Her quest takes her beyond the cloister walls into the complex tapestry of Venetian society from the impoverished alleyways of the Jewish Ghetto to a masked ball in the company of a king from the passionate communal life of adolescent girls competing for their maestro's favor to the larger-than-life world of music and spectacle that kept the citizens of a dying republic in thrall. In this world, where for fully half the year the entire city is masked and cloaked in the anonymity of Carnival, nothing is as it appears to be.Ī virtuoso performance in the tradition of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vivaldi's Virgins is a f. In 18th century Venice, Anna Maria dal Violin has lived her entire life in the orphanage where Antonio Vivaldi is maestro and composer. Like most of the other girls, all elite musicians, she was abandoned at the Ospidale de la Pieta as an infant. Maria exhibits great talent – even genius – on the violin and is personally tutored by the maestro himself. Still, she cannot rest until she finds out the truth of her parentage, and her continued efforts in this regard keep her from being promoted to the highest ranks within the cloister. Told by Maria in flashback, the story takes the reader from the Jewish Ghetto to the fabulous palaces of the nobility, from a picnic on a remote island to a masked ball in the company of a king. This sounds like a really interesting book. I studied music for many years and wanted to immerse myself in the world of the composer. The story is slow to take off and I kept waiting for something to happen. At one point I realized I was more than half-way through and still the plot was barely moving forward.

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