A Cadenza for Caruso

by Barbara Paul

  Just then Gatti-Casazza himself walked in, looking understandably triumphant. Without exchanging a word Scotti and I got up and went over to Caruso’s table. When we all had chairs, I found myself sitting opposite Emmy Destinn—who was looking well-fed, as usual. “Toto!” Caruso cried. “Gerry, bellissima! You hear the news? Duchon may join us permanently!”

  “For the duration,” Gatti corrected.

  “Is that why he came here, then?” I asked. “To join the Metropolitan Opera?”

  “Eh, no, as a matter of fact,” Gatti said. “He comes to solicit funds for Alsatian war relief. I promise him a benefit performance.”

  “Which opera?” umpteen voices asked.

  Gatti waved a hand. “Details, we work out later. For now, he agrees to sing Carmen and The Huguenots.”

  Emmy Destinn put her cup down with a clink. “The Huguenots? You promised him The Huguenots?” The Huguenots was one of Emmy’s operas.

  “Until Amato is well again,” Gatti explained. “Thereafter—we will see.”

  Emmy nodded toward Scotti. “Toto can sing it.” Scotti and Amato alternated in the role of the villain in the opera.

  “And he continues to sing it. Duchon substitutes only for Amato.”

  “That is encouraging,” Scotti said dryly.

  “It is decided, then?” Emmy asked.

  Gatti nodded. “Duchon sings with you next week.”

  “No. I want Toto.”

  Everyone at the table stared at her. “I do not understand,” Gatti said, puzzled. “I think you will be pleased with my arrangement.”

  Emmy thrust out her chin. “I do not wish to sing with Philippe Duchon.”

  Utter silence fell over the table. Not want to sing with Philippe Duchon? Was the woman out of her mind? I was the first to find a voice. “For heaven’s sake why, Emmy?”

  “I have sung with him before,” she said and stopped, as if that explained everything.

  “And?” Scotti urged.

  Eventually the story came out. According to Emmy, Philippe Duchon had a nasty tendency to take over every production he appeared in. “He wants to conduct, direct, and sing all the parts. He kept telling me—me!—how I should sing this or that phrase, what I should do in the duets, where I should stand while he is singing, everything. He is impossible to work with! He completely ignores the conductor.”

  Everyone at the table was thinking the same thing: Toscanini. Maestro Toscanini permitted no disagreement when he was at the podium; he simply did not permit it. Toscanini had nothing to do with The Huguenots, but he was conducting Carmen. Could be trouble.

  “We both sing with him, Emmy,” Caruso said. “At Covent Garden, at the Opéra. He is difficult, yes, but not impossible. I have no trouble with him. I like him.”

  “Oh, Rico, you like everybody,” Emmy said dismissively.

  Caruso thought a moment. “Almost everybody.”

  Gatti-Casazza had been sitting there in a state of shock. “I do not imagine … if you … but …” He used a table napkin to pat his brow. “I am sorry to hear you are unhappy,” he said to Emmy, “but it is settled. This year Duchon sings The Huguenots and Carmen and one benefit, and for next year we talk about a revival of, uh, muh, umm.” He shot a glance at Scotti and finished up mumbling into his beard.

  Scotti eyed him suspiciously. “A revival of what?”

  Gatti didn’t want to say, but did: “Rigoletto.”

  Scotti hit the ceiling. Rigoletto was his opera; it was his favorite role. “You say no when I ask for a revival this year!” Scotti shouted. “But all this Frenchman has to do is—”

  “Now, Toto, be calm, be calm! We only talk about it, you understand?” Gatti spent the next few minutes soothing the irate Neapolitan.

  As soon as I could, I asked Gatti, “Have you given any thought to Madame Sans-Gêne? You do remember our new opera, don’t you? Will the illustrious Monsieur Duchon undertake to learn Amato’s part? Or did you ask him?”

  “I count on Amato’s return to health in time for the next performance of Madame Sans-Gêne,” he said quickly and changed the subject. So much for my new opera. Well, we’d just see about that.

  “He will take over,” Emmy repeated stubbornly. “Every opera you put him in, Duchon will take over. He is worse than Toscanini.”

