A Major Discovery: The REAL story behind Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia - KV 477a

The years 1784 and 1785 were significant for Nancy Storace in that they could be described as the most turbulent and life-changing years in her entire life. Having arrived in Vienna only the year before as Emperor Joseph II's "prima buffa" in his new Italian Opera Company, the then 17-year-old Ann Selina Storace experienced instant and wild popularity with the Viennese audience. She quickly garnered the admiration of the likes of the Emperor and the nobility, as well as her musical colleagues including, Antonio Salieri, Wolfgang Mozart, Martin y Soler, Francesco Benucci (Mozart's original Figaro), and the court librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte and became Europe's most popular and highest-paid stage performer. Her skills as a musician and actor, as well as her high energy on stage charmed and delighted her audiences, and propelled her into a stage career that was unparalleled by any before her.

Soon after Nancy's arrival in Vienna, her mother, Elizabeth Storace arranged a marriage for Nancy to an English violinist by the name of John Abraham Fisher. Fisher came to Vienna on sabbatical from Oxford and connected with the Storaces, as they were from London and he had been acquaintances of Nancy's parents there. Elizabeth, who hated Vienna and wanted to return to London, saw this marriage as insurance of their return once Fisher's sabbatical was complete. Fisher and Nancy were married in March of 1784 and almost immediately afterward it became evident that the marriage was a disaster as Fisher began beating and brutalizing Nancy very likely from the first day. In the first few

weeks after they married, Nancy was absent from the Burgtheater stage due to "illness" and started experiencing periods when she was off the stage more than she was on. This finally escalated to the point that Emperor Joseph intervened and sometime in August or September of 1784, he kicked Fisher out of Vienna and forbid him to return. There was a period of several weeks in this time when we have no accounting of Nancy's whereabouts. She was housed in the Imperial apartments but records indicate that only her mother remained in the apartments during those weeks and it is believed that Nancy was either hiding out from or being hidden from Fisher until the time he was out of the city and it was safe for Nancy to return to her residence.

Shortly after Nancy's return to the Burgtheater stage (most likely in early November of 1784), she announced that she was pregnant but the Emperor either didn't or wouldn't release her from her contract. Performance records show that she was on stage throughout its duration, despite indications of it being an extremely difficult pregnancy and Nancy experiencing periods of absence due to illness.

In January of 1785, Nancy's older brother, Stephen arrived in Vienna from London to fulfill a commission for an opera that apparently Nancy had arranged. How she was able to obtain such a commission for Stephen, who was an entirely unknown composer, remains a mystery. Some attribute it to the notion that she was Emperor Joseph's mistress. Others believe that she appealed to one of the nobles with a high position in the Emperor's court and offered him "favors" to obtain the commission. No one really knows how the commission came about, however what we do know is that Nancy was extremely close to her brother, and she needed his presence and support during what were the most traumatic times of her life. Shortly after his arrival her child was born. There is some dispute over the birth date of the child. Earlier research indicated that the child was born sometime in late May or early June of 1785, which would mean that Nancy was near full term at the time of the premiere of her brother's opera, in which she starred. Later scholarship by the Mozart scholar, Michael Lorenz indicates that the child, a baby girl, who was named Josefa Fisher, was born in late January of 1785. What we do know for certain is that the child was given to the Viennese foundling home and died only a month after her birth. Foundling home records from this period indicate that only children who were orphaned or proven to be bastards were accepted into the home. This is a strong indicator that Fisher wasn't the father of Nancy's child.


