The Bells (37 page)

Author’s Note

R
eal sounds inspired me first: my wife singing an aria from Gluck’s
Orfeo;
a harsh, metallic peal from the belfry of an undersize Alpine church; the chatter of Swiss cowbells; a recording of medieval chants penned at the Abbey of St. Gall. With the research that followed, I set about establishing an accurate historical setting in which to set loose my fictional characters.

The Abbey of St. Gall was dissolved, under Napoleon’s influence, in 1805, making Abbot Coelestin Gugger von Staudach (1701–1767) the third to final abbot. Abbot Coelestin oversaw the stunning baroque renovations of his millennium-old abbey, including construction of the Church of St. Gall, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For Vienna’s eighteenth-century geography, I relied on Joseph Daniel von Huber’s
Vogeschauplan der Wiener Innenstadt
(1785). Spittelberg’s decrepit taverns of ill renown were largely demolished in the early nineteenth century, but what I imagined to be Nicolai and Remus’s house on the Burggasse still stands to this day, and the ground floor is indeed a charming coffeehouse. The Riecher Palace is based on the Fürst von Cläri’s Palace; Guadagni’s house, on a more modest structure near the Scottish Gate—neither exists today. Many of Gluck’s, Mozart’s, and Beethoven’s operas were premiered in the Burgtheater before it was demolished in 1888. Details of the theater mechanics and Tasso’s substage are based upon the exquisitely restored baroque theater at Çeský Krumlov.

Orfeo ed Euridice
premiered on October 5, 1762, and the events leading up to it, including the preview performance on August 6, 1762 (which took place at Calzabigi’s house rather than at Guadagni’s), are recorded in Count Karl Zinzendorf’s meticulously kept diaries. There exist only two, very spare reviews of the premiere, in the two issues of the
Wienerisches Diarium
that were published following the performance, dated October 6 and 13. Neither review even mentions the performers’ names. I drew Moses’s listing of nobles attending the premiere from the Burgtheater’s subscription records.

Gluck himself left Vienna for Paris in 1774, and there he rewrote his
Orfeo
, changing the hero from a castrato mezzo-soprano to a tenor voice. Gaetano Guadagni returned to London in 1769, but there he failed to live up to his reputation and, out of favor, left again two years later. He retired to Padua, where he was known for singing solo puppet performances of Gluck’s
Orfeo
. He died penniless in 1792, having given away his fortune to his many students.

The Pummerin was cast in 1705 from 208 Turkish cannons and survived until 1944, when it was destroyed in a fire set by wartime looters. It was melted, recast, and rehung in 1957. It rings every year to celebrate the New Year. Austrians watch the swinging bell on national television.

Sometime around 1750, Count Karl Eugen brought two Italian physicians to Stuttgart for the purpose of castrating young boys, and so the duke’s court is the only known location of systematic castration north of the Alps. In Italy, boys continued to be castrated for Europe’s opera houses throughout the nineteenth century, though the golden age of the musico passed with romantic opera’s rising preference for the tenor voice. The last musico, Alessandro Moreschi, sang in the Papal Choir until 1913.

In a very few places, when my story and history conflicted, the story won out. Most egregious, Staudach’s church was finished only in 1766, too late to castrate Moses in time for Gluck’s opera. Moving construction back a few years seemed a small crime, well worth the opportunity to pair the beautiful building with Gluck’s stunning opera, both of which, more than two hundred years later, are enduring symbols of an age.

Acknowledgments

I
am very grateful to Alexandra Mendez-Diez for her many hours of reading and commenting, all done six time zones and an ocean away. I am indebted to Bridget Thomas for her many invaluable improvements to language and style. Thank you to the writers at Thin Raft, Basel, for their years of encouragement.

To Dan Lazar at Writers House, thank you for giving the novel new life, and for making it so much better. Thanks also to Stephen Barr for his great insights. In Sarah Knight, I found a fantastic editor whose limitless enthusiasm kept me going. I am grateful to Shaye Areheart, Kira Walton, Karin Schulze, Linda Kaplan, Annsley Rosner, Sarah Breivogel, Heather Lazare, Patty Berg, Katie Wainwright, Rachel Berkowitz, Jill Flaxman, and Christine Kopprasch for their hard work and support. Thank you to Domenico Sposato and my other colleagues at the Minerva Schulen Basel, and to Franz Gstättner, Ernst Zöchling, and the Dombauhütte St. Stephan.

Mom and Dad, of course I couldn’t even have begun without your support and guidance. To Rebecca and Sam, thank you for all your love. And last, of course, an ocean of thanks to Dominique—without you there would be no book.