A Cadenza for Caruso

by Barbara Paul

  Almost time for the bandit’s entrance; Caruso put the sketch pad aside and signaled to Ugo for his throat spray. The pianist played the syncopated bandit theme and Caruso managed to sing about fourteen notes before Toscanini interrupted him.

  Pasquale Amato missed a cue and came in a beat late. Toscanini screeched and made him do it over twice. Amato knew the music as well as Caruso did; he just hadn’t seen the Maestro’s long finger pointing at him.

  Every singer in the room was willing to go along with Toscanini’s eccentricities because they all knew they’d end up sounding better because of it. Conducting opera had generally been considered hack work until recently. Earlier Metropolitan managements had been content to hire any second-rate musician available to beat time for the orchestra, under the theory that opera-goers didn’t buy tickets to look at the conductor’s back. But when Gatti-Casazza had given up his position at La Scala to take over the Met, he’d brought Toscanini with him.

  Under Toscanini, the whole nature of rehearsing opera was changed. The Maestro was determined to mold soloists, chorus, and orchestra into an artistic whole—and if that meant riding roughshod over some tender egos, then so be it! A musical Napoleon, one soprano had called him. The three principals of Fanciulla were more or less inured to the process, but Caruso couldn’t help but wonder how any newcomers in the cast and chorus might take to it.

  He wasn’t going to get a chance to find out right away. The first rehearsal ended as smoothly as it had begun, with no outbursts and not even a major disagreement. Puccini was pleased with what he’d heard and said so.

  Emmy Destinn was both pleased and skeptical. “I don’t know how long it will last—but isn’t it wonderful?”

  Ugo appeared with Caruso’s hat and coat. “You see? I make no disturbance at all.”

  Caruso had sung himself into a state of advanced hunger and Amato had worked up a thirst; they decided to remedy the situation. In the passageway outside the rehearsal hall they collided with a short, plump, pink-faced man who’d obviously been waiting for the rehearsal to end. Caruso started to apologize—but then recognized the man.

  “Oh, it’s you!” Caruso had blotted the man’s name out of his memory. “Every year you ask me, and every year I tell you the same thing. No!”

  “Why, Mr. Caruso, what a pleasure to see you again!” the pink-faced man said with no trace of uneasiness. “I’m looking forward to La Fanciulla—a new Puccini opera! How wonderful. I’m sure you’ll be magnificent.”

  “The answer is still no,” the tenor said firmly. “And I do not want you following me around, lying in wait for me—”

  “You do me an injustice, sir,” the pink-faced man said blandly. “I’m here to see Mr. Puccini, not you.”

  “Oh.” Caruso felt foolish. He glanced quickly at Amato, who was trying not to laugh. “Well, well, he’s still inside.” Caruso waved a hand at the rehearsal hall and hurried away.

  Amato caught up with him. “Who was that cherubic little man?”

  “No cherub, let me assure you. I cannot remember his name—I do not want to remember it!”

  “But you know him?”

  “Alas, yes. He is a small-time impresario who keeps asking me to let him schedule extra concert appearances for me. I tell him and I tell him, all my singing engagements are arranged by my regular agents—but he does not take no for an answer. For six or seven years he has been pestering me!”

  “Hm. He has never asked me.”

  “Be grateful. Pasquale, do you know what he did? He tried to bribe Martino to persuade me to sign with him! Imagine! He actually tried to bribe my valet!”

  Amato glanced back at the other valet trailing after them. “Good thing he did not approach Ugo,” he said, his voice lowered.

  “Oh, Ugo is all right—he would never take a bribe.” He shot a questioning look at his friend. “You have never liked Ugo, have you? Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Amato said honestly. “But I don’t. He is certainly no Martino, is he? Ah, but that is an unfair comparison. Martino is special.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, for one thing, he is the only man I know who can maintain his dignity while wearing a polka-dot bow tie.”

  Caruso sent Ugo back to the Knickerbocker while he and Amato went off to deal with the twin threats of starvation and dehydration.

