Death at La Fenice
by Leon, Donna (1942- )
pub by Harper Torch, NY - 1992 -   - isbn 0-06-104337-0 - LCCN 92- - - 278 pages - -
This is the first of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series of crime novels.
Commissario Burnetti is an upper middle level investigator of the Questura, a police organization in Italian Venice.
      Maestro Wellauer, the most fameous and distinguished conductor of the age is found dead in his dressing room
two thirds of the way through the presentation of the opera LaTraviata.
A reserve conductor filled in for the rest of the performance.
A doctor is called from the audience and officially determines that Wellauer is dead, and
from the smell of the coffee cup spilled she suspects that he died of cyanide poisoning.
The police are called and Comissario Brunetti arrives with others.
The investigation is far and wide as maestro Wellauer was from Germany and conducted operas in Germany and many places in Italy for over 60 years.
Wellauer was conducting before WWII and in the far past had conducted operas attended by Hitler and Mussolini.
One learns some things about how operas are put together and conducted,
and the difference between good and bad conducting, more from the musicians than the general public.
That worries some and he is suspected of being too supportive of that side of WWII politics.
He is on his 4th wife, who is much younger.
All of the investigation is worth it, and deeper truths are discovered and acted upon at the conclusion.
This is an good read, preferred over the other Donna Leon mysteries written and published much later.

~2023_03_21~

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