  Now that was ridiculous. Nobody was worse than Toscanini.

  “He has wanted to run his own opera company for years,” Emmy went on. “He wants to manage and keep on singing at the same time. For years he has been looking for a house where he could be singer-manager. And then he found one.”

  “Sì, sì,” said Caruso, remembering. “At Versailles?”

  Emmy nodded. “That old theatre that’s stood empty since the French Revolution—L’Opéra Louis Quinze. Duchon got the government to agree to restore it. But then.”

  But then the war broke out, and government-subsidized plans to restore old opera houses had fallen by the wayside. So Philippe Duchon had instead come to America to raise money for the Alsatian war relief fund and was on the verge of stealing one of Scotti’s best roles from him. “Why Alsatian war relief?” I asked. “Is Duchon from Alsace?”

  Nobody knew. “His plans are not firm,” Gatti said. “Evidently the fund-raising tour is arranged at the last moment, yes? Everything is done in such haste these days.”

  It sounded to me as if the French were no longer anticipating a quick end to the fighting. But they’d guessed wrong about almost everything else in connection with the war, so maybe they were wrong again. But this time I didn’t think so. It was just beginning to sink in on everybody that this war was going to be a lot bigger than anyone had thought it would be.

  “No news in the papers about Prague today,” Emmy complained, “again. Alsace, Flanders, Hartmanns-Weiler, St. Mihiel, Le Prêtre—but nothing about Prague.” Emmy Destinn was a native of Bohemia who still considered Prague home. She was also an ardent supporter of the Slovakian desire to be free of Austrian rule. “Why do they never write of Prague?”

  Scotti offered the traditional comfort. “Perhaps the papers carry no news because nothing happens in Prague, yes? That is good news, Emmy.”

  “Mm, perhaps, but I would feel better knowing for certain that all is well. In Prague we are caught midway between the eastern front and the western front—not a safe place to be. It has been many years since Prague has been safe.”

  Caruso brought the talk back to the here and now. “Me, I look forward to singing with Duchon again,” he smiled happily, thinking no farther ahead than that night’s performance. “We fight good at the Opéra.” He meant the struggle between the tenor and the baritone in the third act of Carmen.

  “Watch out for Duchon in the last act, Gerry,” Emmy warned me. “He will upstage you.”

  “He’s welcome to try,” I said sweetly.

  Gatti snorted and turned it into a cough. “Please, I beg all of you. Cooperate, yield stage to him—it is only for a few performances. Right now, all that matters is putting on a good Carmen tonight, is that not so?”

  “Mr. Gatti-Casazza, I would like to speak with you, please,” a new voice said. Osgood Springer had come up to the table without anyone’s noticing; when Gatti saw who it was, his face fell. He hadn’t exactly double-crossed Springer and his star pupil, but he couldn’t have wanted to talk to either of them just then. He invited the vocal coach to sit down with us. Safety in numbers.

  Springer didn’t like it; he would have preferred a private conversation. But he pulled up a chair and told Gatti what he wanted: a commitment for Jimmy Freeman to sing at least one major role next season.

  Gatti went into his vague act, which he does better than anyone else I know. “Later,” he told Springer, pulling at his beard in obvious discomfort. “Now is not the time to discuss such matters.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Gatti, but now is the time,” Springer objected. “Only last night you heard what James can do. And you did call him in to audition, remember. You built up his hopes fo
r nothing—you owe him something.”

  Mistake, I thought. There were ways of handling Gatti, but pressing a moral obligation was not one of them.

  “I owe Freeman nothing,” Gatti said curtly. “And now if you excuse me, I have matters to attend to.” With an abrupt nod at the table in general, he stood up and left.

  Caruso broke the silence that followed. “He is preoccupied with other things,” he told Springer kindly. “His mind, it is full of tonight’s Carmen. You ask again later, yes?”

  Springer muttered something inaudible.

  “I go to the opera house,” Caruso announced in a change-the-subject voice. “Gerry? You come too?”

  “In a moment,” I answered.

  “Emmy? Come welcome Duchon. A friendly gesture.”