  In mid-November Caruso opened the Metropolitan Opera’s new season in a production of Gluck’s Armide. It was not one of his favorite operas, but the audience loved it. New York audiences loved anything Caruso sang. The tenor sometimes suspected he could walk out on the stage of the Met and sing nursery rhymes and be cheered for it. He tried to keep a sense of perspective about the whole thing.

  It wasn’t easy. The opening of the opera season signaled the opening of the social season as well; and as usual, Caruso found himself being lionized—another reason he liked New York so much. But invitations to dinners and other social events were also coming from Philadelphia and Boston; much to his regret, Caruso had to turn them down. Until Fanciulla premièred, at least. As it was, he barely had time to breathe.

  Rehearsals were still progressing smoothly; Toscanini hadn’t bitten off a single head yet. The only thing bothering Caruso was that persistent soreness in the throat; it simply would not go away. He’d told young Mario to increase the amount of Dobell’s Solution in the spray, but it hadn’t helped.

  Then they were ready to leave the rehearsal hall and start putting everything together on the stage. The first time singers and orchestra rehearsed together was always exciting, so Caruso made a point of getting to the opera house early.

  And found everyone else had too. Puccini and Gatti-Casazza were conferring at the back of the auditorium, with the latter doing all the talking. Toscanini was in the orchestra pit, trying to explain himself in halting English to those American musicians who’d never had the good manners to learn Italian. Emmy Destinn was in the wings, quarreling with her maid. Pasquale Amato was prowling the stage, familiarizing himself with the markings on the floor that laid out the set for the first act—which was to be a western saloon.

  Caruso strapped on an imaginary gun and practiced his fast draw.

  “Have you talked to Puccini lately?” Amato asked him.

  “Not for a few days. Why?”

  “Something is bothering him.”

  Caruso sighed. “Then we will hear about it, you may be sure.” When one of his own operas was involved, Puccini could be very high-handed indeed.

  “I don’t know,” Amato said. “He just doesn’t seem himself.”

  Caruso glanced toward the back of the auditorium; both Puccini and Gatti-Casazza were gone. Then he noticed a figure sitting in the fifth or sixth row, someone he’d never seen before. Silver-haired and dignified, the man wore a black suit and a high clerical collar. That made Caruso uneasy; what was the Church going to think of the rough-and-tumble low-life they’d be showing on the stage? “Who is the priest?” he whispered to Amato.

  “No priest. He is David Belasco.”

  Ah, so that was Belasco! The man who’d written and produced The Girl of the Golden West. Of course he’d want to see what the operatic stage was doing with his play. “Why does he dress as a priest?”

  Amato lifted his shoulders, spread his hands.

  “Lady and gentlemen!” Toscanini called from the pit. “We commence to begin, yes?”

  The first onstage rehearsal of Giacomo Puccini’s Wild West opera began, proceeding in Toscanini’s usual start-and-stop manner. Listening offstage, Caruso thought it sounded pretty good, considering how confused things always were at this stage of rehearsal. Soon after Caruso made his entrance he spotted a cigarette glowing at the back of the auditorium: it was Puccini. The composer smoked incessantly during rehearsals, even more than Caruso. But then composers didn’t have to sing.

  During one of the interruptions, Pasquale Amato was refereeing a mild dispute between Caruso and Emmy Destinn over how a certain pas
sage should be sung when a soft voice spoke behind them. “Excuse me, may I make a suggestion?” The priestly figure of David Belasco had joined them on the stage. “If you could sing to each other instead of to the audience, you will create a much more realistic stage picture.”

  Caruso was surprised at how short the man was—but his small stature cost him none of his impressive dignity. “If we do not sing to the audience, the voice will be lost upstage,” Caruso told him.

  Belasco smiled. “Mr. Caruso, you could make yourself heard three blocks away if you wished. Believe me, nothing will be lost if you sing to each other. And a great deal will be gained.”

  Emmy and Amato exchanged a look, shrugged.

  “I realize this is your first time on stage,” Belasco went on, “but I have found that establishing good habits early in rehearsal always pays off. Please, won’t you try it? Sing to each other.”

