6 - Whispers of Vivaldi Read Online Free PDF Page A

that led down to the business floor of the house where boats had once entered the water gate with loads of spices and other fine goods. I supposed the smell signified little.
    Like the society around us, Venice’s famed stone foundations are crumbling. Every family, rich or poor, fights the damp.
    At last the footman ushered me into the Savio’s study, which turned out to be a cozy room lit by large leaded-glass windows overlooking a canal. As I’d thought, the illustrious gentleman was taking his ease without a trace of catarrh.
    Signor Passoni sat in a patch of sunlight, legs stretched long and crossed at the ankles, reading an octavo volume with the aid of spectacles. He’d not yet suffered the attentions of his valet or hairdresser; silver hair streamed loose over the shoulders of a bright blue paislied robe with folds hanging softly about an untucked linen shirt and breeches that molded muscular thighs. Not a young man, the Savio, but one still full of life and energy.
    He received me well, putting his book aside, half-rising from his upholstered armchair and motioning me to sit in its mate. “Tito, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
    I made my bow. “Excuse the intrusion, Excellency. Maestro Torani has sent me. We have a…a proposition for you.”
    Signor Passoni removed his spectacles. His blue eyes crinkled with cheerful curiosity. “A proposition—delightful—just the thing to enliven a dull morning. But first—will you take chocolate? Coffee?”
    I declined and took my seat. Best to get right to it. “Excellency, Maestro Torani and I would like to cancel Prometheus in favor of a different opera.”
    Signor Passoni drew himself up, mildly astonished. “At this late date?”
    I nodded, summoning courage. I admit I’d come to the Savio with my ears laid back like a donkey expecting the lash. With fellow musicians, my innate confidence was undisturbed. Not so with aristocrats whose family names had been entered in Venice’s Golden Book centuries before. Though my singing career—and certain more clandestine activities—had often put me in the company of those with wealth and breeding, this magnificent palazzo reminded me that I was really only a simple musico , the son of an organist who’d barely kept meat on our table.
    “Why, Tito?” he asked, expression still affable. “Why this change? Have you run into difficulty with one of the singers? Or have the machines proved too complex?”
    “No, nothing like that.” I leaned forward. “Excellency, how would you like to double the San Marco’s box-office receipts?”
    My words came out with too much force, more like a pistol shot than the intriguing question I’d meant to pose. My flustered gaze bounced off the shelves of leather-bound books, the glass-fronted cabinets displaying a number of model ships.
    Passoni saw my distress. His slender hand made a flourish, graceful despite its knotted bones. I wondered how he slid his rings, one a heavy gold signet and the other a pyramid-shaped emerald, over those knuckles. “Please continue,” he said quietly, “any increase in receipts would be a most welcome eventuality. Explain how this might be achieved.”
    Describing the great pleasure I took in Rocatti’s score put me back in my element. I explained how opera had a strange and beautiful life of its own that must be continuously fed by the new, the novel. I predicted how completely the public would be won over by The False Duke —how the line at the box office would stretch around the campo.
    Passoni began to nod when I stressed that an opera weighed down by antiquated ideas could never reach the stars. I was encouraged, but sensed an unstated reservation hovering behind Passoni’s bland expression.
    “Excellency,” I asked, “perhaps you find the subject of a peasant taking on the authority of his master too freethinking?”
    Passoni chuckled. “The story’s political philosophy is pure nonsense—a bumpkin could never fool a duke’s