Vienna Nocturne

by Vivien Shotwell

  Stephen replied: I can’t think but you exaggerate about the hand kissing. Have you met Wolfgang Mozart?

  Yes, she wrote, I met Mozart. He’s rather arrogant for someone who’s not done much.

  Anna, Stephen answered, he has reason.

  At Café Hugelmann

  In June, the Italian company gave its last performances before the emperor retired to his summer palace. Since coming to Vienna they had put on four new operas. They had been joined most recently by Mozart’s sister-in-law, Aloysia, who had sung with the old German singspiel company and now took second lady to Anna’s first.

  She was five years Anna’s senior, with striking cheekbones and rosebud lips. The men of the company loved her hesitant, broken Italian, which they declared the sweetest attempts at their language to ever have endeared them. They all endeavored to give her Italian lessons and declared she would be one of them in no time at all. She was married to a well-regarded actor and painter, Joseph Lange.

  “I never felt more secure,” she told Anna prettily, “than in the cherished moment when my dear handsome husband made me his wife.”

  They were sitting at an outdoor garden café, Café Hugelmann, on an island in the middle of the Danube. One bridge led to the festivities of the Prater, another back into the city. Boats floated at speed down the deep-running river. The garden was filled with flowers and birds. The two sopranos sat in the shade of a wide parasol, eating cream cakes and drinking from small cups of coffee. They spoke in German, and Anna, still far from comfortable in that language, fit in a word or two where she could. It put her in the position of a child.

  “He is extraordinarily jealous and possessive,” Aloysia continued, “as all the world knows, so no one questions my honor. I used to have all sorts of fellows in love with me—though, mind you, I never encouraged them. I just couldn’t help it. There is no stopping a young man once he gets his mind set on an object, and then people will talk. You must know all about that already, how cruelly people talk of us female singers. But my dear husband put a stop to all of that, and I never felt more chaste and safe than on the day he took me for his own. I declare it was the best feeling I have ever known, to surrender myself to his power.” She smoothed a curl from her eyes. “I’m surprised you’re not wed yet yourself, a girl so fetching. You’re quite the thing now, aren’t you? I am not so vain to claim to comprehend your degree of occupation. Even at my height,” she said, snapping open her fan and looking to the side, “I was not singing nearly half so much as you are. Do not you find it wearying? La! I should worry for the health of my vocal apparatus. I just don’t know how I would manage so much singing. But I suppose my own arias are much more taxing than yours.”

  She sighed and nibbled her pastry. Yellow cream bulged out the side and she licked it up with her tongue. “You quite put me to shame with all your theatrics. I mean to copy your every motion, though I expect to fall flat. My beloved husband is quite an admired thespian, you know, and is always making fun of me for my unnaturalness. But you shall be the cure of me.”

  “Oh,” said Anna, “you don’t need a cure.”

  “I do if I want to keep singing in Vienna.” Aloysia sipped her coffee and smiled seriously. “Let’s not be circumspect—we are too wise and practical for that. You have usurped me—no, I do not blame you, only myself!—and if I am to survive and live again I must try—let us be totally honest—to outshine you. Pray then do not see my efforts as a personal attack. I like you—admire you—very much, mademoiselle. I do not know, even, that I will be able to outshine you at all, though I have a few resources of my own and I believe myself to have the superior voce. But of course so much depends upon fashion and favor, and you, at the moment, are in the favor of everyone!” She gave a light laugh. “But though we may be fierce competitors on the stage, as plain women we may still be the best of friends.” She pressed Anna’s hand. “My dear—may I confide in you? I have so few confidantes.”

  “Of course,” answered Anna with trepidation.