  The three singers agreed to do as he asked, without fully understanding why they’d agreed. Toscanini was making noises in the orchestra pit; Belasco left the stage as quietly as he had come.

  The hours spent at the piano with Barthélemy were bearing fruit; Toscanini was interrupting Caruso less and less. The first act of Fanciulla drew to a close with a dreamlike repetition of an earlier theme that grew softer and softer—but then burst into flame once more at the very end, finally dying away on an unresolved chord. Like a question, waiting to be answered in Act II.

  Caruso sighed with pure pleasure. He loved this opera.

  Every day the Maestro allowed them to sing longer and longer without stopping them; Caruso couldn’t remember another Toscanini rehearsal that had gone so smoothly. The tenor sprayed his throat every few minutes and started singing full voice.

  David Belasco had first come to rehearsal out of curiosity, but somehow he’d managed to take over the stage direction. Gatti-Casazza was delighted and offered Belasco a salary, which he refused. Once Toscanini saw the improvement in the stage action, he was equally delighted and encouraged Belasco at every opportunity. Their new director was trying to create a more true-to-life picture on the stage. The singers had a hard time learning to underplay, the overstated gestures of operatic acting being deeply ingrained in all of them—but they too came to appreciate what Belasco was doing for them.

  Only Puccini failed to respond with enthusiasm. It wasn’t that he disapproved of Belasco’s direction; he just didn’t seem to care one way or the other. The composer was abstracted a great deal of the time, his mind elsewhere. The world première of his new opera was coming up in less than two weeks’ time, Caruso thought, and his mind was elsewhere!

  “You are right, something is wrong,” the tenor said to Amato during a break. “He is not really here with us, is he? He turns down my invitations, he does not want to talk. He lets Toscanini make all the decisions. That is not our friend Puccini.”

  Amato ventured a guess. “Do you suppose he is brooding over Elvira and that poor dead girl again? What was her name?”

  “Doria. No, I think he is over that. This is something else.”

  “Mister Caruso!” said a feminine voice. Emmy Destinn’s maid had come up to them. She was a big-boned Swedish woman with eyebrows and lashes so pale they were virtually invisible. Her name was Sigrid. “Madame Destinn wants to know if you are quite ready?”

  “For Emmy, I am always ready,” Caruso said expansively. “Is there a thing in particular I am supposed to be ready for?”

  “If you will remember,” Sigrid said sarcastically, “Mr. Belasco wanted you to practice the first-act dancing scene.”

  Caruso struck his forehead. “Per dio! I forget. But I already waltz perfectly—what need is there to practice?”

  The woman snickered. “Madame Destinn says you step on her feet.”

  “I?” Caruso was astonished. “She steps on my feet!”

  She laughed at him openly. “If you could only admit there is something you cannot do—”

  “Sigrid,” Amato interposed quickly, “tell Emmy he’ll be right there.” The Swedish woman turned and left without another word.

  “Impossible woman,” Caruso grumbled. “She always laughs at me. At me!”

  “Ah well. Just laugh back, Rico.”

  Caruso found Emmy and a relatively free space backstage where they could work on their dance. They practiced the waltz, humming the tune and glaring at each other all the while. But by the time they got the steps worked out, they were friends again.

  “Why don’t you discharge that Sigrid?” Caruso asked, still smarting a little.

  “Why don’t you discharge that Ugo?” Emmy countered.

  “Why? What has Ugo done?”

  “He told Sigrid I need to lose twenty pounds.”

  “Ugo is crazy. You look wonderful.”

  “Hmph.”

  When the day’s rehearsal had ended, Caruso wanted to ask Puccini about something. The tenor was nervous; he knew he had no business making the request. He thought he’d found a place in Act II where a cadenza could be inserted.

  Cadenzas were the lifeblood of a singer—those passages in a solo piece that allowed the performer to improvise and display his versatility. Unfortunately, the cadenza more properly belonged to the older bel canto operas—which would accommodatingly halt in their action now and then to allow the singers to show off what they could do with a tricky vocal line. That kind of ornamental singing had no place in a verismo opera like Fanciulla, with its action and music so carefully integrated, so carefully controlled. But perhaps Puccini would allow one cadenza.

