Vienna in Violet Page 2

  It was said that Princess Eugénie (as the world enviously rechristened her) knew more about what many kings and councilors thought regarding the future shape of Europe than they knew themselves. If they didn’t understand the intricacies, she explained them. More than once, Eugénie came to him secretly backstage, not, alas, to rekindle their conflagration, but in hurried search of a costume piece or prop to embellish a masquerade, the details of which she never divulged. Rumors abounded about blood spilt on her behalf. Some gossipers of position high enough to speak with authority claimed that her smile could turn a duke into a pauper, or vice versa. Vogl ruefully witnessed his Little Jennie thriving everywhere in the dangerous carnival that was Vienna.

  But she knew when to stop. Within a month after the Congress’s last delegate returned to his fiefdom, she married Georg von Neulinger, a dashing widowed officer in the service of Chancellor Metternich. In the seven years following, as the lid of respectability clamped ever more firmly on the city, Eugénie von Neulinger transposed her public self into a sophisticated, charming hostess, famous for the gemütlich atmosphere of her salons, which attracted the finest minds of Europe. Access to the von Neulinger establishment was a prize esteemed almost as highly as admittance to the Sonnleithners’.

  “No more,” Vogl said aloud, again curtailing his musing. He never had an honest inkling of what went on in Jennie’s heart. He felt relieved that he no longer cared—very much. “But here I am, once again, operating on her behalf, promising to push the most innocent of all men, Franz Schubert, into harm’s way,” he muttered. “Schwammerl, the little mushroom, does not understand the beau monde.”

  For proof of his friend’s naiveté, he needed only to recall Schubert’s previous summons to the von Neulingers’ some months before. Franz refused. “I intend to spend that evening with some friends,” he said.

  “The same friends you see every day,” Vogl replied with veiled exasperation. “Unlike the von Neulingers, they don’t pay you. And you are passing up a chance to meet one of the world’s most beautiful women.”

  Schubert was adamant. “I will not relent for love or money.”

  The glittering prospect of possible prestige meant nothing to him. That one simple sentiment virtually guaranteed another year, perhaps an entire lifetime, of impoverished obscurity for Franz. He lived for three things only: his pipe, his comrades, and his music. Alas, none of them did him much practical good. Every time Vogl saw him, Franz seemed a little paler, a little puffier. There was no man easier to persuade to accept another glass of wine, another helping of potatoes. True, Franz could rarely afford to buy these or most other viands himself. Vogl admitted that, in the matter of diet, he was one of Franz’s nemeses.

  As for other friends … Well, there, perhaps Vogl was too harsh. Wasn’t he now heading towards the home of young von Schwind, who graciously provided Franz a haven after the falling out with Mayrhofer? But von Schwind, like Vogl himself, could do so little, particularly in the face of that blackguard Schober, who actively subverted anything Franz’s other friends attempted. It was Schober who turned Franz from the path of songwriting, just when it showed signs of becoming profitable, to work on an impossibly risky opera. He kept Schubert out all hours in all weathers, at great risk to the composer’s constitution.

  All the while, Schober touted his “prerogatives of genius,” an obvious euphemism for indulgence and irresponsibility. Perhaps Schober had the temperament, strength, and charm to profit from such madness; Schubert would only come to grief by it. Yet little, loyal Schwammerl followed Schober everywhere, oblivious to the danger the man personified.

  And then there was the music, the thread that bound Schubert to everyone’s heart. Here was a true God-given gift. But a more sensible Almighty would have supplied some means for Schubert to gain material advantage from it. True, Franz wouldn’t starve as long as he tapped that seemingly inexhaustible vein of song in his heart, but under the best of circumstances, Franz would never enjoy a substantial income. Now he was banking on an opera! Even if Alfonso were another Figaro, Franz could never navigate it to the stage through the maze of backbiting confusion comprising the life of the theater.

  To be heard today, one had to write like an Italian and fight like a Prussian; tomorrow, it was likely to be the other way around. Rossini visits the city, and everybody is mad for La Centerentola. With Weber’s new sensation, the complete version of Der Freischütz on the horizon, everyone parades their “common German heritage.” Italians fear for their lives until the next earth shattering phenomenon comes along—a week later. One heard rumors that the French, out of fashion since the time of Mozart, were preparing a new invasion.

