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Warrender Saga #4
The Curtain Rises
Nicola was looking forward to marrying violinst Brian when he came back from his tour of Canada. However Brian became ill and died suddenly. Months later Nicola had the opportunity to meet Brian's boss Julian a world famous conductor. Nicola finds that she likes Julian very much but is later dismayed to find that Julian is instrumental in Brian's death. Her job as secretary to a world-famous opera singer brought her into contact with a lot of interesting people -- but it also threw her into the company of the one man in the world she had cause to hate! Can she ever forget and forgive?
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Mary Burchell
165 books85 followersIda Cook was born on 1904 at 37 Croft Avenue, Sunderland, England. With her eldest sister Mary Louise Cook (1901), she attending the Duchess' School in Alnwick. Later the sisters took civil service jobs in London, and developed a passionate interest in opera. The sisters helped 29 jews to escape from the Nazis, funded mainly by Ida's writing. In 1965, the Cook sisters were honored as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel.
As Mary Burchell, she published more than 125 romance novels by Mills & Boon since 1936. She also wrote some western novels as James Keene in collaboration with the author Will Cook (aka Frank Peace). In 1950, Ida Cook wrote her autobiography: "We followed our stars". She helped to found the Romantic Novelists' Association, and was its president from 1966 to her death on December 22, 1986.
As Mary Burchell, she published more than 125 romance novels by Mills & Boon since 1936. She also wrote some western novels as James Keene in collaboration with the author Will Cook (aka Frank Peace). In 1950, Ida Cook wrote her autobiography: "We followed our stars". She helped to found the Romantic Novelists' Association, and was its president from 1966 to her death on December 22, 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
May 4, 2018
Nicola Denby, a secretary and an only child, dated a viola player, Brian Coverdale. His goal was to be the greatest orchestral musician in the world. He planned to tour with Julian Evett, a brilliant young Canadian conductor. But before he left, he approached Nicola with the intension to marry her upon his return. She was thrilled. Then unexpectedly, while overseas, Brian passed away from pneumonia.
Devastated, Nicola’s father told her he thought it best if she quit her current job and applied for the position of secretary/companion with her aunt, Gina Torelli. She was a world-famous opera singer. This would give Nicola the opportunity to take her mind off her sadness and to travel.
She earned the post, acknowledged Gina’s prima donna attitude and met Julian Evett. They have a platonic dinner together so Nicola can find out more of Brian’s last days after which her aunt inferred Julian might be hiding something. And, believe it of not, this all happens in the first chapter!
What happened next was perplexing, funny, irritating and amusing. I. Liked. Julian. Ms. Burchell wrote Gina’s character in a realistic fashion; I expected the opera singer’s bi-polarish emotions. Nicola was simply naive and young.
~~~~~
Nicola now despised the conductor because of her belief that he was at the center of Brian’s death. And, as is usual with a romance, they find themselves in each other’s company. Time and time again. The back and forth banter with her photo? Priceless. Their burgeoning relationship: in a way, and I know I am taking liberties here, Julian reminded me of the quiet but assertive heroes found in Betty Neels’ romances. Nicola and the little misunderstandings? They were there, too. Very Neelish.
This is the fourth story in the Warrender series; I failed to read the first three. Oscar and Althea -from the first story- were present in The Curtain Rises and I had no problem following along with their marriage. I am not sure if any of the other characters were involved in the previous romances but this story could be read as a standalone.
I am stealing a quote from Josh’s review because what he said was spot-on. ’It was a nice balance of flawed but essentially decent people motivated by believable misunderstanding.’
Devastated, Nicola’s father told her he thought it best if she quit her current job and applied for the position of secretary/companion with her aunt, Gina Torelli. She was a world-famous opera singer. This would give Nicola the opportunity to take her mind off her sadness and to travel.
She earned the post, acknowledged Gina’s prima donna attitude and met Julian Evett. They have a platonic dinner together so Nicola can find out more of Brian’s last days after which her aunt inferred Julian might be hiding something. And, believe it of not, this all happens in the first chapter!
What happened next was perplexing, funny, irritating and amusing. I. Liked. Julian. Ms. Burchell wrote Gina’s character in a realistic fashion; I expected the opera singer’s bi-polarish emotions. Nicola was simply naive and young.
~~~~~
Nicola now despised the conductor because of her belief that he was at the center of Brian’s death. And, as is usual with a romance, they find themselves in each other’s company. Time and time again. The back and forth banter with her photo? Priceless. Their burgeoning relationship: in a way, and I know I am taking liberties here, Julian reminded me of the quiet but assertive heroes found in Betty Neels’ romances. Nicola and the little misunderstandings? They were there, too. Very Neelish.
This is the fourth story in the Warrender series; I failed to read the first three. Oscar and Althea -from the first story- were present in The Curtain Rises and I had no problem following along with their marriage. I am not sure if any of the other characters were involved in the previous romances but this story could be read as a standalone.
I am stealing a quote from Josh’s review because what he said was spot-on. ’It was a nice balance of flawed but essentially decent people motivated by believable misunderstanding.’
February 18, 2016
This is the fourth story in the Warrender series and a re-read for me. Oddly enough, what I remembered most about this story was the operatic soprano aunt of the heroine - and I found her stealing scenes yet again. However, the character who pulled my heartstrings was the up-and-coming conductor hero. He is the first beta hero of the series and everything he did and endured was for the unsuspecting heroine.
The story opens with our secretary heroine who is still grieving the death of her almost-fiance, a virtuoso viola player. Her father suggests she help her operatic soprano diva extraordinaire aunt as a secretary/companion. The heroine had never met her aunt by marriage because she spent most of her time abroad, but now she is back in England from Canada for a series of concerts, while her husband recuperates from an illness. Heroine is captivated by the diva (who is a contemporary of the soprano OW in Oscar Warrender's life) and is willing to be prejudiced against the new conductor, just because her aunt is. When she meets the hero, she is a little cool until she realizes he was conducting her fiance in Canada when he died. They meet so the heroine can hear about fiance's final days and the hero is very sweet to her. Hero seems to know a lot about her from what the fiance told him.
