Lisl reviews: Vivaldi's Muse by Sarah Bruce Kelly

Vivaldi's Muse
Sarah Bruce Kelly

Picture yourself a time traveller, having been removed from your 21st century comfort and familiarity to be placed alone in the middle of enchanting but unaccustomed surroundings: An 18th century Venetian street scene, rife with sensory stimulation in the song and smell of roast pumpkin hawked by one vendor, while another creates the captivating image and mouth-watering sensation of pear juice dripping down your chin, and the fiery melon hearts you long to reach out for.

Later you may recall the sumptuous smell of roast chicken as you settle into a hungry sleep and the outside chill seeps into your bones. You remember the gondolieri-filled canal, their bravado and charm as you were swept by the magnificence of a life in which all people, coarse and refined alike, appreciate opera as easily as they would the Carnivale introduced to you by the sweeping arm of the gondolier who piloted you to your destination. Magnificent and marvelous it all is, though you are periodically reminded by circumstance of your aloneness in the midst of strangers and their coldness—and the ways of one whose singular goal appears to be your failure.

Having read much of 18th century Europe, few of us would be prepared for such circumstances, and such is the bewilderment of Annina Girò, who is to become longtime protégée of Baroque composer and virtuoso violinist Antonio Vivaldi. Now, however, swept by her surroundings and captivated within the dream of becoming an opera star, the not-yet teenaged Annina perhaps frustrates the reader with her naiveté as much as this delights her tormenter and rival, Chiara Orlandi. Author Sarah Bruce Kelly keeps readers riveted not because we wonder if Annina will ever make it to Vivaldi’s studio, but how on earth it will happen—and brings us along for the ride as we share Annina’s ups and downs on her journey to stardom.

While at least one of Chiara’s early setups is almost amateurish in its transparency, Kelly brings us better to appreciate and understand how it is Annina could fall for it, by first introducing us to her world. Although Mantua and Venice share a common language, where the young girl comes from couldn’t be more different. Her family’s breakdown nonwithstanding, Annina loves her distant and now-absent mother, whose energy is drawn from music. “The only times [Bartolomea] came to life were when she sang her beloved opera arias…[s]he was happiest when she sang, and Annina would joyfully sing along with her.” The girl is looked after by her elder half-sister who acts as surrogate parent, as well as her pushover French father whose largesse towards his adult sons angers Annina’s mother. Now, however, despite Paolina’s company in the first hours of her new Venetian life, and the promise of what the future holds, Annina no longer has at least a loving family in which to find comfort.

Having at an early age been mesmerized by the great maestro Vivaldi, Annina determines her own destiny: to become an opera singer—and how could she not, if the way the author describes her experiences captures even a small portion of how the young girl sails through those few moments.

The music of the small orchestra billowed beneath the singer’s shimmering voice like a surging tide…She shifted her gaze to [Vivaldi, who] was filling in the pause between the aria’s two major sections with a violin solo that sparkled with fire. She watched his fingers fly like lightning over the strings as his swift bow thrusts brought the music to unimaginable melodic heights…Her rapture grew as the music of the violins blended with the singer’s voice and flooded the theater with exhilarating sound.

A brief meeting with Vivaldi, her mother’s abandonment, death of an empress and her family’s poverty pave the way towards a tuition sponsorship for Annina to study music in Venice, the city in which her sponsor’s protégée and she come together in the rivalry that starts long before Annina’s own awareness of it. While many of us modern readers tend to believe nothing could surprise us, and certainly not the cruelty of an older singer towards a twelve-year-old girl, Kelly masterfully leads us from event to event as we find ourselves lamenting Annina’s foolish act of writing her feelings in a letter just waiting for Chiara to rummage through her trunk in search of anything damaging to use against her, or the satisfaction rising when Annina’s matured intuition prevents a wicked plan from coming to fruition.

Perhaps one of the most outstanding scenes in which the author displays her gifts is that in which Chiara comes to show Vivaldi, by now aware of her destructive jealousy, a music score she has set up as Annina’s undoing, one the newer student had been instructed to copy, yet allegedly butchered. Vivaldi’s coolness towards Chiara, the way he holds back on telling all he knows or doles out with deliberate timing, his sparse sentences that nevertheless cause the singer to sputter and over-explain herself—all are done with words that ring off the page like the musical notes to a hypnotic and flowing melody that captures our emotions with the ups and downs not unlike the ones that had first enthralled Annina. As elements of the natural world had been displayed then, so too is this scene infused with fiery tension, thrust to and fro as the dangerous electricity within Chiara grows like the ribelle Annina recognized at that first opera, until at last her departure is in sync with “the sinister echo of the seagulls’ cries, an echo that resounded in the emptiness of her heart.”

