Secrets of a Soprano

by Miranda Neville

  She took his arm and led him to the parlor. He looked about the small room with disfavor. “Not the setting I had envisioned for our reunion. All the furniture is hard and looks uncomfortable.”

  “There are things we need to discuss,” she said.

  “Be warned. I am prepared to counter every argument with sound reasoning.”

  “Reason? I am a creature of high flights and emotion.”

  “Then all I will offer you is my love, now and forever.”

  “That’s my favorite kind of reason.” She sighed because there was still a world outside this pokey little parlor, much as she’d like to surrender to love, hard furniture and all.

  “Are there any others?”

  Taking her place on a hard little chair, she indicated that he should sit too. “Not too close. We need to speak seriously and I’m not sure I can do that if you touch me.” He obeyed, fixing her with a gaze that threatened her resolution. “And don’t smile at me either. My grandmother lives in a cottage that could fit into your mother’s housekeeper’s room. The family at ‘the Hall’ barely speak to them and I doubt Lady Clarissa would speak to them. I have discovered my family and I am not ashamed, but there is nothing about them that would make me acceptable to the nobility where you belong.”

  “I cannot believe we are having this conversation again,” Max said. “If it matters to you, my mother has given us her blessing. Quite happily so, I may add.”

  She digested this unexpected news. “There’s still my reputation. And I cannot give up singing. If I had to settle down and be nothing but Lady Allerton I should shrivel away. Sometimes I think I never want to sing another note, but after a few days the music calls me. I need it. I need to share it with an audience as long as I am able.”

  “My darling Tessa. What have I ever said to give the impression I would want you to stop? I own an opera house. I revere your genius. To me talent is the true aristocracy, far more important than birth. You may sing as often or as little as you like. If you want to perform in Paris or Venice or Vienna, I ask only to come with you.”

  An enchanting vista opened. No longer tied to the demands of an opera house contract that required her to perform three or four times a week for months at a time, she could sing when and if she wanted, or not. And she would have Max at her side.

  “You said,” he continued, “that you wanted children. If I can give them to you I will. If not, or if you decide you’d rather not, I shall accept your choice.” He leaned forward and held out his hand.

  “Are you a saint?” she asked in wonderment, accepting it. “After all these years can Providence have let me love the one man who offers me everything?”

  “I am definitely not a saint, especially where you are concerned.” He brushed a kiss on her knuckles, his eyes filled with an unholy invitation.

  Ready to accept, she was shocked when he stood and put on his hat.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have a long-neglected appointment I need to keep. Will you meet me at the churchyard in half an hour? It’s only a few minutes’ walk.”

  “I will!” she cried, her heart singing an aria. “I will.” The words answered every question he’d ever asked her.

  When she reached the church he wasn’t there. Ancient dismay gripped her, but only for a second. Max wouldn’t let her down again and it wasn’t raining. She sat on a bench to wait, turning her face to the evening sun that cast shadows from the gravestones. She breathed the scent of a flowering shrub and lowered her eyelids to enjoy birdsong and the hum of bees. For the first time in years she was completely at peace.

  “Tessa.”

  She opened his eyes and he was there, looking anxious.

  “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

  “I knew you would be here.”

  The tension in his shoulders relaxed and he smiled his beautiful smile, went down on one knee and took her hands in his. “Tessa Birkett, will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “A thousand times yes.”

  “Will you marry me now?” He nodded at the church door where a man in clerical dress had emerged. “The vicar took a little persuasion, despite the special license I brought. He wanted us to wait until the morning.”

  She raised her brows. “I suppose we could wait.”

  “Have you ever stayed in a respectable inn with a man who was not your husband?”

  She shook her head.

  “Such a virtuous lady. Let me tell you, innkeepers don’t like it. They might ask us to leave.”

  “Should we go elsewhere?” Tessa wanted him very much, now. Her blood thrilled at the idea of going to bed with Max without the least doubt about her ecstatic response.