Despite the controversy over the actual birth date of Nancy's child, it is documented fact that during the premiere of her brother Stephen's opera in May of 1785, Nancy suffered a complete loss of her voice onstage. She had to be carried off stage and the performance shut down. Nancy's voice loss was so complete that she was off stage for a solid 4 months and there was some very substantiated concern that she would never recover. Historians have been baffled as to the reason for such a complete vocal demise citing possible emotional/psychological distress, a throat infection, and even hormonal changes being contributing factors. However, she did recover after a long period of rest, but she never regained her voice at full capacity. From that point on, her stage reviewers reported a

"hoarse", "throaty", even "harsh" edge to the voice as well as a loss of flexibility and suppleness. When composing the role of Susanna for her in Le Nozze di Figaro, Mozart had to lower the tessitura of her parts in the ensemble pieces and greatly reduce the complexity of her arias, much to her personal frustration. Because of this, however, he promised her that he would compose a large-scale "bravura" aria for her for another time. The fulfillment of this promise came in the aria he composed as a gift for her to sing in her final Viennese concert on the night before she left the city to return to London, "Ch'io mi scordi di te...Non temer amato bene" K. 505. It has been noted by musicologists that while it was a large scale bravura aria, the tessitura is much lower than most arias for soprano voice, and the melismatic passages are fewer, shorter, and less complicated and easier to negotiate by the singer. This aria today is most often sung by what we now classify as Mezzo Sopranos.

All of the above is merely the backdrop for the events that led to the composition of the cantata, "Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia, KV 477a, which was a joint composition by Mozart, Salieri, and a mysterious composer by the name of Cornetti (thought by historians to be an alias).

When I began my research for my master's thesis (vocal performance and pedagogy) on the life and career of Nancy Storace in the spring of 1999, I was intrigued by this amazing woman who seemed to make a miraculous recovery after her two year ordeal as a victim of domestic violence. And like the historians whose biographies and articles I read, I got lost in her relationship with Mozart and the intrigue of a possible affair with him and with others, as well as dazzled by her amazing success throughout the rest of her career until her death in her estate home in Dulwich in 1817 - so much so, that I, like the others, started viewing her experience with domestic violence as just a small blip on her radar. Years later, even as I continued to research her life for my historical novel series "So Faithful a Heart", and as a vocal pedagogue, I

didn't see the connection between the loss and permanent damage to her voice to her being a victim of domestic violence. I attributed the complete loss of her voice to an emotional/psychological breakdown and still didn't make the real connection until years later, when in 2014 I was employed as receptionist/crisis intervention staff at a local center/shelter for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. It was while training for that position that I learned about the damaging, life-threatening, and permanent affects of strangulation on not only the voice, but upon the victim's health and life for the entirety of their lives. When I learned of the permanent scar tissue that can remain on the larynx and soft tissues of the vocal folds, I put it together. It isn't widely known that several years later in November of 1791 (the same time that Mozart fell sick with his final illness), Nancy started to experience bouts of dizziness and fainting and was eventually diagnosed with a brain hemorrhage and underwent a procedure called "trepanning" by which a quarter-sized hole is opened up in the victim's skull and the blood drained to relieve the pressure. She nearly died. This is entirely consistent with symptoms experienced by victims of strangulation, even years later, because of the pressure put on the carotid artery and the cutting off of the blood flow to the brain resulting in brain injury and blood clotting in the brain.

After a year of serving in the capacity of support staff at the center for victims of domestic violence/sexual assault I was sent to train as a Certified Domestic & Sexual Assault Response Professional and was promoted to the position of full time Sexual Assault Advocate/Educator. My training as a professional victim advocate further corroborated my theories, and I am now convinced beyond any doubt that Nancy Storace was a victim of strangulation during her abuse with her husband, John Fisher and that her voice loss and the permanent "hoarseness" and "edge" sustained to her voice, as well as her near death from a brain hemorrhage were all the result of strangulation.

Now, back to the cantata: I have been elated and at the same time disappointed and even appalled by the recent discovery and revelation of Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia in January of 2016. Historians and headlines are making this discovery entirely about Mozart and Salieri, and the myth perpetuated by the play and film ,"Amadeus", that Salieri was so jealous of Mozart's talent that he murdered him. Documented research long ago dispelled that myth, so for notable and serious music historians to present this discovery as some kind of "proof" that this dispels that myth is not only ridiculous, but is nothing but cheap sensationalism. This discovery isn't about the composers or their relationships with each other, but about the woman for whom this cantata was composed, and the joyous occasion it celebrated. It is about the triumph of a woman over her brutal and devastating abuse - her strength, her determination, and her unrelenting spirit. This cantata is about Ann "Nancy" Selina Storace a woman who was loved and celebrated by the likes of the Emperor of the greatest empire in the world at that time, and of men like Mozart, Salieri, and Lorenzo da Ponte. This discovery is about the triumph of the human spirit and our ability to rise above and conquer the affects of even the most devastating events of our lives.