  Aloysia bit her lip and said in a small, portentous voice, “Francesco Benucci has seduced me.” She put a hand to her breast. “Ah! I see you are speechless. But you must have seen how perfectly smitten he was with me from the first moment. Of course I never dreamed anything should come of it, but then he was so handsome and his voice, you know, would corrupt a saint, and then my husband and I had the most dreadful fight …” She shook her head again, as if in amazement. “Well, now I’m in such a constant flutter! My husband doesn’t suspect, but if he did he would kill us both. Of course it must never happen again, but oh!” She sighed. “I don’t know if I can resist him. He sends me heaps of love letters, by way of my maid. It is quite diverting. Once my husband came in while I was reading one of the letters, and I had to stuff it away. Oh, I am so relieved to confide in you, my dear—you are so sweet and good! You lift away all my burdens! I have been bursting for want of anyone to tell and you listen like an angel as I knew you would. We shall be such friends. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ve got a wonderful surprise but I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you now. My arias in our opera were so tedious, you know, and so entirely unsuited to my voice and talents, that I commissioned my brother-in-law Wolfgang to write a pair of substitutes for me. And he has done it, most superbly! I will sing them tomorrow. He used to be passionately in love with me, when we were young. I do believe he fell in love with my voice. Musicians will do that. But I wouldn’t have him no matter how he pleaded, and so he married my sister! Would you believe? I always thought him quite odd-looking but of course Constanze has fewer advantages. But I think he still loves me. One can hear it in the way he writes for me. Wolfgang’s heart is transparent in his music.”

  The Secret Tryst

  In love with her or not, Mozart knew Aloysia Lange’s voice. The substitute arias he’d composed for her received the biggest ovations of the night. One could hardly even feel resentful of them, because one was simply glad they had been written. There was more interest in Aloysia’s first aria than in the entirety of Anna’s role. Aloysia was all in ecstasy. But she still couldn’t act, nor sing convincingly in Italian, and when she sang in her lower register it was nearly impossible to hear her over the orchestra. So, at least, thought Anna. But perhaps that was the kind of voice Mozart preferred, silvery and high. There was undoubtedly a rift between the German and Italian schools of singing and composition. The Italians had all the power and the weight of tradition. Mozart was a bit wild, a bit new, for current taste, and he was certainly not Italian.

  Watching Aloysia and Benucci jest and play that night—Benucci practicing his German—Anna felt the kind of agony of jealousy she had often sung of but rarely felt. She pressed her lips together and resolved to be more hard-hearted. She need not compound her shame. He did not love her and never had. Though he was handsome and strong, though the sight of him made her heart dip and leap, she was not the one he treasured. He treasured a woman opposite her in every aspect. And should not that, then, diminish him in her estimation? Did it not show a fickle, a careless and an unworthy character in a gentleman? Her mother often lectured Anna about matters of character and fidelity. It was not a question, her mother said, of love, or flattery, or liking the look of someone. That would all reduce to dust. What counted was character and honor, the man’s birth, his family, how he held himself and how he spoke and how he formed his letters. These were the qualities that might last.

  It hurt Anna to watch Aloysia with Benucci. She knew it was vanity and yet it did hurt her. Never before had there been an Aloysia. If the other soprano had not been so simpering, so striving, so apparently lacking in decency, it might have been easier to see her with Benucci. But that he should love that lady—that he should actually have written her love letters, he who disliked letters! That Anna had trusted in a man like him!

  And yet it was of no use. She loved him, and likely would do so till the end of her days. There was no hope. She thought of him always and could not even con
fide in Lidia, because Lidia wouldn’t hear of it.

  Her life acquired a kind of grayness. She could be happy with nothing, she who had always cheered others. She felt an ever-pressing itch of displeasure and dissatisfaction. Then she found out he was leaving soon, temporarily, to fulfill a previous contract in Florence, and somehow she felt she must act.

  She brought him to her dressing room, between the acts, and pleaded with him to make love with her. She had never before been so bold, not since the time Lidia had escorted her to see him in Venice.

