Death at La Fenice

No wonder we have the sort of government we do: we deserve it. Well,’ she said, pausing over the photo of the most recent President-designate, ‘perhaps we don’t. No one could deserve that.’

‘What else?’ he asked, falling into the decade-old ritual. It allowed him to learn what was happening without having to read the papers, and it also usually gave him a very precise idea of her mood.

‘Train strike next week, in protest to the firing of an engineer who got drunk and drove his train into another one. The men who worked with him had been complaining about him for months, but no one paid any attention. So three people are dead. And now, because he’s been fired, the same people who complained about him are threatening to go on strike because he was fired.’ She turned a page. He took another brioche. ‘New threat of terrorist attacks. Maybe that will keep the tourists away.’ She turned another page. ‘Review of opening night at the Rome opera. A disaster. Lousy conductor. Dami told me last night that the orchestra had been complaining about him for weeks, all during rehearsals, but no one listened. Makes sense. No one listens to the men who run the trains, so why should anyone listen to musicians who get to hear him all during rehearsals?’

He set his coffee down so suddenly that some of it splashed onto the table. Paola’s only response was to pull the paper closer to her.

‘What did you say?’

‘Hmm?’ she asked, not really listening.

‘What did you say about the conductor?’

She looked up because of the tone, not the words. ‘What?’

‘About the conductor, what did you just say?’

As happened with most of the dicta she delivered each morning, this one appeared to have been forgotten as soon as she was free of it. She flipped back to the page where the article appeared and looked at it again. ‘Oh, yes, the orchestra. If anyone had paid any attention to them, they would have known he was a lousy conductor. After all, they’re the best sort of judge about how good a musician is, aren’t they?’

‘Paola,’ he said, pushing the paper down from in front of her, ‘if I weren’t married to you, I’d leave my wife for you.’

He was glad to see he had surprised her; it was something he rarely achieved. He left her like that, peering over her reading glasses, not at all sure what she had done.

He ran down all the ninety-four steps, eager to get to work and start making phone calls.

When he arrived fifteen minutes later, there had still been no sign of Patta, so he dictated a short paragraph and sent it to be placed on his superior’s desk. That done, he called the main office of the Gazzettino and asked to speak to Salvatore Rezzonico, the chief music critic. He was told he was not at the office but could be found either at home or at the music conservatory. When he finally located the man, at home, and explained what he wanted, Rezzonico agreed to speak to him later that morning at the conservatory, where he was teaching a class at eleven. Next Brunetti called his dentist; he had once mentioned a cousin who played first violin in the La Fenice orchestra. Traverso was his name, and Brunetti called and arranged to speak to him before the performance that night.

He spent the next half hour talking with Miotti, who had come up with little more at the theater, save for another member of the chorus who was sure he had seen Flavia Petrelli go into the conductor’s dressing room after the first act. Miotti had further learned the reason for the portiere’s obvious antipathy for the soprano: his belief that she was somehow involved with ‘l’americana.’ Beyond this, Miotti had learned nothing. Brunetti sent him off to the archives of the Gazzettino to look for anything about a scandal involving the Maestro and an Italian singer, sometime ‘before the war.’ He avoided Miottits look at the vagueness of this and suggested that there might be a filing system that would facilitate things.

Brunetti now left his office and walked across the city to the music conservatory, fitted into a small campo near the Accademia Bridge. After much asking, he found the professor’s classroom on the third floor and the professor waiting there, either for him or for his students.

As so often happened in Venice, Brunetti recognized the man from having walked past him many times in that part of the city. Though they had never spoken to one another, the warmth of the man’s greeting made it obvious that he was familiar with Brunetti for the same reason. Rezzonico was a small man with a pallid complexion and beautifully manicured nails. Clean-shaven, with hair cut very short, he wore a dark-gray suit and a somber tie, as if he were intentionally dressing for the role of professor.

‘What is it I can do for you, Commissario?’ he asked after Brunetti had introduced himself and taken a seat at one of the desks that filled the classroom.

‘It’s about Maestro Wellauer.’

‘Ah, yes,’ responded Rezzonico, his voice growing predictably somber. ‘A sad loss to the world of music’ This was, after all, the man who had written his obituary.

Brunetti waited for the requisite time to pass, then continued. ‘Were you going to review that performance of Traviata for the paper, Professor?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘But the review never appeared?’

‘No, we decided—that is, the editor decided—that out of respect for the Maestro and because the performance was not completed, we would wait for the new conductor and review one of his performances.’

‘And have you written that review?’

‘Yes. It appeared this morning.’

‘I’m sorry, Professor, but I haven’t had time to read it. Could you tell me if it was a favorable review?’

‘On the whole, yes. The singers are good, and Petrelli is superb. She’s probably the only Verdi soprano singing today, the only real one, that is. The tenor is less good, but he’s still very young, and I think the voice will mature.’

‘And the conductor?’