I was really touched by how much the hero was willing to put up with for the heroine's sake and how she finally broke him. The aunt is wonderful here and shows great sensitivity and wisdom. The hero's words to her are lovely and show what kind of man he really is.
The story opens with our secretary heroine who is still grieving the death of her almost-fiance, a virtuoso viola player. Her father suggests she help her operatic soprano diva extraordinaire aunt as a secretary/companion. The heroine had never met her aunt by marriage because she spent most of her time abroad, but now she is back in England from Canada for a series of concerts, while her husband recuperates from an illness. Heroine is captivated by the diva (who is a contemporary of the soprano OW in Oscar Warrender's life) and is willing to be prejudiced against the new conductor, just because her aunt is. When she meets the hero, she is a little cool until she realizes he was conducting her fiance in Canada when he died. They meet so the heroine can hear about fiance's final days and the hero is very sweet to her. Hero seems to know a lot about her from what the fiance told him.
I was really touched by how much the hero was willing to put up with for the heroine's sake and how she finally broke him. The aunt is wonderful here and shows great sensitivity and wisdom. The hero's words to her are lovely and show what kind of man he really is.
October 22, 2013
Another great edition to the Warrender series. I must say MB certainly knows the world of opera. This story had an added dimension of a mystery/thriller with the unanticipated death of a young virtuoso. What really happened on that tour in Canada? Who was to blame? Where do you draw the line of accountability? What role did evil OW play?
This one was also fun, because one of the main characters is the epitome of Diva, and her antics were priceless. Of course Anthea and Oscar also have a starring role. It was so nice to see Oscar finally get his comeuppance as Anthea wraps him around her little finger.
Definitely a delightful 4.5 star read for me!
This one was also fun, because one of the main characters is the epitome of Diva, and her antics were priceless. Of course Anthea and Oscar also have a starring role. It was so nice to see Oscar finally get his comeuppance as Anthea wraps him around her little finger.
Definitely a delightful 4.5 star read for me!
March 25, 2023
Oh, this book was designed in a lab for ME. Completely obvious misunderstanding but with all the suppressed feelings and at the end of the day it's just a book about people doing their jobs and falling in love and yes. This is my favorite so far.
July 16, 2025
B / 4 stars. Read for the Back in My Day prompt in the 2025 TBR Challenge.
When you’re as old as I am, a prompt like “back in my day” isn’t as easy to fulfil as it might seem. Yes, it offers a lot of scope, but that scope also makes it difficult to choose a book to fit, and for the same reason - too many “my day”s over too many decades! After a lot of thought and much too-ing and fro-ing through my Kindle library, I decided to return to the Warrender Saga by Mary Burchell – a thirteen-book series set in the world of classical music written in the 1960s and 1970s. Classical music is probably my first love (I discovered Beethoven long before I discovered romance novels!), and Ms. Burchell’s way of writing about the world of music and musicians resonates very strongly with me.
The daughter of a country doctor, Nicola Denby moved to London to work as a secretary, where she met and fell in love with Brian Coverdale, a hugely talented viola player poised on the brink of a career as a soloist. They've been seeing each other for a few months when they agree to talk about planning a future together when Brian returns from the Canadian tour he's about to embark upon. Sadly, that never happens because Brian doesn't return. He's taken seriously ill and dies while in Canada.
The Curtain Rises (book four in the series) returns readers to the operatic world as a grieving Nicola takes up a position as personal secretary to her aunt-by-marriage, Gina Torelli, one of the world’s foremost operatic sopranos. La Torelli has been living abroad for the past few years and is about to make a much-heralded return to the London concert stage and to Covent Garden. With her Festival Hall concert fast approaching, she is having a hissy fit about the fact that her favourite conductor, Oscar Warrender, is not going to be conducting for her because he has another engagement. Her agent informs her that instead, the orchestra will be in the capable hands of Julian Evers, a rising star of whom Warrender speaks highly and who, it turns out, was the conductor of the orchestra Brian had been touring with. Her aunt is not happy, and when she meets Evers for the first time, she tries to lord it over him, but Nicola quickly sees that behind Evers’ quiet and charming manner lies a backbone of steel. Nicola likes him immediately; he’s well able to deal with her aunt’s fits of diva-ish behaviour and is clearly a very hard-working and talented musician. As Nicola is showing Julian out at the end of the meeting, he mentions to her that although they’ve never met, he knows her face; she must be the girl in the photograph Brian had shown him and had spoken of so often. Eager to hear something – anything – of the man she’d loved who had died so far away, Nicola asks Julian if he’d be willing to talk to her about Brian; he agrees and they arrange to meet for dinner that evening.
Julian clearly thought highly of Brian’s musical talent and it comforts Nicola to hear it, but then they move on to other subjects and Nicola is a little surprised to find herself enjoying Julian’s company a great deal. But the next day, a devastating comment from her aunt to the effect that Julian was responsible for Brian’s death changes everything.
The story is that Brian was unwell, but that Julian didn’t care and pushed him so hard into performing that he inadvertantly caused Brian’s death from pneumonia. Nicola makes sure that Julian knows that she knows the truth and makes a point of reminding him of what he did at every available opportunity. I will admit that she sometimes seems overly cruel – especially as the author makes it very clear that Julian is carrying a lot of guilt over what happened and that he is genuinely smitten with Nicola – and that her resentment and insistence on blaming Julian is perhaps a little melodramatic.
But its also clear that Nicola is as attracted to Julian as strongly as he is to her, and that she is struggling with guilt because of it. She is essentially fighting her growing feelings for a man who has treated her with nothing but kindness and affection by trying to actively hate him for something her rational mind knows wasn’t something he could have had any control over.
