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Book Review: Kate O'Brien, As Music and Splendour

reviewed by anna battista

Published in 1958 and out of print for quite a few years, As Music and Splendour has recently been republished by Penguin with a specially commissioned introduction by Anne Enright. The novel is remarkable, and it proves Kate O'Brien definitely had a talent for portraying strong female characters.

The plot follows the coming of age of two young women, Rose Lennane and Clare Halvey. Both are sent from their home country, Ireland, to Paris and then to Rome to study singing. Opera connoisseurs say that a singer is really excellent when his or her voice is sustained by the body, in a nutshell, when there is a special and final communion between one's body and voice. This is what Rose and Clare eventually achieve: the former, re-christened Rosa d'Irlanda manages to sing at Milan's La Scala, becoming an assoluta, while Clare – who, though she is equally talented, is not as successful as her friend - concentrates on studying sacred music.

Though both are determined in pursuing their studies and in making their families at home happy, they get distracted by love: Rose falls in love with French tenor René, and then abandons him for Italian aristocrat Antonio, whose family expects him to enter an arranged marriage; Clare, loved and admired by Thomas, a Welshman and music conductor, has a lesbian relationship with Spanish mezzo-soprano Luisa Carriaga. Love is inevitable – after all, opera singers should be able to know what the pain it causes is made of, if they want to sing Verdi in an accomplished way - and ethereal like an opera aria. The problem for the two young characters is that they are still under the influence of their traditions. Rose has indeed Catholic scruples, Clare is tormented by her lesbian relationship, and these are themes Kate O'Brien explored previously in The Ante-Room (1934), a novel torn between love and Catholic conscience, and Mary Lavelle (1936), which featured a lesbian subplot.

As Music and Splendour has a European flavour: its author follows the main characters from Ireland to France and across Italy, and this reflects the fact that, in her life, O'Brien travelled extensively, studied French and Spanish and had an excellent understanding of opera, apart from having achieved an excellent understanding of what love, separation and loss mean. Beautifully written, this is a highly readable novel, O'Brien displays in it an excellent attention to detail, especially when she describes her characters, all finely delineated, even minor ones such as the maestro Signor Giacomo and his wife Signora Vittoria, Spanish musician Iago Duarte, failed priest Paddy Flynn and the mysterious French nun Mère Marie.

As Music and Splendour will definitely have you dreaming and sighing with nostalgia at the world of nineteen-century Italian opera, but will also have you pondering the various epiphanies love can have in a man or a woman's life.

{www.penguin.co.uk}


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