Unfortunately for them, her grasping relatives forced a separation, but Max has never forgiven or forgotten Tessa, following her career with a mixture of interest and bitterness as La Divina’s countless affairs with illustrious men – she is even rumoured to have been the mistress of Bonaparte himself – are all reported with salacious glee in the newspapers and scandal sheets. Now Viscount Allerton, Max Hawthorne fell in love with Tessa when he was a youth of nineteen and they were both living in Oporto over a decade earlier.
With little left of value to sell and a small entourage to support (including her vocal coach and her maid) Tessa hopes desperately that her finances will hold out.
Because of this, she failed to see the loopholes in the contract she has signed to perform at London’s premier opera house, the Tavistock Theatre, which dictates that she will not be paid until the end of the season. She now realises the mistake she made in letting him handle her entire career, from deciding where she would sing to what she would be paid not only was he cheating her, he has left her completely ignorant of how to negotiate a good deal. Her marriage was tempestuous and not at all happy in the later years and to her consternation, Foscari’s death has left her in a very precarious financial position.
Following an unhappy love affair when she was just seventeen, she married Domenico Foscari, a dynamic impresario who turned her from a good singer into a great one from someone worthy of gracing the stages of provincial opera houses to the most sought after diva in the world – La Divina. Theresa Foscari – born Tessa Birkett – is half English but hasn’t set foot in the country for well over a decade. Nineteenth century opera and theatre are things that have long been of particular interest to me, and some of the best things about Secrets of a Soprano are undoubtedly the accuracy and richness of the historical background and the insight into the life and habits of a famous singer that form the backdrop to the central love story. As a musician and opera lover, the story and background to this new novel from Miranda Neville are right up my street.
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