As in the other books in this series (and as in so many of the romances written in the sixties and seventies), the story is told only from the heroine’s perspective, so the hero can seem like a secondary character. Yet for all that, Julian is likeable and sympathetic - the first beta hero of the series – and he willingly puts up with a lot for Nicola’s sake, prepared to endure her dislike if it means she will not be hurt further. And Nicola is flawed but emotionally believable as her feelings for Julian see-saw back and forth until she can no longer avoid facing the truth of them. I loved the moment when she finally admits to herself that she loves him – the way it’s tied into her seeing Julian as both a man and an artist is masterful:
As she watched that thin, sensitive, intensely lively face in the light from the conductor’s desk it seemed to Nicola that she was seeing him fully for the first time. Here was the artist as well as the man, not only directing a great work, but living it and loving it as though he and it were a part of each other.
I have to say, though, that the real highlight of The Curtain Rises is the character of Gina Torelli, who is so brilliantly written that she simply leaps off the page. She’s everything you’d expect a diva to be – arrogant, temperamental, vain and self-absorbed – but she’s also kind, funny, generous, sharply intelligent, self-aware – and totally unique. Operatic divas are so often written as one-note characters, dramatic, selfish and cruel, but Torelli is fully three-dimensional and very real. I understand she makes guest appearances in some of the other books in the series, so I’ll definitely be on the look-out for those!
Once again, Mary Burchell’s love for and understanding of music and musicians – and opera especially - absolutely shines through in this story and is one of the things that keeps me coming back to these books. I’ve yet to find another author who writes about classical music with the same amount of love and knowledge.
The Curtain Rises was a quick but enjoyable read, and while the romance is tame by today’s standards, the strength of the characterisation and the skill with which the author depicts the heroine’s emotional conflict and emotional honesty makes it well worth reading.
Note: I’m calling this an historical romance, even though it would have been a contemporary when it was first published, because calling it a contemporary in 2025 doesn’t feel like a good fit.
When you’re as old as I am, a prompt like “back in my day” isn’t as easy to fulfil as it might seem. Yes, it offers a lot of scope, but that scope also makes it difficult to choose a book to fit, and for the same reason - too many “my day”s over too many decades! After a lot of thought and much too-ing and fro-ing through my Kindle library, I decided to return to the Warrender Saga by Mary Burchell – a thirteen-book series set in the world of classical music written in the 1960s and 1970s. Classical music is probably my first love (I discovered Beethoven long before I discovered romance novels!), and Ms. Burchell’s way of writing about the world of music and musicians resonates very strongly with me.
The daughter of a country doctor, Nicola Denby moved to London to work as a secretary, where she met and fell in love with Brian Coverdale, a hugely talented viola player poised on the brink of a career as a soloist. They've been seeing each other for a few months when they agree to talk about planning a future together when Brian returns from the Canadian tour he's about to embark upon. Sadly, that never happens because Brian doesn't return. He's taken seriously ill and dies while in Canada.
The Curtain Rises (book four in the series) returns readers to the operatic world as a grieving Nicola takes up a position as personal secretary to her aunt-by-marriage, Gina Torelli, one of the world’s foremost operatic sopranos. La Torelli has been living abroad for the past few years and is about to make a much-heralded return to the London concert stage and to Covent Garden. With her Festival Hall concert fast approaching, she is having a hissy fit about the fact that her favourite conductor, Oscar Warrender, is not going to be conducting for her because he has another engagement. Her agent informs her that instead, the orchestra will be in the capable hands of Julian Evers, a rising star of whom Warrender speaks highly and who, it turns out, was the conductor of the orchestra Brian had been touring with. Her aunt is not happy, and when she meets Evers for the first time, she tries to lord it over him, but Nicola quickly sees that behind Evers’ quiet and charming manner lies a backbone of steel. Nicola likes him immediately; he’s well able to deal with her aunt’s fits of diva-ish behaviour and is clearly a very hard-working and talented musician. As Nicola is showing Julian out at the end of the meeting, he mentions to her that although they’ve never met, he knows her face; she must be the girl in the photograph Brian had shown him and had spoken of so often. Eager to hear something – anything – of the man she’d loved who had died so far away, Nicola asks Julian if he’d be willing to talk to her about Brian; he agrees and they arrange to meet for dinner that evening.
Julian clearly thought highly of Brian’s musical talent and it comforts Nicola to hear it, but then they move on to other subjects and Nicola is a little surprised to find herself enjoying Julian’s company a great deal. But the next day, a devastating comment from her aunt to the effect that Julian was responsible for Brian’s death changes everything.
The story is that Brian was unwell, but that Julian didn’t care and pushed him so hard into performing that he inadvertantly caused Brian’s death from pneumonia. Nicola makes sure that Julian knows that she knows the truth and makes a point of reminding him of what he did at every available opportunity. I will admit that she sometimes seems overly cruel – especially as the author makes it very clear that Julian is carrying a lot of guilt over what happened and that he is genuinely smitten with Nicola – and that her resentment and insistence on blaming Julian is perhaps a little melodramatic.
But its also clear that Nicola is as attracted to Julian as strongly as he is to her, and that she is struggling with guilt because of it. She is essentially fighting her growing feelings for a man who has treated her with nothing but kindness and affection by trying to actively hate him for something her rational mind knows wasn’t something he could have had any control over.
As in the other books in this series (and as in so many of the romances written in the sixties and seventies), the story is told only from the heroine’s perspective, so the hero can seem like a secondary character. Yet for all that, Julian is likeable and sympathetic - the first beta hero of the series – and he willingly puts up with a lot for Nicola’s sake, prepared to endure her dislike if it means she will not be hurt further. And Nicola is flawed but emotionally believable as her feelings for Julian see-saw back and forth until she can no longer avoid facing the truth of them. I loved the moment when she finally admits to herself that she loves him – the way it’s tied into her seeing Julian as both a man and an artist is masterful:
As she watched that thin, sensitive, intensely lively face in the light from the conductor’s desk it seemed to Nicola that she was seeing him fully for the first time. Here was the artist as well as the man, not only directing a great work, but living it and loving it as though he and it were a part of each other.
I have to say, though, that the real highlight of The Curtain Rises is the character of Gina Torelli, who is so brilliantly written that she simply leaps off the page. She’s everything you’d expect a diva to be – arrogant, temperamental, vain and self-absorbed – but she’s also kind, funny, generous, sharply intelligent, self-aware – and totally unique. Operatic divas are so often written as one-note characters, dramatic, selfish and cruel, but Torelli is fully three-dimensional and very real. I understand she makes guest appearances in some of the other books in the series, so I’ll definitely be on the look-out for those!
