Mozart’s Blood (4 page)

Octavia moved about the suite at Il Principe as quietly as she could, hoping not to wake Ugo. She had her breakfast carried into her bedroom, putting her finger to her lips to keep the server quiet. When she had eaten, and drunk the little pot of
espresso,
she showered, humming scales beneath the noise of the spray. She stepped out of the shower and toweled herself dry, and set about the task of choosing her clothes.

Octavia always felt a slight disorientation with each new rôle she undertook. At one time this had caused her problems, as the brittle gaiety of Violetta would spill over into the Countess, or the Countess's gentility would shade the youth and naïveté of Rusalka. She had learned to make a conscious effort to put aside one character as she took up the next. Today she would shake off the last shreds of Violetta, the desperately vivacious courtesan. She would put on, like putting on a suit of clothes, the outraged virtue and extravagant filial devotion of Donna Anna.

And for this Donna Anna, she would be the
prima donna.

It had not always been the case. In the early productions, Zerlina, the flirtatious peasant girl, had been considered the
prima donna.
Even now, Zerlina was always a threat to steal the show. The rôle of Donna Elvira was also substantial, but Donna Anna had become, over the years, the principal female singer. And Octavia needed to present herself to Russell, to the director, and to the rest of the cast, just that way. Sympathetic, she hoped, and collegial. It was always nicer, and the music was better, if she and her colleagues were on friendly terms. But she wanted no doubt about what her position was. She knew from experience how quickly the balance of power could change in an opera production, how swiftly rumors and insults and treachery could spread, and how damaging they could be. She had paid the price too many times, in the early years, for misplacing her trust. It was an error she had no intention of repeating.

She pulled a black pantsuit out of the closet, and after a moment's hesitation, her favorite cream silk blouse. She wore modest earrings and tied her hair back in a long, elegant ponytail. The pale hair looked dramatic against the black jacket, but the understated style gave her the casual look she wanted.

She applied makeup with a judicious hand—a subtle eye-shadow, a pale matte lipstick. She blotted the lipstick, then lifted her upper lip to show her small, sharp incisors. They had retracted, slowly, from lack of use. She drew her lip down again to smile at herself in the mirror. It was well practiced, that smile: the lips closed, the corners of her mouth turned up to hollow her cheeks and exaggerate her cheekbones. No need, now, to hide her teeth, but the smile had become a habit.

She appraised herself with a critical eye. The style of her looks was not so fashionable in this century: the high-bridged nose, the wide mouth and strong jaw. Still, she managed to create an illusion of something like beauty. She looked about thirty, perhaps a bit older. Old enough to know what she was about, but not too old to be an
ingénue
. Her figure was trim without being thin, and her low heels would keep her from towering over the Don. She had checked, and learned that Nick Barrett-Jones stood no more than five-ten in boots.

She wound her trademark long scarf around her neck and opened the door of her bedroom to go out into the quiet suite, thinking about this man who would sing the amorous, and amoral, Don Giovanni.

Nick Barrett-Jones was an English bass-baritone who had been singing in European opera houses for several years. She had heard from one of the
comprimario
singers in New York that he fancied himself a ladies' man. In fact, the soprano had said, tossing her head, he fancied himself, period. He had told
Opera News
that he was perfectly suited for the rôle of Don Giovanni, vocally and temperamentally. Octavia's lip curled at the hubris. One of the lessons she had learned was to let her performances speak for themselves. Talking proved nothing.

Well, it wouldn't matter. Nick Barrett-Jones would have to learn his own lessons, soon or late, or not at all. Octavia picked up her score from the table beside the little couch. Yes. She would give this Nick Barrett-Jones his chance. His was, after all, the title rôle. He was the
primo uomo
of the production, and he would no doubt have his own worries about Leporello stealing his scenes.

But if he gave her any trouble—any at all—she would return to wearing high heels.

Usually Ugo woke before she left for her call, but this morning there was no sound from the other bedroom. She put on her long cashmere coat against the chill January wind that whipped the bare trees outside her window. She let herself out of the suite as quietly as possible. Her heels made no sound in the carpeted hallway. She bypassed the bank of elevators and ran nimbly down the brass-railed staircase, glad for the bit of exercise. It promised to be a long morning of standing about.

