RHAPSODY

Once again, Gould (Till the End of Time, 1998, etc.) brokers soapy transactions among the very rich and gorgeous. Misha Levin, a six-foot-four-inch piano virtuoso with long black hair and a following like a rock star’s, runs into an old flame in Vienna, where he’s come to play a charity concert for the extraordinarily well-heeled. His ex-lover, Serena Gibbons, a superstar photographer with supermodel looks and long black hair as well, has also come to Vienna, in her case to shoot a group of European heads of state. Although Misha is married to stunningly beautiful, if blond-haired, Vera Bunim, the daughter of billionaire Russian ÇmigrÇs, he and Serena rekindle an affair at Austria’s best hotels while eating lots of rich food and pastries. What broke up the two buff bodies in the first place was Serena’s inability to commit and her refusal to compromise her successful career. Serena, who was sexually molested by all the male members of her family, has had a tough emotional row to hoe. As has Misha’s family. They suffered many hardships in Russia, before immigrating to Manhattan, yet they have always been very loving and supportive of their gifted son. Still, while the faithful Vera waits for Misha to give up his philandering—his mother tells her that Misha has always had trouble keeping his zipper up—the dark-haired beauties go at it like rabbits. In favor of the new romance is Misha’s Russian-American agent, who’s afraid the clearheaded Vera will twig to the fact that some pretty silly, pretty hairy Russian-American gangsters from Brighton Beach have been sponsoring Misha’s career from the beginning. Slowly Misha realizes that Vera, with whom he shares a child and a love of antiques and good food, is still the one for him. Serena, conveniently, will have a fateful encounter with a land mine. Even with the dropping of some upscale labels you won—t find in Jackie Collins, a fairly lackluster kitchen-sinker.