Once again, Mary Burchell’s love for and understanding of music and musicians – and opera especially - absolutely shines through in this story and is one of the things that keeps me coming back to these books. I’ve yet to find another author who writes about classical music with the same amount of love and knowledge.
The Curtain Rises was a quick but enjoyable read, and while the romance is tame by today’s standards, the strength of the characterisation and the skill with which the author depicts the heroine’s emotional conflict and emotional honesty makes it well worth reading.
Note: I’m calling this an historical romance, even though it would have been a contemporary when it was first published, because calling it a contemporary in 2025 doesn’t feel like a good fit.
January 16, 2015
It would have been a 5 star if Nicola wasn't so blind when it came to Brian. The person who stole the scenes in this book was Torelli, the aunt. She was the perfect character, she was arrogant and selfish but sweet and loyal in her own way... the perfect diva.
August 27, 2022
Sometimes I want to read a series because Im just so in love w the couple from the first book. In this case its Oscar and Anthea. However they only make small cameo appearances in this book…
This was eventually a lovely story. At first I was annoyed at the insistence of the heroine on knowing all about the last days of her dead fiance and she hounds the Hero and the (unknown to her) OW for details.
However, when I did get around to thinking about it, then, I imagine the author was right all along in her assessment. If I had lost my fiancé, in a different country, was still heartbroken and grieving, maybe I also would have been desperately seeking every detail of his last days. So I did start understanding her motivations and was more sympathetic to her.
I could also understand her abrupt fluctuations of emotion when she suddenly hates the Hero because she thinks he inadvertently caused her fiancé’s death.
I felt sorry for the poor Hero, who I could see was smitten with her from the start (he kept her photo) and who was so haunted over his involvement with the fiancé. This Hero is very different. He isn’t dominant like Oscar Warrender, although he is a gifted conductor as well. This Hero is more sensitive and emotional so he feels all the accusations of the heroine so deeply.
This was a way more angsty read, but it ends on a high note. I loved how the Hero thanks the aunt of the heroine in the end, saying the heroine was his gift and he would have been half a man without her.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
This was eventually a lovely story. At first I was annoyed at the insistence of the heroine on knowing all about the last days of her dead fiance and she hounds the Hero and the (unknown to her) OW for details.
However, when I did get around to thinking about it, then, I imagine the author was right all along in her assessment. If I had lost my fiancé, in a different country, was still heartbroken and grieving, maybe I also would have been desperately seeking every detail of his last days. So I did start understanding her motivations and was more sympathetic to her.
I could also understand her abrupt fluctuations of emotion when she suddenly hates the Hero because she thinks he inadvertently caused her fiancé’s death.
I felt sorry for the poor Hero, who I could see was smitten with her from the start (he kept her photo) and who was so haunted over his involvement with the fiancé. This Hero is very different. He isn’t dominant like Oscar Warrender, although he is a gifted conductor as well. This Hero is more sensitive and emotional so he feels all the accusations of the heroine so deeply.
This was a way more angsty read, but it ends on a high note. I loved how the Hero thanks the aunt of the heroine in the end, saying the heroine was his gift and he would have been half a man without her.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2019
The problem with this book, although a very enjoyable read, is that a month after reading it, I couldn't even remember the name of the heroine (Nicola, as it turns out) or the hero (Julian).
The character I did remember is the wonderfully vivacious and temperamental operatic primadonna aunt, Gina Torelli, one of the best-drawn of all Mary Burchell's characters. She is a living, breathing entity who leaps right out of the page. Her own relationship with her husband, Nicola's Uncle Peter, is far more romantic and poignant and vivid than the rather colourless, more-rocky-than-romantic situation between Nicola and Julian.
Gina is also wonderfully generous and sensitive to other people's affairs, and gloriously puts Oscar Warrender firmly in his place. She also sorts out the conflict between Nicola and conductor Julian: Julian forced Nicola's fiancé Brian to do a performance in Canada, Brian had pneumonia and later died, so Nicola blames Julian for his death. However as it turns out, Brian was actually having an affair with bitchy soprano Michele Laraut. Who (annoyingly typical in a Mary Burchell novel) never really gets her comeuppance.
Anyway I highly recommend reading this book for Gina alone, as she is such a hugely enjoyable character. She also pops up in later instalments in the Warrender series.
The character I did remember is the wonderfully vivacious and temperamental operatic primadonna aunt, Gina Torelli, one of the best-drawn of all Mary Burchell's characters. She is a living, breathing entity who leaps right out of the page. Her own relationship with her husband, Nicola's Uncle Peter, is far more romantic and poignant and vivid than the rather colourless, more-rocky-than-romantic situation between Nicola and Julian.
Nicola moved towards the door, but then she was held there for a moment by the sheer fascination of the varied expressions which chased each other across her aunt’s face. She was everything by turns, from a romantically excited girl to a fretfully complaining middle-aged woman, and if she had been projecting it all to the last row of the gallery she could not have been more telling.
"She loves him," Nicola thought, as she slipped away out of the room. "She really loves him very much." And the discovery both touched and surprised her.
Gina is also wonderfully generous and sensitive to other people's affairs, and gloriously puts Oscar Warrender firmly in his place. She also sorts out the conflict between Nicola and conductor Julian: Julian forced Nicola's fiancé Brian to do a performance in Canada, Brian had pneumonia and later died, so Nicola blames Julian for his death. However as it turns out, Brian was actually having an affair with bitchy soprano Michele Laraut. Who (annoyingly typical in a Mary Burchell novel) never really gets her comeuppance.
Anyway I highly recommend reading this book for Gina alone, as she is such a hugely enjoyable character. She also pops up in later instalments in the Warrender series.
April 23, 2023
Great story. Felt bad for the H in this one. Nicest guy who took a lot of shit from the h
April 16, 2023
Gina Torelli makes the most eccentric fairy godmother
Initially I was intrigued by the slight mystery indicated in the blurb.
