Yesterday I read Her Deadly Mischief by Beverle Graves Myers, the fifth in a series of mysteries set in 18th century Venice, starring the castrato soprano Tito Amato. It is an incredibly clever gambit, fully worthy of the backdrop of 18th century Venice, to employ a castrato as the sleuth in a murder mystery. Having been deprived in youth of his cojones, Amato is no macho man and yet he is all the man his wife needs, his opera company thrives upon, and the murderer better watch out for. Relying on brains, bravery, and the power of his soprano voice, Amato saves the day, again, in Her Deadly Mischief.
Myers knows her eighteenth century Venice very well and she does a wonderful job weaving the Carnevale atmosphere of San Marco, the propriety of the Canareggio, the preciousness of the glass-making industry of Murano, and the strictly circumscribed lives of the Ghetto into the plot involving the murder of a young courtesan. The characters reflect the diversity of Venice’s population at the time, with visitors from around the world, servants brought from the four corners of the earth, and Venetians from all strata of society, including the proud gondoliers, purveyors not only of the swiftest transportation but also the most reliable gossip; glass makers so exalted they are allowed to court and wed Venetian nobility; courtesans high (well-financed) and low (street walkers); the reviled but relied upon Jews; the holy Christians (who began the nasty business of castration of singers in the sixteenth century when the Church banned women from singing church music); and the flurry of entertainers in the form of dwarves, gymnasts, giants, strong men, and one very strong woman.
The marvel of Venice is that the place Myers describes is not so different physically today from what it was like then, in the mid-eighteenth century. It is easy to go there now and imagine what it must have been like then with its many opera houses, its bustling and ribald Carnevale, and its quiet neighborhoods. Then, as now, the nights are so still that the sound of a mother singing a lullaby to her child can be heard across the dark campos, and down the darker calles and rios. Amato hears the lullaby and is comforted; when I am in Venice and hear from my room at night only the occasional tapping of heels down the street outside my window, I feel the wonder of being in a city without cars, busses, trucks, or motorcycles, without Big Box stores or skyscrapers, and without the regular shrills of sirens. Venice is a city of water, and of streets and bridges for walking, of perfectly proportioned buildings, and of crowds easily left behind.
Venice is a place of quiet (once the crowds of San Marco are left behind), of mystery (and not only of how to get from one place to another through the twisting labyrinth of streets), and of beauty. It is a living monument to the ingenuity of humans, and to our commercial as well as artistic motivations. In Her Deadly Mischief, Myers brings a vibrant period from Venetian history to most vivid life, a time of industrial and shipping recession but rising tourism and entertainment — the debauched era of Venice –, and Venice’s period as artistic leader in Baroque music, architecture, and painting. Myers re-creates this Venice as the perfect place for the murder of a courtesan and the heroics of an artistic, intelligent, and richly-outfitted castrato.