A Ride in My Time Machine

As a writer of historical fiction based on the lives of real people, I'm often asked how I know so much about these people's private lives. My answer is always that it isn't that I know so much as I intuit based on careful research and study. It's impossible to know exactly what people thought, felt, or what went on in their relationships behind closed doors, but there are ways of researching that can give one a pretty good idea, at least enough to write a plausible, historically accurate story based on the facts and events in people's lives.

The way I start is by obtaining the facts. These form the foundation or the skeleton of my story and of my characters. Facts are things like documented dates, places, and events and physical evidence such as letters, documents, and first person testimony. Once I've established these things as the foundation, then I begin to search for clues that can give me more insight into the culture in which the characters are living their lives, the time in history, the region, the customs,

the prominent religious, spiritual, and philosophical views of the culture, as well as the history just preceding the time-frame of the story and the history just following. I also research the fashions, foods, and popular entertainment. The next level of research involves a study of basic human psychology and behavior and how that fits with the culture and history. I can then predict how a certain character could and most likely would handle any given situation and/or crisis that he or she might encounter in their lives.

I also devote a lot of time and research into the study of people who history might not have necessarily deemed as important in a character's life, but who may add some perspective to the character that might easily have been missed

because of research that is too focused on one central character and/or event. A good writer/storyteller knows that people aren't islands. Life is about relationships and how human beings respond to the different relationships that they develop within their lives. To focus one's research on one person is to create a one-dimensional story that omits other truths and perspectives.

After all the research is done, the creativity comes in. I combine my research with my intuition and skill as a writer to tell the story. I've had several readers of my So Faithful a Heart novels say to me that they had a difficult time separating the facts from the "fiction" because the two were combined so seamlessly that they simply got lost in the story and in the lives of the characters. Many have said it was if they were there - that they were literally transported back in time and into the various salons, ballrooms, bedrooms, gardens, and palaces where these people lived, loved and worked. That's what a good writer of historical fiction does; we give you a "fly-on-the-wall" view of the intimate, private lives of the people and events that you've read about in history.

In a real sense, I'm giving you a ride in my very own time machine!

Amadeus: A Guilty Pleasure

The 19th of September, 2014 marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the brilliant Milos Forman film, Amadeus starring Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Mozart, and F. Murray Abraham as the Viennese Court Composer, and Mozart nemesis, Antonio Salieri. In celebration of the upcoming anniversary, a large group of Mozart lovers all over the world gathered yesterday in front of their television screens for an international "watch party" sponsored and promoted by an event registered on Facebook.

It had been several years since I had indulged in watching one of my all-time favorite films, so I decided to join in the fun. I popped a large bowl of popcorn and put our copy of the Director's Cut version of the film in our DVD player and sat back to watch 180 minutes of this not-so-historically-accurate-but-wonderfully-addictive tale, once again.

It is here I will note that as a Mozart historian, it is not "politically correct" for me to love this movie. In fact, the world of musicology is riddled with elitist snobs who would label me as a "dilettante" for even uttering the title of the film.

To them I say, "bite me". It wasn't intended to be a documentary or a biography. Like Mozart's operas, it's a  farce--a comedy (although like Don Giovanni, it has its elements of dark tragedy). I know the difference between Mozart fact and fiction. Now thirty years after the film's debut, most people know that Salieri didn't conspire to murder Mozart. They also know that Mozart probably wasn't quite as socially awkward and over-the-top as he was portrayed in the film. But there are some other things that were portrayed in this film that people take as fact, that weren't such, so I'm taking the opportunity to list some of them here.

1. Mozart never had an affair with the singer, Caterina Cavalieri, though it is almost certain that she was the mistress of Antonio Salieri (despite the character's claim in the film that he "never laid a finger on her").