  “Not at all. The Lamb is the best inn in Marlborough and the mattresses are excellent. But first we must go to church.”

  She took his arm like the proper English lady she could be and let her love lead her to the altar.

  EPILOGUE

  “The First Night of the TAVISTOCK PHOENIX Theatre was graced by the long awaited return of LADY ALLERTON. The former Madame Foscari’s voice has lost none of its radiance during her absence for Private Reasons. The company was exceedingly numerous and brilliant. Among the fashionable circle were the Prince Regent, The Duke of Clarence, The Duchess of Richmond, Lady Jersey, The Earl and Countess of Storrington [etc. etc.]”

  The Times

  Upper Grosvenor Street, two days before the performance

  Jacobin burst into the drawing room of Tessa’s and Max’s house. “There isn’t a ticket to be had. We could have filled our box six times over with people who have suddenly decided that we are their dearest friends. No one wants to miss the return of La Divina.” She skidded to a halt and kissed her cousin on both cheeks. “You look nervous, Tessa, but I know you will be as superb as always.”

  “I am worried about my voice, though I’ve been working hard with Sempronio for a month. I am also concerned about whether the ton will accept me off the stage, at Lady Clarissa’s supper party.”

  “My dear, they can’t wait for you to be going out in company again. The invitations will pour in. They are all counting their sons and grandsons of the right age and thinking about little Despina’s dowry. We should arrange a betrothal with Augustus now, before she is beset by dukes and so forth.”

  “I’ll have Max turn away every other suitor.”

  “Besides, they are all too frightened of Lady Clarissa to make trouble. There are always a few high sticklers but they don’t speak to me, either, so we can disregard them.”

  Tessa had scarcely suffered a moment’s panic since her marriage. A few pangs during her pregnancy, a flutter or two when Lady Clarissa was being particularly acerbic. Now she was terrified—afraid of failing herself, and even more of failing her husband. Rationally she knew nothing she did would disappoint him, but not even a happy marriage could turn an operatic soprano into a creature of pure reason.

  “Will you come upstairs and see Despina?” The sight of her daughter, now three months old, never failed to calm her.

  *

  Hardly a day passed without a visit from Tessa’s mother-in-law. Enchanted by her granddaughter, she hadn’t objected to Despina being named after the role Tessa had sung the first night she met Max, when he brought her white roses in Oporto. In fact Lady Clarissa wanted to change the program for the Tavistock opening to Cosí fan tutte in the infant’s honor, until convinced by Simon Lindo that even she couldn’t turn that intimate opera into a grand spectacle.

  The day of the opening, Lady Clarissa and Simon arrived at the house just as Tessa had finished her vocal exercises in the second drawing room, which Max had converted to a music room. Although her mother-in-law usually treated her with an exhausting excess of kindness, both as mother of the grandchild and leading attraction, Tessa was not pleased.

  “You may stay exactly fifteen minutes,” Max said, without even intercepting his wife’s pleading look. “Tessa needs absolute rest and quiet until she g
oes to the theater.”

  Lady Clarissa pouted. “But I want to hear what Despina has done today.”

  “Since she is a small baby I doubt she’s done much that was different from yesterday,” Simon Lindo said. “Do you wish to upset your prima donna?”

  Lady Clarissa cast wide, reproachful eyes on her manager, smiled, almost simpered, then returned to the charge in another direction. “Don’t you think it would be splendid if Tessa made her second big entrance on a horse? A white horse?”

  “No,” Simon said. “We have quite enough animals.”

  “Spoilsport. A camel?”

  Simon shook his head and laughed and the conversation moved on.

  “Thank God for Simon,” Max said when the manager had managed to make his willful partner leave. “They’re like an old married couple, those two.”

  “More like bickering lovers,” Tessa replied.

  “Nonsense. Mama had merely found someone who stands up to her, and about time too. It’s lucky for her, because this theater would never have got off the ground without Simon to talk her out of her more ridiculous ideas.”

