1 - Interrupted Aria
booming voice suddenly broke the tranquil mood. “Adelina, Adelina, are you up here?”
    Adelina’s head jerked up, and color flooded the chest exposed by the low, square neckline of her gown. The soprano checked her reflection in the mirror. Smoothing her hair with one soft, white hand, she gave my arm a quick squeeze with the other. “I’ve got to go now, but welcome and good luck, Tito. I’m looking forward to singing with you.”
    She bustled out the door in a rush with a troubled expression on the beautiful face that had been so calm and self-assured only a moment before. Puzzled, I went to see who had caused such a reaction in the woman who I already felt was my friend, but the hallway was empty and all I heard was the click of the bolt on Adelina’s dressing room door dropping into place.

Chapter 5
    A long dinner has a way of soothing ruffled tempers and pacifying strained nerves. As afternoon rehearsal opened, the carpenters retired to their workroom to labor over some intricate detail of stage machinery, and the singers went to work in an almost mellow mood. Orlando accompanied Caterina through her opening aria without a breath of whispered criticism or even a scathing tone to his voice. She responded by concentrating on the music and together they worked out several clever embellishments. Prowling the main floor of the theater, Maestro Torani gradually lost a bit of his sour, harried look. He actually smiled a few times. While the others had been enjoying their dinners, I had been singing. With my music prepared, I was free to study the composer and the soprano while they rehearsed.
    The first thing I had noticed about Orlando Martello was his exquisite features: darkly arched brows over deep-set brown eyes, a beautifully proportioned nose, and a mouth that wouldn’t have looked out of place on one of Titian’s paintings of Venus. But now I also saw the coarseness of his skin and the oily untidiness of his dark hair gathered back into a greasy bow. Hunched over the keyboard, the thick shoulders jacketed in brown wool seemed overly large for the small, flat hands moving swiftly through the music. His brown bulkiness made me think of a captive bear I had once seen in Naples. The bear’s keeper had made it wear a funny hat and prodded it to beat on a toy harpsichord. The look in the harnessed beast’s eyes had been pitiful to see.
    Orlando turned to look my way several times. I could sense hostility, but since we had not met before that day, I was unsure of the cause. I finally decided his animosity must be the aversion a whole man often feels toward a eunuch. That sentiment has always puzzled me. We present no threat to them, and if jealousy lies beneath the hostility, we certainly have more reason to be jealous than they.
    I turned my attention to Caterina. As she sang Callisto’s aria declaring her infatuation with Jupiter, she lost the tense, preoccupied look I had noticed earlier. Her voice soared joyfully along the showy passages and managed to shade Orlando’s music with a rich intensity it had not shown in the written score. Caterina would never be called beautiful or even pretty. Her hair was a dull yellow, and its hue did little to improve her equally sallow complexion. But her most unflattering feature by far was the sharp, jutting chin she used to emphasize points when she was correcting others. I found it unusual to see a female singer so careless of her appearance. Even her dress was plain, and ill-fitting besides. The costumers would have quite a time turning Caterina into a nymph lovely enough to seduce the king of the gods.
    Torani called my name and motioned me to center stage. I looked around for Crivelli and found him just coming out of the wings with mussed hair, his coat over his arm and waistcoat unbuttoned.
    Torani tapped his foot. “Was it a pleasant nap, old man?”
    “Very refreshing,” said the elderly singer, with a sweet smile.
    “We wouldn’t want to bother you,”

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