Russell had apologized to her about this first rehearsal. “The chorus has been called,” he said, “and the stage director will be there. The concertmaster is coming to hear the
tempi,
to think about bow markings. We'll have to start at the top and work through.”

“Russell,” Octavia had said. “Of course you must conduct your rehearsal in whatever you way you think best.” She had contrived to smile up at him, rather than down, a little trick of the bent knees and the tilted head, and he glowed with pleasure.

He squeezed her hand upon his arm. “Thank you, Octavia,” he said fervently. “I do appreciate it, and I promise, once we've had a full read-through, we'll focus on your scenes.”

She hadn't been able to resist murmuring, “Our Nick may not like that,” but she regretted it when she saw Russell pale a little.

“Well,” he said hastily. “But he's in most of your scenes, in any case.”

“Oh, of course,” she said. “Most.”

 

The limousine driver turned right out of the Piazza della Repubblica, sweeping past the public gardens and on toward the city center. Octavia hoped she and Ugo could take a turn in the gardens this evening, a little exercise in the cold fresh air, a good gossip about the cast she would meet that morning.

Il Principe's driver chattered as he turned down Via Manzoni, lamenting the hideous rectangles of the modern hotels, and pointing with pride to the street where Versace and Valentino had their establishments. He offered to take Octavia there at any time she wished.

She smiled and thanked him, but she preferred browsing through the boutiques of the Brera district. Octavia had appeared in Milan once before, to sing the Countess in
Figaro.
She had strolled through the Brera then. Vendors sometimes called out her name, sang a snatch of music from the opera, even pressed some trinket upon her. Octavia's career was still new, and it was gratifying to be recognized. It pleased her, too, to think that these shopkeepers and waiters might be descendants of her very first admirers. It eased the sting of finding that Teresa's portrait was not among those displayed in La Scala's museum of great singers of the early days: Pasta was there, and Grisi, and Nancy Storace, a soprano Mozart had loved. But no Teresa Saporiti.

The staff of La Scala welcomed her at the artists' entrance, and a pleasant woman escorted her to the elevator to ride up to the Ansaldo rehearsal room. Octavia heard the first strains of the music of act one trickling from the Steinway, and the chatter and shuffle of the chorus arranging themselves behind the principals. A thrill of excitement quickened her breath.

Opera was work, and there were a hundred pitfalls. Singers would catch colds, costumes wouldn't fit, staging would change. Colleagues would have differences. But at the end, there would be the glory of an opera fully realized. There would be Mozart's transcendent music; there would be choristers who had been rehearsing for weeks; there would be the achingly beautiful dancers twirling about the stage; there would be costumes, flamboyant creations of color and fabric and imagination; and there would be some of the great voices of the world, trained in New York or in Indiana or in Bologna, voices for which everything had been sacrificed and to which every ear was drawn. The scenery was being built and painted; the lighting was being designed; the programs laid out, held against some last-minute casting change. The director and the conductor would be arguing, liaisons would be forming between performers of every sexual preference, and in the streets of Milan the melodies would be on the lips of cab drivers and clerks and cooks.

Octavia never tired of it. There had been failures, disappointments and betrayals and difficulties, but through it all, she sang. In those magical moments when everything came together, the breath, the voice, the music, and the theater, nothing else mattered.

“Octavia!” The director, a plump man with a sharp mind and a vast knowledge of opera, came to greet her as she stepped out of the elevator.
“Che piacere rivederti, carissima!”

“E tu, Giorgio,”
she said. This was a significantly warmer reception than she had received the last time she came to La Scala. It meant Octavia's star was rising. She knew, of course, that it could fall just as quickly, but this was not the time to dwell upon that. She allowed him to press his cheek to hers, left and right, and then, smiling, she followed him into the rehearsal room.

It gave her a frisson of delight to see the chorus rise and applaud when they saw her. It was very nice indeed to see the lower members of the cast hang back, wait to be introduced, and then shake her hand and greet her in whatever their common language might be, German, English, Italian. Marie Charles, the soubrette who would sing Zerlina, struggled to say “I am zo glad, madame,” when she met her, and Octavia pressed the girl's hand in both of hers, saying,
“Bien sur, chérie, moi aussi.”