  Since the composer always watched from the back of the auditorium, Caruso hurried down the aisle to catch him before he left. The auditorium lights were not on, and Caruso could barely make out two figures by the door, talking in low voices. “Puccini? Are you there?”

  “Yes? What is it, Caruso?” Puccini asked shortly. “I’m in a hurry.”

  The composer’s tone of voice told Caruso this was not the time to ask for favors, but the tenor plowed on anyway. He’d brought a copy of the score with him. “Here in the second act,” Caruso said, pointing to the spot in the score, “such a perfect place for a cadenza! Right after the—”

  “A cadenza! Are you out of your mind? Absolutely not!” Puccini was angry. “You should know better than to ask, Caruso.”

  “Ah, but here it is right! When the—”

  “It is wrong, wrong! No cadenza!” Puccini glanced toward the shadowy figure waiting for him. “I must go, I have business.”

  Caruso sighed. “Not even a small one?”

  Puccini shook his head in irritation and turned away.

  Pity, Caruso thought sadly. A little cadenza wouldn’t hurt.

  Puccini was opening the auditorium door; light from the lobby spilled in, and for the first time Caruso could see the man who’d been waiting for the composer. He was surprised; it was the pudgy pink-faced impresario who’d been badgering Caruso for years to sign with him. The man who’d tried to bribe Martino. Now what in the world was Puccini doing with a man like that?

  The door swung to and Caruso was alone in the dark. Surely Puccini must know what kind of man the impresario was. He wasn’t even a real impresario; he was just one of that group of people who lived on the fringe of the music world, leeching off whatever celebrities they could attach themselves to. They had no talents of their own and they did no honest work. They spent their lives looking for a piece of somebody else’s pie.

  And here was Puccini, in such a hurry to go off with that pink-faced leech. Belatedly it occurred to Caruso that the composer might not know what kind of man the so-called impresario was. If that was the case, then clearly it was Caruso’s duty to warn him.

  He pushed through the auditorium door; the lobby of the Fortieth Street entrance was empty except for one lone birdlike figure. It was Toscanini, concentrating intently on something he held in his hand and totally unaware of Caruso’s presence.

  “Maestro!” the tenor called. “Do you see Puccini and anot
her man just now? Do you know where they go?”

  Toscanini started guiltily and thrust whatever he was holding into his pocket. “Ah … Caruso! Ah, what did you say? Puccini … I do not know, they, ah …” Abruptly his manner changed; he became stern and professorial. “No partying tonight, Caruso! You need your rest. Leave the ladies alone. Do you understand?” He whirled on his heel and was gone.

  Caruso stared after him in astonishment. Now what in the name of heaven was that all about?

  3

  My dear Puccini,

  It is with great reluctance that I must insist you call upon me today in my apartment at the Hotel Knickerbocker. If you do not come today, I refuse to attend the Fanciulla rehearsal. More than that, I will never sing the role if you do not come.

  I am certain you realize what a great personal sacrifice such a position costs me, but you leave me no choice. You will not talk to me on the telephone and you do not answer my letters. The last time I called on you, you shut the door in my face. So you see, only the deepest desperation could drive me to issue such an ultimatum. I refuse to sing if you do not come.

  I expect to see you immediately without fail. I accept no excuses.

  Your loving friend,

  E. Caruso

  Caruso read the letter over in distaste; such a bullying thing to write! He’d written it in what Pasquale Amato said was his “angry” handwriting—large, irregularly shaped letters with heavy dots and dashes. His “polite” handwriting, as Amato called it, was uniform in size and tastefully ornamented with numerous little curlicues. But by heaven he was angry, and this was no time to be polite.

  “What do you think?” Caruso asked Martino, who was reading over his shoulder.

  “A very strong, persuasive letter,” the valet said approvingly. “Perhaps if you underlined the word ‘never’…?”

  Caruso dipped his pen in the inkwell and drew a heavy black line under “never.”