  Tessa shook her head at her husband’s naiveté. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument and she always let it rest, understanding that Max might not wish to acknowledge his mother’s liaison, even to himself. Tessa, however, saw what she saw.

  “Lady Clarissa’s ideas may go too far, but she has an instinct for the theater. Tonight’s performance will be spectacular, even if my voice is not at its best.”

  “I heard your practice and I haven’t the slightest twinge of concern. London will be as enthralled as ever. Come,” he said, offering his hand. “You need rest and quiet and I intend to make sure you get it.”

  How lucky she was to have a husband who knew and enforced her wishes. Her preference was always to be alone on the day of a performance, but now, on the first such day since the long ago benefit when she’d uttered not a single word, she wanted something different. “Will you come upstairs and keep me company?”

  “Are you sure?”

  Grasping his shoulders she wiped away his uncertainty with a soft kiss and elicited a happy smile with a deeper one. “A little exercise before a nap could become my new habit. But of course I must be very, very quiet.”

  That, as they both knew well, might be the difficult part.

  *

  Like the rest of the theater, the principal dressing rooms at the Tavistock Phoenix had been furnished without regard to expense. Still, it was a theater, instantly familiar to Tessa, as was the atmosphere of gaiety and gossip and first-night nerves. She ran through her warming-up exercises, then Angela helped her into the magnificent costume of black gauze and net scattered with stars, and a parure of enormous diamonds. Paste of course. Not even Lady Clarissa possessed jewels big enough for the Queen of the Night.

  Sempronio and Sofie came in to hug and kiss her and wish her luck. Tessa had a new répétiteur now, one who was able to stay in the country for long periods, Sempronio being in constant demand in London for concerts and as a singing teacher. She saw them almost every day now she was in town again, and they would always be her dearest friends. Knowing her well, they didn’t stay long. She needed quiet to prepare her mind for the challenge ahead. Even Max had been banished to his box. Only Angela was permitted to remain with her.

  As a result of her new performance-day regime, she felt absolutely splendid: confident, powerful, invincible even. She fingered the white roses on her dressing table, inhaled their fragrance, and kissed them.

  Then she forgot everything but the evil queen and the fiendishly difficult music Mozart had written for her.

  *

  Max had refused to sit in the stage box with Lady Clarissa and Simon. Since Tessa was on stage he preferred his own company, so he could admire her without distraction and think how lucky he was to have such a talented wife. And luckier still to be the one to take her home afterward.

  He had every faith in Tessa, but nervousness was inevitable. He fretted. About her voice, which he knew was as good as ever. But what if giving birth had affected it so she could not be heard in this grandiose theatrical palace his mother had created? Or perhaps some unmannerly yahoos would remember the old controversy over the hospital and boo her? He’d have to jump down to the pit and fight them. Or, and this seemed the most likely of all terrible eventualities his brain could dream up, a massive piece of scenery would fall on her?

  She had sent him away when he escorted her to her dressing room, saying she needed quiet before the performance. But what if she needed him to help soothe her nerves? He should go back at once.

  His exit at the back of the box was blocked by the appearance of the Marquess of Somerville. “What do you want?” he asked rudely.

  “Always a pleasure to see you, Max. You look calm.”

  Max grinned sheepishly at the man’s perception. “I’m more nervous about tonight than Tessa.”

  “How is the lovely Lady Allerton?”

  “Lovely and all mine, thank you.”

  “Yes, you won that one. Don’t worry. Domesticity has never been to my taste, but I do look forward to hearing La Divina again. Lady Clarissa has promised something spectacular.”

  Max groaned. “She hasn’t let me into the theater for rehearsals since I own the rival house, but I hear things. I don’t think you need to worry about insipidity and good taste this evening.”

  “Excellent. While we’re on the subject, will your wife be returning to the Regent? Nancy is anxious to know.” Somerville’s mistress had been promoted during Tessa’s absence and was doing well in the leading soprano roles, though not, of course, as well as Tessa.