2. There is no evidence to suggest that Mozart ever borrowed money from Salieri, nor would Salieri ever have known about Mozart's financial affairs. Mozart actually experienced a very prosperous period between 1784 and 1787 when his popularity in Vienna soared through a series of subscription concerts for which he composed and performed some of his finest piano concertos. He did fall into debt, that is true, but he borrowed money from a textile merchant and fellow Freemason, Michael Puchberg. His borrowing didn't begin until 1788, two years after the premiere of Le Nozze di Figaro, and shortly after his next opera Don Giovanni, failed miserably in Vienna. There is also recent evidence to suggest that most of Mozart's largest debts were completely

paid off by the end of 1790 and that he entered once again, into a very prosperous period in 1791, which was the last year of his life.

3. Mozart did not die in poverty, nor was he buried in a pauper's grave. Contrary to the impression that the film leaves that the apartment was literally ransacked and everything sold to pay off debts, that is simply not true. As I stated above, by the end of 1790, Mozart was, once again, entering one of the most prosperous periods of his life. At the time of his death he was living in a fashionable apartment in a high-rent district in Vienna. He had a full staff of house servants, including several maids and a cook. His oldest son, Karl (the Mozarts had six children, with two surviving), was attending a very expensive private boarding school, and Mozart was maintaining the rent and household expenses for an apartment for Constanze at the spa in Baden (where she spent most of the last two years of their marriage).

Mozart's funeral and burial were paid for by the Freemasons as a benefit to his widow. The common grave was standard for a man of Mozart's educated working upper-middle class station. And unlike what was portrayed in the film, Constanze did not attend the funeral (nor did Salieri, for that matter).

4. The whole scene where the opera director, Herr Rosenberg, rips out the score of the "ballet" in Figaro, never took place. There was some controversy over whether or not the dance in Figaro and Susanna's wedding could be considered a ballet, resulting in a mild dispute between Rosenberg and Lorenzo da Ponte (the librettist). However, da Ponte, who was highly favored by the Emperor went directly to him and settled it in favor of keeping the dance in since it contained a major plot point in the story.

5. Mozart did not die suddenly after conducting a performance of The Magic Flute. He had actually fallen quite ill and took to his bed for two weeks before his death at 1:00 a.m. on December 5th, 1791. Constanze had to be summoned from the spa (as she didn't just suddenly sense that something was "wrong" as the film portrayed). Salieri was not present at Mozart's death bed, nor did he contribute to any part of the composing of Mozart's  Requiem (although that scene is probably one of my most favorites of the entire film).

If you get a chance during this 30th anniversary of the Amadeus film premiere, I encourage you to watch it again, and when you do, enjoy it for what it is; a beautifully made film filled with some of Hollywood's finest acting and memorable lines, costumes, sets, scenery, and of course, the music. We can't forget that, for in the end, it really is all about Mozart and his miraculous and beautiful music. And well...there it is.

Women's History Month - Ann "Nancy" Storace: A Woman Who Made Theater History

Although opera and musical theater were very popular forms of entertainment in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the women who took up the profession of acting were considered little more than common prostitutes. Many, if not most of them were pretty girls who came from lower class poor families and saw a way to get out of poverty by acting on the stage. If they were lucky, they'd capture the attention of some nobleman and become his mistress and he, in turn, would make her a star. Few had any formal education, and most were illiterate. If they landed a wealthy, noble patron, they could be the beneficiary of learning to read, and sometimes they would be sent to "finishing school" where they'd receive lessons in singing and perhaps playing the fortepiano, and sometimes acting.

