A Cadenza for Caruso

by Barbara Paul

  While Gatti-Casazza worked on Lieutenant O’Halloran, Barthélemy started his usual chore of calming Caruso down before a performance—a bigger job than usual this time, as the events of the day had not exactly contributed to a sense of composure. The general manager continued arguing with O’Halloran until the police detective finally agreed to let the tenor go to the opera house. “I think I’ll tag along,” O’Halloran said.

  “Why? Do you think I am going to run away?” Caruso asked indignantly.

  “Now, Rico, he meant nothing by that,” Barthélemy soothed. “It is his job.”

  “Is it his job to treat me like a criminal?” Caruso was too wound up by now to be stopped. “All afternoon he keeps me here—asking questions, questions, questions! Do you think I killed Luigi Davila? Do you?”

  “Now, Mr. Caruso, I didn’t say that.”

  “Ha! You do not have to say it! Do you think I plunge a knife into his side and then run down to the street to tell everybody about it? Is that what you think?”

  “We know it didn’t happen like that,” O’Halloran said carefully. “The coroner’s physician says he’s been dead since yesterday.”

  “Oh.” Caruso thought that over and decided it meant he was in the clear. “Well, then, why are we still here? Let us be on our way!”

  At the opera house a couple of dozen concerned men and women swarmed over Caruso the minute he entered; word had spread fast. Gatti-Casazza disappeared backstage, exhorting everyone to concentrate only on the performance that was due to begin shortly. O’Halloran followed Caruso and Barthélemy up the stairs to the tenor’s dressing room.

  Martino was there, laying out the clown make-up. “Rico, are you all right? We were so worried—”

  “Yes, yes, I mean no, I mean where is the throat spray?”

  O’Halloran lounged in the doorway listening to Caruso warm up as he got into costume and make-up. The tenor was jumpy and high-strung and yelling at Martino and Barthélemy every few seconds. The man was a nervous wreck; O’Halloran didn’t see how he could possibly get through a complete performance. The detective began to feel a little guilty.

  Finally Martino and Barthélemy had Caruso ready and the three of them hurried down the stairs, O’Halloran trailing. Again Caruso was surrounded by people, everyone jabbering away in Italian. O’Halloran didn’t know the language, but it was clear all those people were concerned about their tenor—they were trying to help.

  A sudden silence fell. Out in front of the closed curtain, the baritone was singing the Prologue. O’Halloran could feel the tension backstage; he didn’t know whether it arose from Caruso’s involvement in a murder or whether that tension was normal for the opera house. One thing he was sure of, though; and that was that Enrico Caruso was loved. All the time the tenor was waiting to make his entrance, singers and stagehands alike kept coming up to him, patting him on the shoulder, trying to reassure him. O’Halloran was impressed in spite of himself.

  The curtains opened. Shortly thereafter Caruso made his entrance, and that famous golden voice suddenly filled the opera house. O’Halloran worked his way around the obstacle course backstage, trying to stay out of the way. The opera moved along like an electric charge. Caruso brought down the house with Vesti la giubba and then hurried off the stage to make a costume change. This time O’Halloran didn’t follow him up to the dressing room; it was obvious the tenor had no intention of taking it on the lam.

  O’Halloran made his way over to the other side of the stage; Gatti-Casazza was there, watching from the wings. Then Caruso was on the stage again, wearing his clown costume and sweating heavily and singing his heart out. By then O’Halloran was feeling quite bad about having detained the tenor so long at the station house.

  “Mr. Gatti-Casazza,” he said in an attempt to atone, “I’m sorry about that unpleasant business this afternoon. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for Mr. Caruso. It was just—”

  “What are you talking about?” Gatti-Casazza interrupted happily. “Tonight is the greatest Pagliacci he has ever sung!”

  The audience agreed. Caruso took nineteen curtain calls.

  5

  Caruso awoke the next morning feeling marvelous.

  And why not? He’d scored a triumph the night before—his best Pagliacci ever. The audience had gone wild. And that ugly scene he’d walked in on yesterday afternoon had turned out to have a happy ending; the great Puccini was no longer in the grip of a blackmailer. And that detective lieutenant, O’Halloran, had even let him know—in a roundabout way—that he did not consider Caruso a suspect.