  “What difference does it make?” Vogl grumbled loud enough to discourage a street vendor of chestnuts from offering his treasures. Vogl passed by unawares. Schubert heard no musical voice but his own, and Vogl feared that the swirling tides of Viennese popular opinion would drown him.

  The snow stopped as Vogl reached his destination. After a moment of trepidation, he raised the brass knocker and let it fall heavily on von Schwind’s door.

  “I believe Herr Schubert is upstairs,” the parlor maid informed him, “but I’ll look in the study.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Fraülein. I have only a few minutes, and I know how Franz hates having his work interrupted.”

  That was a lie. Vogl himself hated to interrupt his friend’s work, Franz’s only economic supply line. Even more than its prospect of financial independence, composing kept him, however temporarily, from the clutches of that despicable Schober.

  “Ah, meine süsse Vogelein,” Schubert exclaimed, hurrying down the stairs toward Vogl. “Aren’t you rehearsing this afternoon?”

  “I am. I have an invitation for you.”

  “Tell me about it as we go to the coffee house. It’s more or less on your way. I’m ravenous.”

  “Have you had a productive morning, Franz?”

  “Good heavens, I’ve forgotten my pipe! Wait here while I fetch it, won’t you, dear fellow?”

  Waiting, Vogl observed that the air was clearing, becoming colder. Instinctively he adjusted the lapels of his overcoat.

  “Here we are. Now tell me of this invitation.”

  “The day after tomorrow, chez von Neulinger.”

  Schubert blanched. “Impossible!”

  Vogl expected this. “I know of some who will be most disappointed,” he said with a sad smile.

  “Your old friend, the countess?”

  “I refer to myself….”

  “You don’t need me. Try Hauptnegel, or Schimmel. He’s always in search of patronage.”

  “And some Fröhlich sisters.”

  Schubert stopped in his tracks. “Anna?”

  “Josephine,” said Vogl, quickening his gait.

  “Wait a moment, my dear fellow.”

  With amusement Vogl slowed down. Schubert needed five full strides to catch up with the much taller man. He seemed slightly short of breath. Vogl continued, “Josie and I hope to perform a duet…”

  “That magnificent voice!”

  And with that, Vogl knew he had prevailed. “She will be less enthusiastic when she learns that it’s impossible for you to attend.”

  “I’m meeting Schober. You know that Weber is bringing Der Freischütz back here?”

  Of course Vogl knew. Everyone knew. In every salon, rathskeller, and coffee house in the city, battle lines formed, critical weapons were honed. Rumors circulated behind closed doors from the grandest palaces to the humblest hovels. An educated listener could deduce the sentiments of an apartment’s occupants simply by noting the musical phrases that wafted down from their parlor pianos. Amateurs plunking out hoary airs by Paisiello were declaring war on those insisting on broadcasting the works of Beethoven.

  Austrians heard their precious German language sung but only as comedy, in music halls of the second tier. No one equated these frivolous musical plays with dignified Italian opera. Weber’s greates
t coup was securing the city’s Central opera house for the performance. His brilliantly disingenuous disclaimer, “Had I known Viennese customs better, I would have sought out a more modest venue more suitable for this venture,” apparently lulled the Italians into a false sense of security. They allowed him access to their most powerful citadel.

  In fact, the previous October, a miniaturized performance of Der Freischütz received a smattering of positive attention. However, no Germanophilic ideologue, nor any of the city’s really important critics, thought the performance worthy of notice. Weber, in another political master stroke, did not conduct the performance himself. How important could this new work be?

  It was only after news of Der Freischütz’s performance in Berlin, the full four-hour spectacle, with its innovations “starting with the overture,” its “majestic effect” and its “powerful influence over all truly German souls” filtered into Vienna did the Italians realize they’d been duped. The Viennese public, asserting itself as Europe’s elite cultural arbiter, demanded the right to assess the groundbreaking opera, in all its glory, themselves. Opera fanatics from all walks of life, “from clerk to king, from peasant to princess,” virtually forced the Italian establishment to bring Der Freischütz back.

