Vienna Nocturne Read Online Free PDF

Mandini was refined; that Bussani’s young wife had a lack of grace that only increased her charm. Salieri had a tight face and a drawn-down mouth. But he, too, seemed kind, or kind enough. Indeed they were all happy to see her there, and she was immediately reassured. But when Francesco Benucci took her hand she felt a shock to her heart—so firm was the touch and so warm—and she flushed red and hot.
    “You must be my Dorina,” he said.
    “Am I?” she asked, and everyone laughed.
    They began the rehearsal. Anna could read almost anything by sight, and Salieri was experienced enough that he had written nothing that would show her ill. She was aware of them all listening to her—the opera would largely fall on her shoulders—but the feeling invigorated her and only made her want to sing her best. As soon as she began, she saw the other singers smile and whisper to one another, and she knew then that they liked her.
    After that it became simply a matter of play between them, a game of words and music and physical exertion that they embarked upon together. They were strong singers, with swift minds and open good humor—arrogant enough to think they could stand on a stage and dogged enough to have done the work to get there. They earned their way with their voices and bodies. It was changeable work and fickle, which time and fashion would remove, but which they loved so much that none of them would have changed it.
    At first Anna could hardly look at Benucci. Everything Michael Kelly had said about him was true. He had thick, dark brows and dark hair, and alert, warm eyes spaced slightly far apart. His expression was energetic and intelligent. He had a firm jaw, a wide, infectious, dimpled smile, and a reverberant and unself-conscious laugh. His voice was as beautiful as it was powerful, his neck and torso broad and strong, ideal for singing. He was taller than Mandini but shorter than the giant of Bussani. And Anna saw that Benucci wasloved by everyone, and that he made them laugh and lighten. She saw that they all looked to him, that even Salieri looked to him.
    She had never had to play a lover before, not as she would have to now. She had never kissed a boy or gentleman as a lover would. She had hardly even been to a ball. And now Francesco Benucci was beside her, with his laugh and his smile, with his voice that was one of the strongest and most beautiful natural male voices she had ever heard, and she would have to pretend to be in love with him, to be his match and his ideal.
    By the end of the rehearsal she had become more comfortable, as though they all were friends already. But every time Benucci looked at her, she felt as though she might fall over.
    “Who was your teacher?” he asked quietly.
    “Venanzio Rauzzini.”
    He gave an approving nod and leaned back on his heels, his hands loosely at his waist. “I knew him in Rome. Fine singer. Fine lineage. Porpora taught Rauzzini. He did well by you.”
    “You knew him?” she exclaimed. “What was he like?”
    He smiled thoughtfully but did not have a chance to answer, because Dorotea Bussani was coming over in her carefree way to say how well Anna had sung and how much fun they would have. “You aren’t stupid,” she declared, clapping Anna over the shoulders. She was a striking girl with a long face and reddish hair; everything about her seemed lanky and open. “We always get stupid girls who stand like poles, it’s
agony
, can’t do anything except prop them up and wait for it to be over. But
you’re
smart and we’ll have such fun. You know how to
entertain
! You know what it’s all about!”
    Dorotea had grown up in a family of traveling performers, which was where her husband had discovered her when she was only fifteen. There were almost thirty years between her and Bussani. He was a comic bass of the first class, with a rumbling voice and a sardonic manner.
    “Marvelous,” said Stefano Mandini in velvet tones, taking Anna’s hand to kiss