Nicola loses her fiancee while he is on tour and joins on as a secretary to her aunt, a famous opera singer Gina Torelli. Through this she meets Julian Evett, an upcoming conductor who is apparently responsible for her fiancé's death.
There's quite a bit of cruelty on Nicolas side towards Julian, who, since this is a romance, didn't completely deserve it. Nicola herself came across as slavishly loyal, blind to the faults of people she loved and overly critical of Julian. I wasn't a fan of her behavior tbh. But I've found that in this author's books I always seem to dislike one of the main characters.
It has a nice pat happy ending though so 3 stars it is.
Please like if you found this review helpful.
Initially I was intrigued by the slight mystery indicated in the blurb.
Nicola loses her fiancee while he is on tour and joins on as a secretary to her aunt, a famous opera singer Gina Torelli. Through this she meets Julian Evett, an upcoming conductor who is apparently responsible for her fiancé's death.
There's quite a bit of cruelty on Nicolas side towards Julian, who, since this is a romance, didn't completely deserve it. Nicola herself came across as slavishly loyal, blind to the faults of people she loved and overly critical of Julian. I wasn't a fan of her behavior tbh. But I've found that in this author's books I always seem to dislike one of the main characters.
It has a nice pat happy ending though so 3 stars it is.
Please like if you found this review helpful.
March 30, 2023
If it had been a longer book, I would have said it was too angsty for me, but it was pretty compelling while in the grip of Mary Burchell’s storytelling ability. Thank goodness for Torelli, though. She may be a prima donna but she’s also the ONLY thing keeping this book on track. I almost added another star to my rating just for her 😂
Warrender’s arrogant eyebrows jerked up and he said drily, ‘Is that all the explanation I get?’
‘I’m afraid — ’ began Julian.
But Torelli said, ‘No, of course not. They’re in love. Can’t you see that for yourself, Oscar? They went through more than the usual degrees of idiocy before finding it out, though.”
Every romance needs a Torelli.
Warrender’s arrogant eyebrows jerked up and he said drily, ‘Is that all the explanation I get?’
‘I’m afraid — ’ began Julian.
But Torelli said, ‘No, of course not. They’re in love. Can’t you see that for yourself, Oscar? They went through more than the usual degrees of idiocy before finding it out, though.”
Every romance needs a Torelli.
March 23, 2023
Not to be repetitive but I'm really enjoying this series!
December 1, 2017
Miss Bates ran a gamut of reactions to Mary Burchell’s Warrender Saga. She adored the first and loathed (DNF-ed) the second and third. And yet, the first, A Song Begins, was so good, she get kept trying to read one after another. Well, fourth time’s a charm because The Curtain Rises is masterful. There is much in it that Miss Bates usually dislikes, but it totally totally swept her away with its emotional intelligence. To set the scene for MissB’s reader: Nicola Denby, possessed of looks, sound judgement and reasoning, and a doting, country-life-middle-class-respectability English family, goes off to London to earn her living as a secretary. Family connections see her become assistant to her prima donna aunt (who must never be referred to as “Aunt”) Gina Torelli (Torelli is a fascinatingly machinating character: a mercurial, temperamental fairy god-mother, vain and sharply intelligent, one of romance’s greatest secondary characters). Nicola was engaged to a brilliant viola player, Brian Coverdale. When Brian was on tour in Canada, he took ill and yet rushed to Toronto from Montreal at the conductor’s, Julian Evett’s. Brian, sadly, died of some consumptive-like illness and Nicola is left with great enmity towards Julian, who soon turns up to direct her aunt’s Covent Garden production.
In a Betty Neels vein, there is a pernicious “other woman” mixed up in the Brian-Julian conflict. Yet, none of the characters are typical: they’re so well-round and interesting that even the deleterious Michele Laraut “Other Woman” is, maybe not sympathetic, compelling. Other than larger-than-life Gina Torelli (some day Miss Bates would like to write a post on Gina’s wit, wisdom, and whims), Nicola’s emotional growth is the heart of this great romance. Nicola’s changing feelings, her emotional honesty, centre around a complex relationship with Julian Evett. Julian himself is a wonderful non-alpha-posturing cypher: charming, hard-working, engaging, and, as eventually revealed, a man of honour and integrity.
Nicola’s quandary is a painful, emotionally believable one. She is attracted to, and fascinated by, Julian, the man she blames for her beloved’s death:
… the most extraordinary conviction came to Nicola that she wanted, almost more than anything else in the world, to have him hotly deny that and give chapter and verse for his complete vindication. Until that moment she had not known that any of the strangling, bewildering pain had anything to do with anyone but Brian.
Burchell perfectly captures Nicola’s constantly and consistently conflicted feelings for Julian. Nicola’s desire for releasing Julian from guilt appears “extraordinary”. Nicola yearns for Julian’s “vindication”. She experiences “strangling, bewildering pain” and she is honest with herself about it: discerning it is not borne of grief, but a re-awakened heart.
While some readers may grow frustrated with Nicola’s insistence on hating, resenting, and blaming Julian, the flip side is that it speaks of Nicola’s loyalty and fidelity, heroine and hero virtues the genre is very much about. Initially, when Nicola senses sympathetic inkling for Julian, she squelches it, ensuring she shows him only rancour and dislike:
Nicola stared stonily at him. Moved and thrilled though she was by Torelli’s performance, nothing could thaw the ice round her heart when she actually looked again on the the man who was to blame for Brian’s death.
He gave her a curt nod and passed on, while she found she had given him no more than a frozen, blank glance which was half embarrassment and half pure hatred.
It is evidence of Burchell’s genius that she describes Nicola’s “freezing out” of Julian and her feelings for him with what MissB calls “hard” imagery, ice and stone featuring frequently. Burchell builds towards Nicola’s softening towards Julian.