When the introductions were complete, Octavia glanced at her watch. “Oh, look at the time,” she said. “We're to start at ten, and here it is! Let's not keep Russell waiting.”

 

They began at the top of the show, omitting only the overture. Octavia marked her first passages, not feeling completely warmed up yet, and then began to open up when they reached “Ma qual mai s'offre.” Nick Barrett-Jones displayed the richness of voice, especially at the top, that caused world-class companies to hire him. He would make a handsome Don, with his blue eyes and wisps of brown hair curling at his neck. At times his voice was glorious. His musicianship, though, was disappointing, shallow and derivative.

Luigi Bassi, the first Don Giovanni, had also been a handsome man, but an impressively stupid one. He had possessed a great voice, and Mozart liked his acting, but he never grew in the part. It was as if, once he learned it, it had been carved into the marble columns of the Nostitz Theater in Prague, never a nuance or shading to be changed.

Ugo claimed someone in New York told him Nick Barrett-Jones learned his rôles from recordings. This first read-through seemed to support the rumor.

Brenda McIntyre, the Australian woman singing Donna Elvira, was past her youth and heavy with middle age, but she had the perfect dark, edgy soprano for a woman half-mad with frustrated passion. The Commendatore, Lukas Weiss, was a weathered man of sixty. His dry bass fit the role of the ghostly father to perfection: noble, furious, unrelenting. He confided to the cast, before they began, that he had sung the Commendatore a hundred times.

“Then, Lukas,” Octavia said, “we are all honored to be part of your one hundred first performance!” Everyone smiled at that, agreeing, and she felt they were off to a good start.

The rôle of Ottavio was to be sung by a pudgy tenor with a clear, high voice, the perfect Mozart instrument. Octavia had sung with Peter Wellington before, and always liked his work. His short stature was a little awkward for love scenes, but they were both professionals. They would manage. At the first break, she touched his arm. “Peter,” she said. “You sound marvelous, as you always do. And is David here?”

“Oh, yes.” He pointed to the table where Russell sat with the stage director and the concertmaster. “And we're both just dying to hear all about your
Traviata
in New York! Is it true that twit of a conductor was after one of the chorus boys again?”

Octavia smiled. “Peter, you know I never gossip except with Ugo.” He laughed, and she turned to wave at his partner. David kissed his fingers in her direction.

The nicest surprise of the cast was Zerlina's young lover, Masetto. He was tall and broad-shouldered, thin, surely no more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. His dark hair set off his eyes, which were a surprising light brown that made Octavia think of caramels. He sang with a natural musicianship and an instinctive characterization. She turned to watch him from his very first notes. Massimo Luca, she thought, had a bright future. She couldn't wait to tell Ugo all about him.

When the lunch break was called, the director approached the principals. “Someone will show you your dressing rooms,” he said.

The singers tripped along after a cheerful woman with a clipboard. They rode down to the stage floor and crossed through the ellipse to the narrow corridor leading to the artists' dressing rooms. La Scala was new to Marie Charles, and she exclaimed over everything they passed.

Octavia's dressing room was the closest to the stage. Brenda McIntyre raised her eyebrows at this, pressed her lips together, and went into her own dressing room, closing the door firmly behind her.

Octavia pretended not to notice, though she found the show of ego tiresome. She wished this cast could be a friendly one, especially because Russell was so sensitive.

She thanked the assistant and said, “Marie, I'll see you after the break,” before she went into her own dressing room.

Ugo had proclaimed the dressing rooms at La Scala to be shoe-boxes with showers, but Octavia didn't mind them at all. They were certainly cramped, and although lavish effort had been spent making all of the public areas of the new La Scala as elegant and inviting as possible, none had been wasted on these little spaces. No adornment brightened the walls, but a small bouquet of roses in a glass vase, sent by Russell, rested on the makeup table. A little Schulze Pollmann upright piano stood ready against one wall. Octavia lifted the lid and struck a chord, nodding to herself. It was in good tune.