It was the view of the late Mozart historian, Alfred Einstein, that more existed between Mozart and Storace than what previous or current Mozart scholarship presented and I later learned that he based this belief on the transcripts of Nancy Storace's death inquest which brought up a visit to her estate in July of 1817 from "two German men" who were looking for some "letters from Vienna". Nancy was so upset by their visit that she suffered a stroke that same day and died as the result of complications several weeks later. It was later revealed that these two "German men" were sent by none other than Constanze Mozart's second husband, Georg Nissen. They were in the process of gathering and confiscating any and all information, letters, and artifacts that pertained to Mozart. This is most compelling because Constanze and Nissen were known to destroy any evidence that might show her or her late husband Wolfgang Mozart, in a bad or compromising light. Nancy's son (by the English tenor John Braham), later wrote to their good friend John Soane (famous English architect), that he may have inadvertently helped Nancy to destroy the letters, which he believed were from Mozart on that very same day that the "German men" came to their home, as she was going through some old papers and letters and burning them.
One of my major resources for my original research was a biography of Nancy (the only biography about her), entitled Anna Susanna: Mozart's Original Susanna, Her Life & Times, by an English musical layman by the name of Geoffrey Brace. Brace stated at the outset that he wasn't of the same opinion as Einstein about the Mozart/Storace relationship and that in his biography he wanted to separate her from Mozart and bring her to light on her own. It was a good basic resource and outline of her life, but in trying to prove his thesis, Brace intentionally left out the whole incident with the two German men as the major factor in the stroke that would lead to her death and he left out the inquest in which Nancy's maid testified to the incident, which was considered a major factor in her death. He also left out the letters between Nancy's son Spencer and Sir John Soane which discussed the incident. It was the current English conductor and Mozart historian, Jane Glover, whose research on the Storaces brought these things back to light. It was Glover who stated in her book Mozart's Women, that Mozart instructed Da Ponte to create the character of Susanna as a mirror image of Nancy Storace. She wouldn't go as far as to say that Mozart was in love with Nancy, as Alfred Einstein did, but she did say that Mozart was in love with Susanna and that Susanna was Mozart's "ideal woman".
© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014
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