When Nancy Storace arrived from London in Naples, Italy in 1778 at the age of 13, she already had the benefit of a formal education with studies in several languages, including Latin, Italian, and French as well as extensive training in singing and a formal musical education that included theory and composition, playing the fortepiano, harpsichord, and guitar, as well as study of the popular operatic literature of the time. Her father, Stepfano, was a musician and the director of the theater orchestra at the Marylebone Pleasure Gardens in London. Nancy's mother's family had been the proprietors of the gardens for years and had established themselves as one of the wealthiest and most successful educated working class families in London. When Leopold Mozart brought his wife and two young children, Nannerl and Wolfgang to London in 1764, they met Stefano Storace, who gave young Wolfgang lessons on the bass violin and pointers on composing for theatrical orchestras. Stefano was impressed with the Mozart children and the manner in which they were educated and he was determined to raise his children in the same way. His son, Stephen, was only two years old at the time and Nancy arrived in October of 1765. Like the Mozart children, both Stephen and Nancy displayed prodigious musical abilities.

After a successful performance tour of Italy, Nancy landed a prestigious position as the prima buffa of the newly-formed Italian Opera Company which was housed in the Burgtheater of the court of Emperor Joseph II in Vienna, Austria. Nancy was the highest-paid performer in all of Europe at the age of 17, and was celebrated for her intelligent and informed acting as well as her musical skill and education, which was
virtually unheard of for a woman of the theater in her time. It was there that she captured the attention of Wolfgang Mozart who was interested in composing an Italian comic opera that would showcase the popular singer. It was in 1786 that Nancy premiered the role of Susanna in Mozart's comic opera "Le Nozze di Figaro" (The Marriage of Figaro). Susanna has since been regarded as the quintessential Mozart soprano role. It is no secret that Mozart admired her for her intelligence and her professionalism, and when she returned to London in early 1787, he wanted to go with her.

After her return to London, she starred on the stages of Drury Lane and Covent Garden in her brother's operas, which were all composed especially for her. Her professional stage career ended when she retired in 1803, having been regarded as the first truly professional stage actress who won her acclaim and recognition through her own merits, skill, and efforts. She died a wealthy woman at her country estate in Dulwich on August 24, 1817 and was regarded as one of London's most beloved and respected singers and stage actresses of all time.

© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

Irish tenor, Michael Kelly: Mozart's original Don Basilio and Don Curzio

Looming large in the Mozart and Storace stories is the Irish tenor, Michael Kelly. Born December 25th, 1762, Kelly first met Stephen and Nancy Storace when he was 18 years old at the harbor in Liverno, Italy. Kelly recounted in his Remininscences that Nancy, upon seeing his long, flowing locks of blond hair, mistook him for a girl and shouted out loud, "Look at that girl dressed in boy's clothes!" In typical flamboyant Michael Kelly fashion, he turned to her with a flourish and replied, "You are mistaken, Miss, for I am a very proper he animal and quite at your service!" He stated that the incident embarked them upon a friendship that lasted their entire lives. It was actually Kelly who first called Ann Storace,"Nancy" and it became the name that history remembered her by. Kelly later traveled with his friend, Nancy Storace, to Vienna in January of 1783 where they had been hired as premiere singers in Emperor Joseph II's brand new Italian Opera Company. It was during their time in Vienna that they met and befriended Wolfgang Mozart and later starred in his comic opera, The Marriage of Figaro. In February of 1787, the Storaces and Kelly returned together to London, where they finished out the rest of their careers together in London's theaters and opera houses in Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

In Mozart legend, Kelly was known as the creator of the part of the "stuttering judge" in The Marriage of Figaro, named Don Curzio. Kelly recounted that he and Mozart actually had words over his giving the judge a stutter. Mozart objected, fearing that it took away from the music. However, Kelly won the argument because of the audience's favorable response to the hilarious effect, and so it stayed. Consequently, the part of Don Curzio has always been played with a stutter.

Kelly played a double role in Figaro. In addition to the stuttering Don Curzio, he also played the lecherous music instructor, Don Basilio. The following is a performance of Basilio's rarely performed Act IV aria, "In quegl'anni, in cui val poco".

© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

The Research Behind the "So Faithful a Heart" Novel Series

My Anna Storace Website was created as a companion website for my Master's thesis/project on Anna "Nancy" Storace in 2000. This contains the results of the research I did on her at that time. This was the project that launched the 8 additional years of research that I put in to create my novel series entitled, So Faithful a Heart.

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