horrible bluish white and a line of brown liquid dribbled down from the corner of her mouth.

  Susannah was trying to pull her mistress away from the stairs. Adelina collapsed into her arms, but the little maid couldn’t hold her. The unconscious singer tumbled halfway down the staircase. Her golden helmet bounced away and got tangled with my feet as I struggled to reach her.

  With a pit of dread where my stomach should have been, I cradled Adelina’s head in my lap. Susannah cried in great, gulping sobs on the stair above us. My friend’s skin was moist and cold. I patted her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered just once, giving me a glimpse of pupils that were tiny dots in a huge circle of gray. I bent my ear to her nose, but could detect no breath.

  Torani was bending over us, shielding us from the curious crowd on the stairs. I looked up into his pop-eyed face and gave a wordless, questioning cry. He shook his head. Together, we carried the soprano down the stairs and reverently laid her on Jupiter’s royal robes, which Crivelli and Madame Dumas had spread at the foot of the stairs. Torani and I tried again to rouse her, but there was no doubt that Adelina had slipped beyond our reach.

  The rest of the company circled the body in stunned silence. Then I heard a smothered scream. Caterina pushed through the performers and stagehands and threw herself to her knees at Adelina’s feet. The young soprano’s face was a study in stricken surprise.

  Torani jumped up and spoke to the weeping maid, who was slowly descending the stairs. “What happened?” he asked.

  Susannah’s shoulders shook and her mouth worked convulsively before she was able to reply. “It was poison. She took ill right after she had her wine.”

  “But…how? Who?” Torani exclaimed.

  Susannah pointed a quivering finger straight at me. “It was Signor Amato’s friend. That tall one that plays the violin.”

  Part Two

  Abellimenti

  Chapter 12

  I had retreated to the spot I was beginning to call my thinking place. It was a round tower at the corner of an ancient Benedictine monastery that was tucked between a sluggish canal and a maze of shops and courtyards. The monastery was only a short walk from the Teatro San Stefano. I had found it by accident—if such a thing as chance occurrence truly exists—while shambling over the pavements of Venice during the dark days after Adelina’s death. The Father Superior assured me the tower was open to everyone and invited me to visit anytime I liked. An open staircase wound around the structure’s central core. At the top, the warmth of the stone blocks baking in the afternoon sun made my retreat a pleasant place to linger, even in the month of December.

  I had been standing at the railing an hour or more, watching the traffic on the lazy canal and soaking up the peace of an ordinary Venetian day, before I could make myself think about yesterday. That was the day we had taken Adelina across the lagoon to the cemetery island of San Michele. The funeral procession contained only two gondolas besides the one that carried her red-draped coffin. The Venetians had adored my friend from their theater seats, but few were willing to interrupt their carnival fun with a depressing trip to the graveyard. Adelina had no living family, so her fellow musicians served as her pallbearers. Torani, Crivelli, Orlando, and I bore the pitch-covered coffin to the nave of the little church on the island and stood with a stony-faced Caterina and a weeping Susannah as the priest commended Adelina’s soul to eternal life and her body to the grave.

  Viviani had not deigned to attend the funeral. He had closed the theater for only two days, then reopened with the same opera. To sing the role of Juno, the nobleman had hired a mediocre soprano better known for her performances in patrician bedrooms than on the stage. The company was at odds over the decision. For the first and only time of his life, Orlando agreed with our patron. The composer didn’t want to see The Revenge of Juno consigned to the scrap bin without a proper hearing. Torani reluctantly agreed. He recognized a shrewd business decision: nothing entices an audience like a mysterious scandal.

  The loudest protests had come from Caterina. Adelina’s terrible death had shocked her into an initial silence, but she found her voice when summoned to rehearse with Marguerite, the new Juno. Caterina’s protests echoed my own, but I thought her anger sprang from a different source. She was angry because she had not been moved into the prima donna position, while I could hardly sing for the double grief of losing one adored friend to death and another to unjust accusation.

  Felice was in the guardhouse near the Rialto Bridge. On that disastrous opening night, the sbirri had run backstage as soon as the pause in the music and the commotion in the wings had signaled trouble. These constables enforced domestic tranquility and were always on hand at the theaters, mainly to break up fights in the pits. The sbirri were rough men, more given to swift action than intelligent consideration. When confronted with a dead body and an accusation of poison, they did their duty as they saw it. It hadn’t helped Felice that a physician had appeared and, after a cursory examination of Adelina’s body, seconded Susannah’s diagnosis of poison.

  And Felice had not helped himself. When the death on the staircase halted the production, Torani sent the ballet dancers back on stage to fill the void. Wondering what had caused the backstage ruckus, Orlando and his musicians worked uncertainly at their instruments. The pit grew restless. A few shouts went up over an undercurrent of inquisitive murmurs and grumbles. The scrape of chairs and slamming of doors came from the boxes. Backstage, Susannah led the four constables around the curtain and pointed down into the orchestra. As soon as he saw her accusing finger, Felice dropped his violin and scrambled over the railing into the pit. It was a futile flight. The crowd was dense, and many hands instantly reached out to grab him. I watched helplessly as the sbirri carried him off with the populace cursing and spitting at him.

  The sound of dragging feet and heavy breathing interrupted my doleful thoughts. I knew who it must be; I had told only two people about my thinking tower, and those were not Annetta’s steps. Crivelli’s white head emerged from the darkness of the spiral stairs.

  “I thought I might find you up here.” The old castrato joined me at the railing. “Quite a view. It makes everything seem so distant.”

  “Only an illusion. Nothing can make this misery retreat.”

  “Have you been able to see Felice?”

  “No, Annetta and I have been to the guard
house several times. They let us leave a basket of food, but Messer Grande, the chief of police, has ordered no visitors.” I stared down at the market stalls in the next courtyard, but Felice’s sad face filled my mind’s eye. “What will happen to him, Crivelli?”

  “Messer Grande is making inquiries. He was at the theater talking to Susannah again today. When he gets enough evidence he will take Felice before the Tribunal.”

  “The Tribunal of State Inquisitors.” I gulped hard.

  Crivelli nodded, his kindly old face filled with concern.

  “But why the Tribunal?” I asked. “Why not the Criminal Court?”

  “Your friend is not a citizen of the Republic. Any crime committed by a foreigner is considered a treasonable act and comes under the jurisdiction of the State Inquisitors.”

  “What will they do?” I asked in a hushed voice.

  “The Tribunal’s standard of justice is swift and harsh. Visitors are always astonished at the barbarity of the process. The evidence, if any, is presented in secret. The accused may not even be told the details of the charge. When the Inquisitors proceed against a man, they are already sure of his guilt. Why waste time hearing his side of the story when the result is a foregone conclusion?”

  “And their punishment for murder?”

  “Death, by strangulation.”

  I threw myself down by the railing and raised my face to Venice’s clear blue sky. “He didn’t do it,” I cried. “He couldn’t have murdered Adelina.”

  Crivelli knelt beside me. “Tito,” he asked in a low, earnest voice, “why was Felice up in Adelina’s dressing room?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know Felice Ravello. We’ve been together day and night for the past eight years. He’s closer to me than a brother. I know he didn’t do it.”