  He didn’t want to. He kept saying he didn’t love her and couldn’t wed her, but she begged, and kissed him, and after all they were more comfortable with each other than with almost anyone else. Still it was something of a shock. He kept denying and denying her and then suddenly he was backing her onto the table and almost violently pushing up her skirts. She had to use all her strength not to make a sound, not to let him realize how much he was hurting her. His face, usually so cheerful, was as if possessed: he scarcely looked at her, and she almost wept, not only from the pain but because she felt she would never be this close to him again. Neither of them, she knew now, would ever again be this foolish. She tried to feel as deeply as she could, to fix in her memory every touch and feeling and breath.

  He left without a word. She restored and steadied herself, too shocked for reflection or regret, and went outside for the singing that remained.

  On stage he was Titta, jovial and unchanged, but he met her eyes less readily than usual. Her own Dorina was distracted and lackluster, with a weakened voice. The stage manager remarked upon the change and bade her to get more rest.

  The opera company broke for the summer, the aristocrats went to their pleasure houses in the country, and Benucci departed for Italy, where he would be gone a month or two, and though she thought of him every moment, she sent him no letters. That was her only pride, that this time she did not write to him. There were not many young ladies, she thought, who would have been so strong. Now and then, in dark moments, she wished to harm herself. But she did nothing. She reminded herself that her sorrows were not so much.

  A Visit

  She visited Mozart one afternoon so that he could try out an aria on her. He was writing an opera called The Disappointed Husband, which he hoped would be accepted by the emperor for the Burgtheater. Anna was happy to oblige him. She had been feeling unwell and hoped he might cheer her.

  Mozart and his wife lived on the second floor, above some shops. The household was a chaos of people and noise—servants and student boarders, various instruments, heaped-up scores being copied by Constanze and his assistants. Anna felt she was almost entering a marketplace rather than a home. The gracious front room, which had a high ceiling painted with stars and cherubs, was large enough to dance in and held thirty chairs, it seemed, and four sofas, to provide seats for the audience when he held concerts at home. The air smelled of coffee and smoke. Someone was playing a violin.

  “He’s just through there,” Constanze said. She brushed her hair from her forehead and left a daub of ink. “Sorry I don’t get up. We’ve got to get these all done by tomorrow.”

  Anna threaded her way through the furniture. The door to his study was shut. She knocked too lightly and then had to stand wondering if he’d heard. “Just go in,” called Constanze from the other room. “He knows you’re coming.”

  Mozart was scowling at the piano. “I can’t play today,” he said. “It’s all rubbish. Listen.” He played a few bars and finished with a crash.

  She smiled, feeling nervous. “You can’t play badly even when you try.”

  “I’m not trying. God in heaven! I don’t know my own hands.” He got up with a restless start and kissed her cheek. His hands touched her arms. Then he looked away as if distracted. “I’ve got a big concert in a few days. You should come.” He frowned. “It’s good to see you. You’re looking well. Here’s what I’ve got of the aria. Just a sketch really.”

  But he was contented with nothing, no matter how many times she sang it. He scratched notes out and then wrote them in again. He kept saying how he detested the libretto.

  At last she asked tentatively, “Are you unhappy with me? Have I not sung well?” And though she smiled, and spoke lightly, there was a tremulousness inside her, because to be at all displeasing was something Anna could not bear.

  He shook his head. “I’m not even thinking of you.”

  She winced. “Oh.”

  Rising again he gave her a quick smile. His large, changeable eyes went everywhere but to her face. He moved to and from the piano. “Well. I’ll see you out.”

  They stood for a moment not looking at each other. It was up to him to open the door. She would not open it herself. He was standing close to her and she felt very unwell. It had been wrong to come and yet she did not want to leave.

  “Signorina,” he said hesitantly. He had a warm, gentle voice. “When we—when I first met you. You know I was half drunk. Can’t think what came over me. When I was young, it was one thing—but I’ve been married two years.”

  She felt a kind of burning, high in her chest. Everything was wrong. “I hardly remember that,” she said with a gracious smile. “We were not ourselves.”

