5 There followed in the pile a number of photographs well known to him of Maman in various of the roles she had performed in the years before her marriage, carefully composed publicity shots taken against a painted backdrop of Grecian tombs and arbors. La BohŽme, Turandot, Latraviata. Names he'd been entranced by as a child. Maman at seventeen, barely distinguishable behind crepe veils and sequins in a large-scale cast portrait fo r A’da. (p 27)

Dora Toula, my great-grandmother and one of two inspirations for Voxlauer's reclusive mother, in one of the Hosenrollen, or Ôtrouser roles', with which she had considerable success before leaving the stage to get married. At the height of her career she performed for three seasons with the Leipzig city opera, at that time the third most prestigious opera house in Germany. Dora was a Viennese by birth and mourned the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich deeply.

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