LEONARDO'S SWANS

With her pretty face and pretty manners, Isabella doesn't envy her tomboyish sister, Beatrice, until she meets Beatrice's cultured, debonair betrothed, Ludovico. Despite her own happy marriage, Isabella carries on a shameless flirtation with Ludovico, patron to genius Leonardo da Vinci. Kathe Mazur adds just the right spices of innuendo and intrigue to the Italian court of the fifteenth century, affirming it as a "snake pit of contrivances." With only slight vocal changes, Mazur reveals a mountain of hidden political agendas, and her reading of Leonardo's journals is especially vivid. She convinces listeners of Isabella's obsession to have da Vinci paint her portrait, whatever the cost, although in reality neither sister was immortalized by the Master. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 06]