Book description
Venice, 1734. Singer Tito Amato has let fame go to his head. Neglecting
his vocal practice for dubious pleasures, Tito finds himself demoted to
secondary roles and overshadowed by a visiting star. When the murder of
scene painter Luca Cavalieri threatens to close the opera house, Tito
jumps at the chance to regain his worth by finding the killer. Strained
relations between Venice's Jewish and Christian inhabitants throw
suspicion on members of a Jewish ghetto family that produces masks for
the theater. But a mysterious veil that Tito finds in Luca's lodging
leads him in a different direction. Assisted by Augustus Rumbolt, an
Englishman making his Grand Tour, Tito is soon on the trail of Dr.
Palantinus, a masked figure who heads a secret society that charges
exorbitant fees to partake of its enticing rituals. Who wears the mask
of Palantinus? The director who guides Tito to operatic triumph, the
fastidious nobleman charged with making the theater profitable, a fiery
contralto, or the stage manager who hides a double life? The hunt
pierces the treacherous depths of the city, one dedicated to masquerade
and pleasure. A city where ancient hatreds thrive and cultures uneasily
coexist-a city where opera is the stuff of daily life. Murderous
intrigue behind the scenes of an opera production in 1734 Venice. Male
soprano Tito Amato has no reason to celebrate the Teatro San Marco's
production of Cesare in Egitto, by the carefully unnamed G. F. Handel.
Rival castrato Francesco Florio steals the show as surely as Caesar
stole Egypt. Nor is Tito's love life any healthier. He's not interested
in the hothouse curiosity of Isabella Morelli, amorous wife of the
powerful Ministro del Teatro, and seamstress Liya Del'Vecchio doesn't
seem to know he's alive. When scenic artist Luca Cavalieri disappears,
director Rinaldo Torani authorizes Tito to search high and low for him,
but Luca's lying lower than Tito can reach--until his bloated corpse
rises to the surface of a nearby canal. Ottavio Grande, the chief of the
Venetian constabulary, agrees with the popular sentiment, inflamed by an
anti-Semitic pamphlet, that Liya's cousin Isacco shared an illegal
partnership with Luca and killed him to protect the secret. But after an
angry mob burns the Del'Vecchio's home and lynches Isacco. Tito and his
new friend, aspiring English painter Augustus Rumbolt, realize that the
killer will remain forever secret unless they expose him. The mystery is
routine, but Myers (Unfinished [i. e., Interrupted] Aria, not reviewed)
powerfully evokes a long-ago world where beauty walks with treachery,
and an intrepid hero who can't afford to lose his voice. Beverle
Graves Myers fell in love with opera at age nine during a marionette
production of Rigoletto. A Kentucky native, she studied history at the
University of Louisville and went on to earn a degree in medicine. After
a career in psychiatry, she devoted herself to writing full-time.
Beverle is the author of the Baroque mystery series featuring Tito
Amato.
