VIENNA NOCTURNE

Kate Reading's well-modulated voice works well in this story of the eighteenth-century music scene in Europe--from London to Naples and Venice. Reading captures the emotions of a young woman whose personal life is becoming ever more complicated even as her professional life is at its zenith. For one thing, she's in love with Mozart--who is married. Although Reading's narration is well done as a whole, the absence of any singing in an audiobook about a revered star of opera creates a noticeable vacuum. This is a failing not of the production, but of the source material; Shotwell's novel doesn't include any snippets of song, so Reading cannot include them either. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2014]