The Mozart Connection

White Collar has an eclectic soundtrack of pop, rock, and classical music. The wide-ranging repertoire suits the personality of Neal Caffrey, a Renaissance man of diverse tastes. Among the canon list of featured composers, Mozart is particularly significant.

Mozzie has the most ties to Mozart. A teddy bear he'd acquired as a young child was named Mozart. Mozzie was unable to pronounce the name correctly and called the bear "Mozzie." He later adopted the name for himself. In the Season 5 episode, "Out of the Frying Pan," Mozzie teaches Neal how to avoid security cameras by having him dance to an aria in Don Giovanni, "Madamina, il catalogo e questo." There is another sneakier reference to Mozart in canon. The tune played by the music box is a variation of the adagio movement in Mozart's piano sonata in F major.

Penna added references to Mozzie's connection to Mozart in her stories. In Caffrey Flashback, Mozzie studied code while listening to Don Giovanni. In Caffrey Disclosure, one of the items of memorabilia he steals from a corrupt music publisher is a signed manuscript by Mozart.

When I began writing in the Caffrey Conversation AU, I'd made a wish list of locations to feature. The Metropolitan Opera was one of the top five. My father was an opera-lover. We attended many performances together, including several at the Met. My favorite opera was Don Giovanni. His was Tosca.

I planted several Easter eggs for Dad in The Golden Hen, my second story. The first clue for his Easter egg hunt was the featured art—one of the lost Fabergé imperial Easter eggs. The next eggs were about opera. In one of the scenes, Neal said that Kate's favorite operas were Tosca and Madame Butterfly, both of which have tragic endings. Sonya Pashkina was introduced in the story, and her Russian nationality was a reference to my college degree. The antique store where she took the Faberge egg was modeled after A La Vielle Russie, an antique store on Fifth Avenue where Dad and I enjoyed window shopping. At the end of the story, Sonya invited Neal and the Burkes to a performance of The Magic Flute by Mozart and Neal claimed Mozart was one of his favorite composers. Like me, he opted for operas with happy endings.

The mood surrounding Mozart darkens in the Crossed Lines stories. Beginning in Witches' Sabbath Neal has recurring dreams of Mozart and a mysterious woman. Readers later learn the woman is Astrena. As her hold on Neal tightens in Harlequin's Shadow, he begins to realize he's being haunted. By the time of Night Howls on the Hudson, those dreams have turned into nightmares. Neal gets a happy ending when Chloe and Maia severed Neal's astral link to the goddess. In Night Music, Mozart has a happy ending as well.


Night Music on Archive of Our Own
Night Music on FanFiction