  And to top it all off, today was the day he got to try on his cowboy suit!

  “Martino! My bath! This morning—lily of the valley.”

  Poor Luigi Davila, Caruso thought dutifully, not really meaning it. But someone ought to mourn his passing. Caruso wondered if anyone in the world had loved the man, if there were anyone who would miss him. He thought it unlikely.

  In his bath he started making the mental transition from I Pagliacci to La Fanciulla del West. He sang a little of the love duet from Act II to get himself in the mood, but his thoughts kept straying to his costume. A real six-shooter!

  Mario came in carrying the morning newspapers, with their rave reviews of Caruso’s Pagliacci. Caruso read them aloud as he ate his breakfast, translating into Italian those parts Martino and Mario could not follow. He was interrupted frequently by congratulatory telephone calls; even Puccini called. When he had finished reading the reviews, he went back and read them again. The tenor looked around. “Where’s Ugo?”

  “In his room,” said Mario.

  “Pouting,” Martino added.

  Caruso put down the papers. “Now what’s the matter?”

  The two valets just shook their heads; they hadn’t asked.

  Caruso decided he wouldn’t ask either. Ugo got these moods sometimes.

  Martino and Mario accompanied the tenor to the opera house, Martino to make any little adjustments Caruso’s new costume might need and Mario to carry back the mail. As they waited on the corner of Thirty-ninth Street for the traffic light to change, Caruso looked across Broadway at the main entrance of the Metropolitan. The place didn’t look like a yellow brick brewery to him; he wished people wouldn’t call it that.

  A horn sounded, and Caruso heard his name called out. A motor-car driver—whom he did not know—was leaning out the window and waving. Caruso smiled and waved back, and thoughtfully watched the black Hupmobile coupé whiz away. About eleven hundred dollars, Caruso thought. But he liked the limousines better—perhaps an Alco. “Mario,” he said, “do you think you could learn to drive a motor car?”

  “I am willing to try, signore,” Mario answered mournfully.

  The light changed. Inside the Met, they found two bags of mail waiting; Mario would have to make a second trip. Backstage Caruso was repeatedly greeted with shouted congratulations for last night’s Pagliacci. Then he spotted Pasquale Amato, already dressed in his all-black sheriff’s costume, looking quite menacing and very Old West.

  “Pasquale!” Caruso cried out. “You are the most convincing villain I have ever seen!”

  Amato twirled his mustache and sneered and then confessed, “I am reluctant to admit how comfortable I am in this bad-man outfit. I wish my wife could see me.” He drew Caruso aside. “What about you, Rico? Are you all right?”

  “I have never felt better,” the tenor exulted as they strolled toward the stairs to the dressing rooms. “Everything is working out exactly right, yes?”

  “Yes, but at such a price! Poor little blackmailer. He must have been more dangerous than we thought for someone actually to kill him. And poor Rico! That must have been dreadful for you, finding him like that. I feel responsible, you know. You would never have gone to see him if I had not suggested it.”

  The vision of Luigi Davila lying on the floor with a knife in his side flashed through Caruso’s mind; quickly he thrust the image aside. “It was mildly disturbing, of cou
rse,” he told Amato in the most blasé manner he could summon. “But I do what has to be done. First I quietly notify the police. Then I help them with their inquiries.”

  “And then you come here and sing what everyone is saying is the best Pagliacci ever. Cielo! And I missed it.”

  They started up the stairs to the dressing rooms but got only a few steps when they caught sight of Toscanini at the top. The conductor was huddled over something concealed in his hand; his face was one big scowl.

  “Maestro?” Amato said.

  Toscanini’s head jerked up; his eyes grew large enough for the whites to show all the way around the pupils. He thrust his hand into his pocket and hurried down the stairs, muttering something unintelligible as he pushed past the two singers.

  “What is that thing he keeps hiding from everybody?” Amato complained. “That is the third or fourth time I have seen him do that!”

  “I too have seen it before,” Caruso nodded. “He acts as if he is ashamed.”