  Weber heeded the call and was en route, with his piece refurbished, a company of hand-picked singers, and a promise to supervise every aspect of the production—including wielding the conductor’s baton—himself. Neither Weber nor Der Freishütz suffered from obscurity this time. Large wagers, arguments, and reputations hung in the balance. All this in advance of the first rehearsal. Vogl’s only surprise was that Schubert knew of the brouhaha.

  “What of it?” he asked.

  “We’re going to show von Weber the score of Alfonso.”

  “A week before his arrival?”

  “Don’t poke fun, you ninny. Schober and I are considering how to approach him. What, if anything, in the score needs changing, that sort of thing. We’re meeting on Thursday.”

  “And for that, a meeting with someone you see every day, you pass up a chance to perform with Josephine Fröhlich?”

  “That does seem silly, doesn’t it?” Schubert admitted.

  Vogl nodded his head solemnly. How typical of Schubert to forget any business consideration in view of a moment of musical gratification. “I’ll tell you what. If you attend the countess’s soirée, I will approach von Weber myself on your behalf.”

  Schubert smiled with delight. “Done, my good man!”

  “But there’s one other thing,” said Vogl. “A wager.”

  “Well, don’t look at me to supply collateral,” Schubert said with a laugh. Schubert’s continual brushes with destitution were the long-standing matter of jest between them.

  “In a manner of speaking, I’ve done just that,” said Vogl.

  “What? My eyeglasses? A lock of my hair?” Schubert laughed more, adding, “I won’t sacrifice my pipe. You know I have nothing else.”

  “You have talent, facility, and invention.”

  “And look what they’ve done for me. A garret room in a draughty house—”

  “Melodrama doesn’t suit you.” Vogl cut his friend off sternly. “You’re not starving. I’ve told a certain skeptic of my acquaintance that you can set a poem of twenty lines to music in less than twenty-four hours.”

  “Can’t everyone?”

  “The song must have a complete piano accompaniment.”

  “Nothing simpler.” Schubert paused for a moment. “I presume the poem is in German?”

  “I assume so.”

  “You haven’t seen it?”

  “No one has seen it.”

  “I sense a trap, Michael. What if the poem is in Hotentot, or worse, Hungarian?”

  “I doubt my skeptic is as devious as that.” Actually, Eugénie was capable of any deception, but Vogl did not expect her to exercise her wiles on a practical joke. “I’m to pick up the manuscript this evening and perform it at the von Neulinger soirée, with you providing the accompaniment, at nine o’clock Thursday night.”

  “Very sporting of you. Well, ‘I shall win for you at the odds, if I can’.”

  “‘For this relief, much thanks’,” Vogl said in perfect, precise English. He then finished in German. “I leave you now for the theater.”

  “Bring the blasted thing here,” Schubert said, “to the coffee house. I won’t budge, I promise you.”

  Chapter Three

  Vogl quickened his pace against the cold, which ironically intensified in brightening the afternoon sun. He arrived at the Hofoper a few minutes after the start of rehearsal.

  “Ah, Herr Vogl, how kind of you to join us,” Assistant Manager Schmidt barked at him. Schmidt’s obligatory sarcasm lacked conviction and, after dispensing with that formality, Vogl was ignored. His part in the piece, Bildman’s The Empress of the Common, was small, and he had played it before.

  Sensibly, Schmidt was working on the scene that needed the most attention, the festive celebration of village maidens led by the bewitching “Katarina” that preceded Vogl’s own appearance as the merchant who joyfully announces the impending arrival of his student/soldier son Hernando. Vogl tried to convince himself to review his twelve measure duettino with Katarina. She was, after all, the underlying cause of the Hernando’s unbearable heartache in the third act. More to the point, the Katarina du jour, Frau Anna-Marie Donmeyer, was a perfectionist who did not take kindly to unprepared co-workers. Vogl witnessed several of “La Donmeyer’s” impromptu scenes during the course of his career, though he had never triggered one. Today was not the day to tempt fate. Desultorily, he roused himself from a seat at the back of the house to search out a score.