In her emotional journeying, Nicola’s lack of empathy and feeling for Julian turns to rage, something not-love but strong nevertheless. Julian elicits strong, uncontrollable feelings. This is the moment when the hero, or heroine is most likely to lash out at the Other, trying to destroy those burgeoning feelings, to return to the stasis of stone, not-feeling:
‘Perhaps Miss Denby was not tuned in to compassion at that moment.’ Something in his tone stung Nicola into fury. And she raised her eyes and looked full at him then. ‘I find it hard,’ she said deliberately, ‘to feel compassion for anyone responsible for another’s death.’ He jerked his head slightly, as though she had struck him across the face, and she was fiercely glad that he lost colour.
Miss Bates loved our heroine’s rage, Nicola’s emotional-scourging of the Julian. Nicola revels in hurting Julian, fighting her genuine liking for a man who, at least in all her dealings with him, behaves with decorum, good manners, and affection. Nicola’s enjoyment in hurting Julian, in that “loss of colour” as he pales under her censure: how true, how truly equal, as the heroine, active in her feelings, striking at the hero’s greatest vulnerability (his guilt over Brian’s death) exacts one small indication of her power over him.
Nicola’s fever-pitch of anger, like a boiling pot, overflows and, inevitably, bursts into uncontrollable emotion, not hate, not love, not sure, but strong and beyond her:
And now, to her dismay, she found she could not hold back the tears. They silently overflowed and trickled down her cheeks. It was some minutes before he glanced at her in the passing lamplight and saw what was happening. And, with a curiously helpless note in his voice, he said, ‘Oh, lord, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’ ‘And I shouldn’t have spoiled your evening of triumph,’ she replied before she could stop herself. But then she hardened her heart.
The Curtain Rises‘s emotional intensity of love, jealousy, frustration, everything that the heart hides and is ashamed of, experiences temporary relief in this one tiny shared moment of sympathy and apology. The apology, rather than the grovel, where hero and heroine meet as flawed equals is a better indicator of future happiness and a better glimpse into their relationship’s evolution than the baby-filled epilogue (though that has its place too). This is one of the finest moments in romance, simply “I’m sorry” and then the naming of the hurtful act. And then that marvelous turn of phrase, so Biblical and inevitable as the turning away from God, “she hardened her heart.”
Equal to the apology is the recognition. Nicola’s recognition of Julian’s true self is as good as the genre gets:
As she watched that thin, sensitive, intensely lively face in the light from the conductor’s desk it seemed to Nicola that she was seeing him fully for the first time. Here was the artist as well as the man, not only directing a great work, but living it and loving it as though he and it were a part of each other. ‘None of it for his own glory,’ thought Nicola indescribably moved. And then she was almost frightened by the wave of admiration and actual love which swept over her at this realization. One could love him as an artist, she hastily assured herself, while disliking him as a man. But after a minute she recognized that for the piece of hollow nonsense it was. And suddenly she capitulated to something stronger than herself and allowed the complete and simple truth to engulf her. She loved him.
Where does Miss Bates begin with the mastery that is the above paragraph? “Seeing him for the first time”, the recognition of the beloved as he is wholly and fully integrated in her heart as “the artist as well as the man.” Nicola realizes in that moment of Julian’s artistry that key to his goodness as an artist and as a man is in “none of it for his own glory”. There is in Burchell, as Miss Bates has found in Eva Ibbotson, the marriage of a religious sensibility with the romance narrative: the surrender of the heart akin to a surrender to God, “the complete and simple truth.”
With her reading companion, Miss Austen, Miss Bates says that Mary Burchell’s The Curtain Rises is evidence “there is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” Emma. Mary Burchell’s The Curtain Rises was originally published by Mills and Boon in 1969. It was reissued by Endeavour Press in March of this year. This is the edition Miss Bates read. She received an e-ARC from Endeavour Press, via Netgalley.
In a Betty Neels vein, there is a pernicious “other woman” mixed up in the Brian-Julian conflict. Yet, none of the characters are typical: they’re so well-round and interesting that even the deleterious Michele Laraut “Other Woman” is, maybe not sympathetic, compelling. Other than larger-than-life Gina Torelli (some day Miss Bates would like to write a post on Gina’s wit, wisdom, and whims), Nicola’s emotional growth is the heart of this great romance. Nicola’s changing feelings, her emotional honesty, centre around a complex relationship with Julian Evett. Julian himself is a wonderful non-alpha-posturing cypher: charming, hard-working, engaging, and, as eventually revealed, a man of honour and integrity.
Nicola’s quandary is a painful, emotionally believable one. She is attracted to, and fascinated by, Julian, the man she blames for her beloved’s death:
… the most extraordinary conviction came to Nicola that she wanted, almost more than anything else in the world, to have him hotly deny that and give chapter and verse for his complete vindication. Until that moment she had not known that any of the strangling, bewildering pain had anything to do with anyone but Brian.
Burchell perfectly captures Nicola’s constantly and consistently conflicted feelings for Julian. Nicola’s desire for releasing Julian from guilt appears “extraordinary”. Nicola yearns for Julian’s “vindication”. She experiences “strangling, bewildering pain” and she is honest with herself about it: discerning it is not borne of grief, but a re-awakened heart.
While some readers may grow frustrated with Nicola’s insistence on hating, resenting, and blaming Julian, the flip side is that it speaks of Nicola’s loyalty and fidelity, heroine and hero virtues the genre is very much about. Initially, when Nicola senses sympathetic inkling for Julian, she squelches it, ensuring she shows him only rancour and dislike:
Nicola stared stonily at him. Moved and thrilled though she was by Torelli’s performance, nothing could thaw the ice round her heart when she actually looked again on the the man who was to blame for Brian’s death.
He gave her a curt nod and passed on, while she found she had given him no more than a frozen, blank glance which was half embarrassment and half pure hatred.
It is evidence of Burchell’s genius that she describes Nicola’s “freezing out” of Julian and her feelings for him with what MissB calls “hard” imagery, ice and stone featuring frequently. Burchell builds towards Nicola’s softening towards Julian.
