SERVANTS, MASTERS and ROGUES

Music critic Hugo Belcher, in twenty-first century London, is a charming rogue who, forever short of money, plans to marry a wealthy young heiress. Meanwhile, Sandra Grisewood, a bright working-class girl, moves to London where she hopes one day to realise her dream of becoming an opera singer. Born in eighteenth-century Prague, music teacher Antonin Vasylicek, another rogue and charmer, flees to England to evade his creditors and escape a scandal. Their separate lives are, however, related in various ways, not least the discovery of the score of an opera, based on Carlo Goldoni's comic play 'The Servant of Two Masters', which a renowned musicologist believes could be a lost Mozart opera. There is an element of truth which provided the inspiration for this book, namely that Mozart was indeed writing or intending to write a German opera based on Goldoni's play, for which a letter to his father dated 5 February 1783 provides evidence, but no score has ever come to light.