  “Or guilty. Could our Maestro be guilty of some indiscretion?”

  Caruso shook his head. “Not a very big indiscretion if he can carry it around in his pocket.”

  Amato laughed. “You are right. Come, let us go see your cowboy suit.”

  Martino had gone up ahead to the wardrobe chamber on the fourth floor and now had the costume ready for Caruso. As soon as he’d changed, Caruso posed dramatically for the other two men—who laughed and applauded. The shirt and belt were both lightly fringed and worn under a suede jacket. The oversized cowboy hat sat lightly on the tops of the tenor’s ears. Caruso’s stomach bulged over the top of his tight-fitting pants, but never mind. The “boots” were made like spats, to be pulled on over regular shoes—but these went all the way up over the tenor’s knees. He had a gun on one hip and a knife on the other. A bandanna tied around his neck gave him a rakish air.

  But what delighted Caruso most of all was something he hadn’t even thought of: spurs. Not little light jingly things, but big, heavy, clanking spurs! He did a few turns around the dressing room, clank clank clank.

  “Rico, you are a Wild West bandit come to life!” Martino marveled.

  Amato agreed. “That is exactly what Puccini had in mind, I am sure! Shall we go? It is almost time to start.”

  Martino stayed behind while the two singers went down to the stage level, Caruso clanking all the way. Amato’s valet came running up to him with a watch chain the baritone had forgotten. Caruso wandered away, looking at the other costumes. Emmy Destinn was having trouble adjusting her neck scarf; her maid Sigrid kept picking at her—adjusting a fold here, straightening a seam there, until Emmy snapped at her to stop. David Belasco was inspecting the chorus members, all of whom seemed to be having a good time in their strange outfits—strange for opera, that was.

  “Ah, Enrico! You have recovered from yesterday’s ordeal, I see!” Gatti-Casazza had come up behind him. “Let me look at you—why, I would have mistaken you for a real cowboy!”

  “Very authentic, yes? And listen!” Caruso clanked a few steps away, then back.

  “Oh dear, I don’t know what Maestro Toscanini will think about that,” the general manager worried. “But I must admit those spurs do add a certain something. Is the costume comfortable, Enrico?”

  “Exceedingly comfortable. I am thinking of having one made up for my personal use.”

  “I hope Mr. Belasco is pleased.” Gatti-Casazza glanced over to where the stage director was talking earnestly to Emmy Destinn.

  “Madame Destinn,” Belasco was saying patiently, “California mining camps were rough, primitive places. The women there did not wear silk stockings.”

  “I wear silk stockings,” Emmy said stoutly.

  “Of course you do. But a girl running a saloon for miners wouldn’t. You are that girl, you are Minnie. And Minnie must wear cotton stockings.”

  Emmy screamed, a nice A-flat. “Cotton stockings! I never wear cotton stockings!”

  “Nevertheless, that is what Minnie must wear,” Belasco said calmly.

  “I will wear silk stockings.”

  Caruso whispered, “Which one will win, do you think?”

  Gatti-Casazza smiled. “Mr. Belasco has the gift of getting people to do things the way he wants them done.”

  That was true, Caruso thought. Belasco never raised his voice, never got excited; but people listened when he spoke. His ecclesiastical garb undoubtedly gave him authority with the religious Italians in the cast, but Emmy Destinn was neither Italian nor obtrusively religious. “I think I put my money on Emmy,” Caruso said.

  Belasco was coming toward them, reading a list he’d made out. “A most remarkable cast, Mr. Gatti,” he said in his soft voice. “Ten Italians, one American, one Bohemian, one Pole, one Spaniard, one Frenchman, and two Germans. All dressed as cowboys and all singing Italian.”

  “A fine cast indeed,” Gatti-Casazza beamed.

  “We’re having some difficulty in communicating, however,” Belasco smiled. “But that’s not what I wanted to speak to you about. It’s the matter of costumes—your gold miners really should not be wearing cowboy suits, sir.”

  “But, but, but Puccini wrote explicitly in the score that they were to be dressed as cowboys!”