In her emotional journeying, Nicola’s lack of empathy and feeling for Julian turns to rage, something not-love but strong nevertheless. Julian elicits strong, uncontrollable feelings. This is the moment when the hero, or heroine is most likely to lash out at the Other, trying to destroy those burgeoning feelings, to return to the stasis of stone, not-feeling:
‘Perhaps Miss Denby was not tuned in to compassion at that moment.’ Something in his tone stung Nicola into fury. And she raised her eyes and looked full at him then. ‘I find it hard,’ she said deliberately, ‘to feel compassion for anyone responsible for another’s death.’ He jerked his head slightly, as though she had struck him across the face, and she was fiercely glad that he lost colour.
Miss Bates loved our heroine’s rage, Nicola’s emotional-scourging of the Julian. Nicola revels in hurting Julian, fighting her genuine liking for a man who, at least in all her dealings with him, behaves with decorum, good manners, and affection. Nicola’s enjoyment in hurting Julian, in that “loss of colour” as he pales under her censure: how true, how truly equal, as the heroine, active in her feelings, striking at the hero’s greatest vulnerability (his guilt over Brian’s death) exacts one small indication of her power over him.
Nicola’s fever-pitch of anger, like a boiling pot, overflows and, inevitably, bursts into uncontrollable emotion, not hate, not love, not sure, but strong and beyond her:
And now, to her dismay, she found she could not hold back the tears. They silently overflowed and trickled down her cheeks. It was some minutes before he glanced at her in the passing lamplight and saw what was happening. And, with a curiously helpless note in his voice, he said, ‘Oh, lord, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’ ‘And I shouldn’t have spoiled your evening of triumph,’ she replied before she could stop herself. But then she hardened her heart.
The Curtain Rises‘s emotional intensity of love, jealousy, frustration, everything that the heart hides and is ashamed of, experiences temporary relief in this one tiny shared moment of sympathy and apology. The apology, rather than the grovel, where hero and heroine meet as flawed equals is a better indicator of future happiness and a better glimpse into their relationship’s evolution than the baby-filled epilogue (though that has its place too). This is one of the finest moments in romance, simply “I’m sorry” and then the naming of the hurtful act. And then that marvelous turn of phrase, so Biblical and inevitable as the turning away from God, “she hardened her heart.”
Equal to the apology is the recognition. Nicola’s recognition of Julian’s true self is as good as the genre gets:
As she watched that thin, sensitive, intensely lively face in the light from the conductor’s desk it seemed to Nicola that she was seeing him fully for the first time. Here was the artist as well as the man, not only directing a great work, but living it and loving it as though he and it were a part of each other. ‘None of it for his own glory,’ thought Nicola indescribably moved. And then she was almost frightened by the wave of admiration and actual love which swept over her at this realization. One could love him as an artist, she hastily assured herself, while disliking him as a man. But after a minute she recognized that for the piece of hollow nonsense it was. And suddenly she capitulated to something stronger than herself and allowed the complete and simple truth to engulf her. She loved him.
Where does Miss Bates begin with the mastery that is the above paragraph? “Seeing him for the first time”, the recognition of the beloved as he is wholly and fully integrated in her heart as “the artist as well as the man.” Nicola realizes in that moment of Julian’s artistry that key to his goodness as an artist and as a man is in “none of it for his own glory”. There is in Burchell, as Miss Bates has found in Eva Ibbotson, the marriage of a religious sensibility with the romance narrative: the surrender of the heart akin to a surrender to God, “the complete and simple truth.”
With her reading companion, Miss Austen, Miss Bates says that Mary Burchell’s The Curtain Rises is evidence “there is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” Emma. Mary Burchell’s The Curtain Rises was originally published by Mills and Boon in 1969. It was reissued by Endeavour Press in March of this year. This is the edition Miss Bates read. She received an e-ARC from Endeavour Press, via Netgalley.
May 9, 2023
They're in love. Can't you see that for yourself, Oscar? They went through more than the usual degrees of idiocy before finding it out, though.
That’s the summary!
That’s the summary!
February 11, 2016
This was my favorite of the Warrender Saga books. Largely because the conflict between the grieving heroine and the sensitive-but-ruthless-about-his-art hero was pretty believable. There was genuine cause for her hatred and genuine reason for him to keep silent about why he didn't really deserve that hatred. It was a nice balance of flawed but essentially decent people motivated by believable misunderstanding. And that's the way I like my romantic conflict.
June 21, 2017
Wonderful vintage read
I enjoyed Mary Burchell's books when they were first issued and just as much the second time around ... Her knowledge of the world of opera is superbly authentic and adds real resonance to the story. In this book Nicola's struggle to come to terms with the death of her first love and the reawakening to love with the man she believes is responsible for her firs love's death adds a real poignancy to the story... This is a struggle as old as time.
I enjoyed Mary Burchell's books when they were first issued and just as much the second time around ... Her knowledge of the world of opera is superbly authentic and adds real resonance to the story. In this book Nicola's struggle to come to terms with the death of her first love and the reawakening to love with the man she believes is responsible for her firs love's death adds a real poignancy to the story... This is a struggle as old as time.
October 8, 2021
4.5 stars. Very nice indeed.
December 28, 2025
Fun journey into operaland circa 1960s.
November 15, 2025
Fenomenal, vaya un descubrimiento esta autora. Un Mills & Boon de 1969/1970 ya sabes lo que puedes esperar: una historia romántica, con diálogos inteligentes, personajes con carácter, bien definidos, y escrito muy correctamente. Esta novela es además una gozada para los aficionados a la ópera.
Eso sí, es un romance sin sombra de sexo, ni insinuación; no se echa demasiado en falta.
Cuando a Nicola Denby se le muere el novio, queda desolada. Entrará a trabajar de secretaria de la prima donna Gina Torelli, un personaje secundario fantástico.
Con la diva viene el joven director Julian Evett, a quien Nicola considera responsable de la muerte de su novio. Como Julian le atrae, Nicola querría que le diera alguna explicación, o le pidiera disculpas... pero lo cierto es que la vida es compleja. Hay que aceptar que nunca los motivos de una persona son enteramente puros.
Reseña algo más extensa, en mi blog.