  Something on the stage arrested him; not something, someone. Fresh faces were part of the landscape at the Hofoper. Its frantic production schedule consumed quantities of choristers. Yet this girl stood out. Why? Her attire, Vogl decided disingenuously; to be precise, her shoes.

  Among the maidens, she alone wore slippers without heels. The other maidens, who would be slipper-shod when performing before the public three weeks hence, by consensus, remained true to the low-heeled fashion of the street, oblivious to the demands of theatrical verisimilitude. Seasoned maidens knew managers’ preferences. Vogl continued to study the newcomer and noticed further variation from standard rehearsal dress: a certain opulence in the fabric of her pale blue frock, the ivory ornament adorning the velvet band around her neck. And again there was that fresh, young face.

  Vogl turned to his colleague, tenor Peter Thym, a man his age cast as his stage son Hernando. Peter awaited the still distant moment when Hernando appeared on the scene and became instantly infatuated with the fetching Katarina.

  “Who’s the new one?” Vogl whispered.

  Thym whispered back, “You missed Schmidt’s introduction. She’s Kunegunde Rosa.”

  “Kunegunde?”

  “Some bureaucrat’s daughter. Frankly, I doubt she’ll remain long in the profession.”

  “Perhaps not,” Vogl muttered.

  Indeed, some on-stage confusion proved that Fraülein Rosa lacked her co-revelers’ experience with maypoles and the intricate contortions of limbs and torsos their appearance on stage invariably inspired. That Schmidt was hiding his exasperation suggested that the new girl enjoyed some sort of protection. Someone at the Hofoper owed someone else a favor.

  What drew so many pretty girls to the stage? Moreover, why did so many men support their aspirations? If the lady failed, she lowered herself in her sponsor’s affections. If she succeeded, the sponsor might never see her in private again. Vogl winced in memory of his own sponsorship of his darling Jennie.

  Still, this Kunegunde Rosa was no Eugénie Schutzmacher. Fraülein Rosa appeared completely earnest in response to Schmidt’s corrections, truly contrite over every misstep. However ineptly, she took her responsibilities seriously. Jennie, in her first and only stage production, by sheer force of personality, had made sure from the fi
rst that everything on stage revolved around her. She hurtled through the Hofoper like a comet, leaving chaos in her wake.

  Vogl, inured to uncalled-for interruptions of his thoughts by his memories of Eugénie, shook them off. What interested him about Fraülein Kunegunde Rosa? Her name—that must be it. Blame her father. Imagine, an Austrian bureaucrat who appreciated Voltaire. But Kunegunde had more than a name. Vogl glanced again at her shoes and decided to learn more about her.

  “We resume in ten minutes,” Schmidt proclaimed, “at which time, mein Herren, we will be ready for you.”

  Vogl and Thym nodded in response and headed towards the wings. Although his entrance came from stage left, Vogl headed upstage right.

  While the other ladies of the chorus dispersed, chattering and readjusting their garlands, Fraülein Rosa remained on stage during the break, reviewing her dance steps. Smiling, Vogl waved greetings at some of his cast mates until, with impeccable, professional timing, he stopped. Kunegunde’s outwardly sweeping arm slapped his lapel. Only then did she notice him.

  “Oh! Forgive me, mein Herr,” she stammered, blushing, “I was so intent … I did not see you there.”

  “Think nothing of it, Fraülein.” Pretty enough, Vogl thought.

  An earnest gleam animated her pale blue eyes, and her auburn hair emitted sufficient luster; but Vogl saw nothing extraordinary. Her age—only a year or two past adolescence—surprised him. Most protégées were either a little younger, hence utterly irresistible to a certain kind of man, or a little older, more experienced. Most of her ilk observed other girls’ procedures before attempting the game themselves. Perhaps Kunegunde found a different path to the stage. At any rate, she was almost certainly the youngest maiden in this particular lot. Vogl knew the histories of several of the others, in some cases quite extensive histories, featuring lovers, husbands, and occasionally, children.