  All Her Joys

  Anna floated in for breakfast one morning, looking pale, while Mrs. Storace was staring out the window with an open book in her lap. Her daughter fiddled with the breakfast things.

  “You look ill, Anna,” Mrs. Storace observed. “And you don’t eat.”

  “Mama,” Anna said. There was a moment’s silence. Then her face crumpled. “Mama, I have something I must tell you.”

  Quietly and slowly she related her story. She would not identify the father. She would only say that he must not know and that he would never have married her. But it was easy enough to guess. The buffo. The Italian snake.

  “You’ve ruined us,” Mrs. Storace whispered.

  She stared at her daughter. Then she got up and began to pace, each word like the lash of a whip. “Either we must flee, throw ourselves at the mercy of some sisters of charity, or you must marry. If the world finds you for the whore you are,” she said steadily and sharply, “it will be the end of everything. All your joys, your balls and princes, your pretty jewels. You stupid child. Either we must conceal you or you must marry.” She slammed the book on the table, the noise like a thunder crack. Anna sobbed loudly and covered her face in her hands.

  “Listen to me,” said Mrs. Storace, pacing. “There is a gentleman in town who knew your father. An Irish violinist, a virtuoso. He wrote me last week. He mentioned you. A virtuoso and a widower. We shall ask him to tea and you shall be your most charming and pray God he saves you. Do you hear me? And you will send that Lidia away tonight. I won’t have a woman who has sold your honor living under my roof.”

  “But Lidia did nothing—”

  “Whatever she did,” snarled Mrs. Storace, “or did not do, she did not do her duty.” And taking up her book, which she clutched like an armor, she returned to her seat, while her daughter wept, and began to read again.

  Dear F, my mother has had a fit and turned Lidia out—I can’t explain why. It’s nothing to do with Lidia. Won’t you take her in till it blows over? I know you have too many rooms already. She’s a hard worker and will serve you better than anyone. I wanted to send her to Michael but she insisted on you. Please? I love her like a sister and am your heartbroken, A.

  Benucci had recently returned from his engagement in Florence. He peered at the woman—nearly as tall as he, with a baleful look in her eye.

  “You,” he said. “I remember you from Venice. I thought you didn’t like me.”

  Lidia sniffed. “You were correct.”

  He thought of Anna. He felt guilty over her but could not decide how to fix it. Whenever he saw her, there seemed nothing to be done.

  “You are welcome here,” he said at last. “For a time. For the sake of your mistress.”

  “Kind of you,
sir,” said Lidia tightly, and pushed past him. It was not her intention to poison Benucci but it gave her satisfaction to know the possibility was there.

  The Courtship

  My dear Madame,

  You do not remember me, I am sure, but yet I hope you will forgive my presumption in writing when I say that I knew your husband in London and heard your daughter sing there when she was just a girl. Yet how finely I knew she would turn out! You surely do not recall, and so I will inform you again, that I am something of a virtuoso violinist. Having spent the past year traveling the Continent and being lately arrived in Vienna with no friends or contacts here, I find myself yearning for good English company. Even writing this letter now in our own perfect language is a great refreshment to me! Since the death of my wife I have been alone in the world. Please write to me at the Harp and Boar if you would not find yourself opposed to my calling on you and your daughter some afternoon for a little English conversation. I remember Miss Storace with admiring fondness and it would be a treasure to me to see how she is grown.

  But you, dear madam, I am sure, have neither grown nor changed nor aged since last I saw you selling plum cakes in Marylebone Gardens with powder on your chin.

  Do you remember?

  Your most humble servant,

  John Abraham Fisher

  Sunday afternoon found Mrs. Storace reading Richardson’s Pamela in the downstairs suite of the three-story house the emperor had provided for them. It was the beginning of August, a rainy day and cold. The lapdogs, Bonbon and Fichout, snored before a fire. The room was dark. Anna had no performances at the Burgtheater for the next several weeks, not until they revived The Barber of Seville in September.