  “Nevertheless, such dress is inaccurate. I was born in California, and I traveled extensively through the mining country in my youth. And believe me, Mr. Gatti, gold miners do not wear riding chaps and ten-gallon hats.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear.” The general manager plucked his beard. “I suppose I could speak to Puccini about it.…”

  “Perhaps I should speak to him?”

  “If you like,” Gatti-Casazza said with obvious relief. “Not dressed as cowboys! Oh dear.”

  Caruso glared after the departing priestly figure. “He will not take away my six-shooter! I do not permit it!”

  “Of course not, Enrico. It is only the miners he is concerned about.”

  Quickly mollified, Caruso stepped onto the stage and looked to the back of the auditorium. “By the way, where is Puccini?” he asked Gatti-Casazza. “I have not seen him today.”

  “Come to think of it, neither have I. Oh well, I suppose he’s around somewhere.”

  The sound of a baton rapping sharply in the orchestra pit caught their attention; it was time to begin. “Madame Destinn! Mr. Amato! Mr. Caruso! Places, please.” The music stand in front of Toscanini was empty; from here on he would conduct without a score.

  They were ready to rehearse the poker game. As a wounded fugitive, Caruso would hide in the loft of the girl’s cabin while she tried to get rid of the sullen, brutal sheriff who was chasing him. But he would be betrayed by a drop of blood falling through the rafters onto the sheriffs hand. Then Caruso would have to drag his poor, wounded body down the ladder from the loft and collapse at a table while the girl and the sheriff played cards for his life. It was a good scene, full of musical tension and rising excitement. But it was the soprano’s and the baritone’s scene; all Caruso had to do was lie there and bleed. But he would bleed beautifully.

  “All the way through!” Toscanini called. “No interruptions!”

  The three singers on the stage looked at him skeptically but nodded agreement.

  The scene commenced, and Toscanini kept his word—almost. He had to stop them once, at a point where the orchestra was playing in one tempo and the soloists singing in another. The conductor quickly got everybody back together, and the scene proceeded. During the part where the tenor slumped at the table while the girl of the Golden West cheated at cards to save her man, Caruso opened one eye and spotted a cigarette glowing at the back of the auditorium. Ah, Puccini was there.

  Puccini was very much there—as everyone discovered as soon as the scene was finished. The composer rushed down the aisle, embraced Toscanini, and threw compliments to the orchestra. Next he was on the stage, embracing his soprano, his baritone, and his tenor. Then he was at the edge of the stage, paying more compliments to Toscanini.
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  “I think he liked it,” Amato said wryly.

  Caruso was astonished; he’d never seen the composer so demonstrative before. Puccini’s eyes were glittering and he couldn’t seem to stand still—he was all over the place. Such enthusiasm was contagious, and soon everyone was as keyed up as the man who’d written the opera.

  It was the best rehearsal day they’d had yet.

  But at last they had to stop; it was time for the stagehands to start putting up the set for that evening’s performance of Il Trovatore (some other tenor that night, a fellow named Slezak). A pity—everyone wanted to keep going.

  “Caruso, have dinner with me tonight,” Puccini said exuberantly. “I insist!”

  The tenor had been planning to attend a dinner party, but he accepted Puccini’s invitation without hesitation. “As soon as I change my clothing,” he said.

  In his dressing room he told Martino he wanted him to deliver a note; he would write his apologies to the very nice society lady who was giving the dinner party. It was to be a large party; one tenor more or less wouldn’t be missed. Caruso knew that wasn’t strictly true, but he was too eager to talk to Puccini alone to let a little thing like a prior engagement get in the way.

  But when he sat at the small writing table he kept in his dressing room and took out pen and paper, he found to his chagrin that he couldn’t remember his hostess’s name. His mind was blank. He’d sung at musicales at her Fifth Avenue mansion and he certainly should remember her name. Cielo, her family had helped found the Metropolitan Opera—her name, her name! “Martino, what is the name of the lady who gives the dinner party tonight? I cannot remember.”

  Martino frowned. “I do not think you told me, Rico.”

  “Of course I told you. A very big name in New York society. The lady who always hums off-key during performances.”

  Martino shook his head. “You told me you go to a dinner party tonight, but that is all.”