Kelly’s treatment of Chiara’s character saves that particular role from sinking into a mere “bad person” stereotype, and allows for the focus on the reality of Venetian opera at this time—a perilous world in which young boys were mutilated to retain their voices, women would destroy one another for the privilege of being owned by the one in power and politics persuaded it all to occur in a back and forth manner, events that fed off of each other for the pleasure and ambition of the characters in an opera larger and more shadowy than any they could possibly imagine.

It is perhaps this growing awareness, as well as her love for priest and maestro Antonio Vivaldi that saves Annina from the darker side of this world, though to be sure she is required to develop clever management skills to avoid the pitfalls and traps, without falling foul of those she needs to avoid offending. Her refusal to part ways with him and endure the vicious slander surrounding her relationship with her mentor creates a support of its own as the two learn to trust each other despite the larger attachment they can never have.

At various points in the novel Kelly approaches the topic of sexuality with a method this reviewer wishes were employed more often: she utilizes words with grace that imparts the dignity of such attachments, without falling into coyness, avoidance or the removed language of a distant and staid century. Young adults will be able to relate to what the characters endure because many of them, too, are just beginning to approach the emotions and questions of this nature presented in the novel.

It must be stated clearly that opera as a backdrop should not frighten those unfamiliar with the topic or any of the players, many of whom really lived. For starters, we all know Vivaldi’s music without knowing we do. In a way this is a new sort of shame (following how history nearly forgot him until the 1927 discovery of many of his original manuscripts) because making the connection between the music and the man disposes of many of the operatic memes that tend to turn people away. Listening to Four Seasons just once brings on recognition and even a sort of joy that we have been part of this world all along.

Further, the book indeed is a novel, and tells a story with a cast of characters that rivals most Hollywood movies. People in all cultures and throughout history have always wanted to hear stories; it is one reason opera itself developed. The movie industry, really, is simply another form of storytelling, though one would be hard pressed to create on film the kind of tension, aura and magic that results from the merging of this novel and one’s own imagination and internal conflicts. Given the powerful effect music tends to have on human emotion, adding that element creates a greater strength to the story. Having said this, it should be added that while it is a novel, the book presents a journey, and not just a story, which always makes for a more rewarding read.

It is easy to see why Vivaldi’s Muse is an award-winning novel: bringing together music and the passion of human interactions (for better or worse) in a format accessible to a rather wide audience—a young-adult novel that is absolutely suitable for adults of all ages—brings to mind the thought that Sarah Bruce Kelly loves us. Meticulously researched, she has brought her expertise to bear on the lives of people who lived and loved, and who likely wanted to be remembered, as do we, amongst the creations we leave behind for progeny. Annina knew this as well.

At that instant, she became aware that there was something much bigger at stake than her personal fears or desires—even bigger than her relationship with Antonio: His music. The music he’d been moved to compose so furiously and prodigiously all his life would outlive its creator. It would outlive them all. She smiled as she realized she’d known that all along.

By 1930 all Vivaldi’s original manuscripts had been recovered, thanks no doubt to the collection and cataloguing work that had been done before they disappeared for two centuries, likely in preparation for their archival. Getzinger and Felsenfeld, in Antonio Vivaldi and the Baroque Tradition, tell of an oral tradition known to Alberto Gentili, which spoke of a Piedmont monastery in possession of Vivaldi’s works. In the late 1920s, as Kelly also addresses in her "Afterward," following two decades of searching for this part of a music library hidden during the Napoleonic wars, the works were found. The painstaking efforts of Gentili and others brought Vivaldi and his works back into the public consciousness, and there they stay.

With Vivaldi’s Muse Sarah Bruce Kelly continues this noble pursuit by bringing to us a portrait of Vivaldi as seen through the eyes of Annina Girò, in historical fiction written with such style readers feel as if they have stepped into the story, such is the sensory integration, emotional impact and depth of detail following a journey that lasts almost a lifetime, as we meet Annina as a little girl and bid our farewell following Antonio’s death many years later. Kelly’s hope is realized when, as Vivaldi’s music touches a special place in our hearts, so close we never knew it at one time wasn’t there, so too has this journey.

This review previously appeared at before the second sleep, where Lisl can also be found. If you would like Lisl to review your book or conduct an interview, please see our submissions tab above. 

To read Lisl's review of Sarah Bruce Kelly's The Red Priest's Annina, as well as her interview with the author, click here.