  “Tell Miss Sturridge that she is safe, though Lady Allerton may return for particular operas from time to time. She does not intend to perform regularly. She has accepted an engagement in Italy so we shall take the whole family to spend the winter in Naples.”

  When Somerville had departed, Max dwelled on the many advantages of life as husband to a singer—private concerts at home, winter in a warm climate—if only he could control his nerves. Tessa said any agitation she felt always disappeared once she appeared on stage. Max hoped it would work for him too. Perhaps he’d better do some breathing exercises. He inhaled a time or two, in the way he’d watched her prepare so often. The absurdity made him feel better.

  The opera was about to start. In The Magic Flute Simon had found the ideal vehicle to combine first-rate music with Lady Clarissa’s passion for the sensational. There would be a dragon, other fantastical creatures, and plenty of live animals, including, yes, an elephant. Tessa was quite excited about her own entrance but had refused to spoil the surprise. Every form of persuasion he’d attempted, many of them quite inventive, had failed.

  The overture began and he fell under the spell of Mozart’s music. Much of the audience was less easily enchanted and fell silent only when the curtain went up and the giant proscenium arch revealed a magical forest. The dragon was splendid, the singing adequate—though not, to Max’s satisfaction, up to the standard of the Regent. As thunder announced the approach of the Queen of the Night, a dark curtain fell. The orchestra played the thrilling music that heralded her appearance and a collective gasp went up from the vast auditorium when the curtain reopened. A rocky island rose from beneath the stage, surrounded by water. From within a cave Tessa emerged, gorgeous in black and silver.

  The scenery did not collapse and every word could be heard. Each soaring note was perfect, and the end of the aria was greeted with rapture. La Divina was back.

  No one in the audience could be happier than the diva’s husband whose eyes were damp with love and pride.

  Except, perhaps, the husband’s mother. Although she hadn’t managed to fit a shipwreck into The Magic Flute, she had insisted on an ocean.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Opera singers, especially sopranos, were celebrities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, comparable to rock stars now. In
creating Teresa Foscari I drew on incidents from the lives of two of the period’s most renowned, Angelica Catalani and Maria Malibran. The soubriquet La Divina I borrowed as an homage to the twentieth century’s greatest diva, Maria Callas.

  The Regent Opera House is an invention inspired by the short-lived Pantheon Opera, built in the 1780s. I trust the Regent lasted longer. The Tavistock is based on the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, which was the home of Italian opera in Regency London. In the British Library I found a treasure trove in the form of three volumes of newspaper clippings from press reports, gossip columns, reviews, and advertisements concerning the King’s Theatre. Many of the press reports that head each chapter are taken, with appropriate adaptation, from those volumes. Among the reports was a furor over Catalani refusing to sing at a benefit for a hospital and having her donation returned. Without knowing the reason behind the controversy, I adapted the incident for my story.

  Tessa’s solo operatic debut at the age of seventeen was not unusual. Catalani’s was at sixteen while Malibran was seventeen when she stepped in for a sick prima donna—shades of Forty-Second Street! The enormous sums earned by the top singers challenged the incomes of aristocrats: One year Catalani was estimated to have earned over £16,000. Like Tessa, she had trouble collecting money owed, as well as having her fortune frittered away by a gambling husband.

  I set my story in 1818, the year that Rossini’s The Barber of Seville was first performed in London. Beethoven’s Fidelio premiered in 1805 so there is no reason it couldn’t have been performed in 1818. In fact, it didn’t reach London until 1832. All the operas, songs, and arias mentioned in the book were staples of the period and can be found in multiple performances on You Tube if you want to hear them.

  My eternal gratitude goes to Louisa Cornell, professional opera singer and Regency romance writer, for her invaluable information about the habits of sopranos, current and historical. Any inaccuracies are mine, not hers. Thanks to Edie Danford for her stellar editing and to Megan Mulry, Anne Calhoun, Stacey Agdern, Janet Mullany, and many other writing friends for their suggestions, support, and encouragement.