Eso sí, es un romance sin sombra de sexo, ni insinuación; no se echa demasiado en falta.
Cuando a Nicola Denby se le muere el novio, queda desolada. Entrará a trabajar de secretaria de la prima donna Gina Torelli, un personaje secundario fantástico.
Con la diva viene el joven director Julian Evett, a quien Nicola considera responsable de la muerte de su novio. Como Julian le atrae, Nicola querría que le diera alguna explicación, o le pidiera disculpas... pero lo cierto es que la vida es compleja. Hay que aceptar que nunca los motivos de una persona son enteramente puros.
Reseña algo más extensa, en mi blog.
October 5, 2021
I liked this book. The H liked her from the first, almost from the time he saw her photograph. I dropped one star because the h was extremely, undeniably, CRUEL with her words to the H, multiple times. You could literally read him go pale and shocked and silent. Another thing that felt neurotic to me was how she literally grabbed 3 different people at their first encounter(literally) and demanded to meet up with them so she could hear them talk about her beloved dead ex-fiance. That was weird but I also feel that was her way of processing it?
Didn't feel so much romance, more angst IMO. And the max they did was a silent kiss at the end so that was a letdown, romance scenes wise. But not bad, overall.
Didn't feel so much romance, more angst IMO. And the max they did was a silent kiss at the end so that was a letdown, romance scenes wise. But not bad, overall.
February 27, 2022
Wow this was an amazing book which I both loved and loathed.
Firstly the parts I adored: the side character of the aunt. What a delightful, larger-than-life, diva. Hats off to the author – she could have so easily created a rage-inducing, mean, narcissist, but instead, with great subtlety, cleverness and humour, she fleshed this character out as a fabulously over-the-top, amusing, drama-queen, capable of great charm and self-irony.
This loveable prima-donna stole the whole book, and is a testament to the brilliant writing of the author.
The hero too, was delightful – sensitive, gifted, loving, compassionate. I just wish he had fallen in love with someone far better than the horrid heroine. Apart from her charm when managing the gargantuan ego of her aunt, she was a complete nonentity amongst a sea of superbly talented musicians.
Worse, she was really vicious to the hero.
I have never come across a heroine in a romance that I have hated more than this one, and I am still puzzled what on earth the hero saw in her. I have categorized my shelves with “sadist meets masochist” romances, but this is the very first where it is the heroine who is the sadist and the hero is the masochist.
Firstly the parts I adored: the side character of the aunt. What a delightful, larger-than-life, diva. Hats off to the author – she could have so easily created a rage-inducing, mean, narcissist, but instead, with great subtlety, cleverness and humour, she fleshed this character out as a fabulously over-the-top, amusing, drama-queen, capable of great charm and self-irony.
This loveable prima-donna stole the whole book, and is a testament to the brilliant writing of the author.
The hero too, was delightful – sensitive, gifted, loving, compassionate. I just wish he had fallen in love with someone far better than the horrid heroine. Apart from her charm when managing the gargantuan ego of her aunt, she was a complete nonentity amongst a sea of superbly talented musicians.
Worse, she was really vicious to the hero.
I have never come across a heroine in a romance that I have hated more than this one, and I am still puzzled what on earth the hero saw in her. I have categorized my shelves with “sadist meets masochist” romances, but this is the very first where it is the heroine who is the sadist and the hero is the masochist.
July 17, 2021
I'm realizing one of the things I really enjoy about the Warrender Saga is its predictability - while the whole book is told from the heroine's perspective, I know precisely what is going on with the hero because it's the same thing that every other hero in this series has been doing. This one also has the advantage of being solved by a deus ex Torrini rather than a deus ex Warrender, and Gina Torrini is a fabulous character. Really a delight.
January 17, 2023
Faaaaabulous. I like reading about the competent and un-famous. Everything about the conflict here is extremely well done, even if a bit more obvious to the reader than to the protagonist. I can see that Burchell leans into the wide-eyed naïf a bit, but I forgive it here because the lack of recognition feels like an extension of grief.
(Yes, I skipped book three. I read its blurb and chose to ignore it. I will note that this is better than its blurb - but its blurb is halfway decent.)
(Yes, I skipped book three. I read its blurb and chose to ignore it. I will note that this is better than its blurb - but its blurb is halfway decent.)
April 15, 2024
Thank you NetGalley for letting me review this book and I cannot belive I have never read or reviewed a Mills and Boon novel.
I gather this is the fourth book in the series but as a standalone I was able to enjoy this story. I loved the author's portrayal of the opera world She clearly loves opera as I do, Characters-the heroine's aunt (by marriage), prima donna Gina Torelli, is a great supporting character and I loved his character.
Recommended read and I will seek out the authors work.
I gather this is the fourth book in the series but as a standalone I was able to enjoy this story. I loved the author's portrayal of the opera world She clearly loves opera as I do, Characters-the heroine's aunt (by marriage), prima donna Gina Torelli, is a great supporting character and I loved his character.
Recommended read and I will seek out the authors work.
August 1, 2024
Enchanting!
I believe my reviews of the first three books in this marvelous series have said it all! I would simply be repeating my words of praise for Mary Burchell's complete understanding of musical genius, their erratic temperaments, and those understanding souls who work with and for them.
Bravo!
I believe my reviews of the first three books in this marvelous series have said it all! I would simply be repeating my words of praise for Mary Burchell's complete understanding of musical genius, their erratic temperaments, and those understanding souls who work with and for them.
Bravo!
February 5, 2023
The way Burchell wrote so insightfully about grief and guilt really struck my heart. I honestly find it hard to believe these are Mills & Boon romances because they are quite simply in a whole other class above all the rest.
September 15, 2017
3.5 stars. I'm enjoying this series.
June 7, 2019
Is this a romance? If so "music" is the hero and the heroine of it.
December 6, 2019
Captivating
I know nothing at all about opera but Mary Burchell draws you in with her knowledge and understanding.. lovely book
I know nothing at all about opera but Mary Burchell draws you in with her knowledge and understanding.. lovely book
January 6, 2021
3.5 stars
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