  She shook her head. “I think I’ll go take a nap.”

  Caruso grinned. “You have to see him sooner or later, you know.”

  “Then I’d prefer later.”

  There followed some vague chitchat and a general pushing back of chairs, and before long only Scotti and I were still at the table with the disconsolate vocal coach. Springer stared unseeing at the Maxfield Parrish mural over the Knickerbocker bar, depression emanating from him like a tangible thing.

  I touched his arm. “Jimmy will get his chance, Mr. Springer. He’s far too good a singer for Gatti to pass over. Duchon’s arrival just means a temporary delay, nothing more. Jimmy’s time will come.”

  “Will you speak to Gatti-Casazza?” Springer asked me in a rush. “About a major role for James next season?”

  “Certainly. With all my heart.”

  Springer turned to Scotti, as if to ask the same thing—but then hesitated.

  Scotti smiled wryly, understanding. “Too many baritones, eh, Mr. Springer? I and Amato and now Duchon.” Plus all the second-rank baritones he didn’t bother to name. “But do not despair. I too will speak for your protégé. He deserves his chance.”

  For the first time since he sat down, Springer’s expression lightened a little. Having another baritone plead Jimmy’s cause would undoubtedly carry weight with Gatti-Casazza, especially a baritone as renowned as Antonio Scotti. “I thank you,” Springer said quietly.

  “I’m sure Gatti will give him a role next season,” I said encouragingly. “Duchon’s showing up right at this moment was just a fluke. No one could have anticipated it. All you have to do is wait a little longer.”

  Scotti made that funny little throat-clearing sound he always makes when he is about to disagree with something I’ve said. “Perhaps waiting is not enough,” he said apologetically. “Perhaps an active campaign is better? Gerry and I speak for Jimmy, but you might want to ask others to speak up too. Caruso, for one. And talk to Toscanini.”

  A shadow passed over Springer’s face. “Do you know something? Is there something going on I don’t know about?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Scotti reassured him. “It is just … well, it is the war, you see. So far, most of the major singers in the European houses, they simply wait it out. We all think the war is over by the end of the year—last year, yes? But the war goes on. Already a few singers flee to America, and now here is Duchon.”

  “What are you saying, Toto?” I asked him.

  “I am saying that right now the European singers who come to America—they make up only a trickle. But if the war goes on, that trickle becomes a steady stream, you see? Then Mr. Gatti has more singers than he can use. He can pick and choose, yes?”

  Oh dear, I hadn’t thought of that. With that kind of competition, Jimmy might not get his chance after all.

  The scar along Springer’s jaw stood out whitely against his skin. “You mean if James doesn’t get a new contract right away, he might never get one.”

  Scotti spread his hands, said nothing.

  “I’ll speak to Gatti tonight,” I said hurriedly. “Right after the performance.”

  Scotti consulted his pocket watch. “Gerry, you are almost late. Rehearsal awaits.”

  We both got up. “I must go, Mr. Springer. But don’t lose heart. We’ll all help.”

  Scotti and I left him sitting there at Caruso’s table alone. Very much alone.

  3

  I was excited about finally meeting Philippe Duchon, and wondering at the same time whether his voice had changed any since I’d last heard him; it had been several years. Scotti and I went into the Metropolitan by the Thirty-ninth Street entrance, but Scotti wanted to stay at the back of the auditorium, where he could observe his new rival without being observed himself.

  But I couldn’t see the great man anywhere. Out on the stage were Caruso and Toscanini, an accompanist waiting patiently by his piano, and four or five chorus members—just enough to give Duchon a sense of where people would be positioned on the stage. I waited in the wings, preferring to make an entrance rather than stand there as part of the welcoming chorus.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow move among the other shadows backstage. “Who’s there?” I said sharply.

  A smiling old man shuffled out into the light. “Only me, Miz Zherry,” he said in a thick accent. “Me.”

  “Oh, Uncle Hummy, you gave me a start. What are you doing here?”

  “Come for the Duchon.”

  It couldn’t have been more than a few hours since Gatti-Casazza and Duchon had reached agreement. “How did you know he’d be here?”

  “I hear,” Uncle Hummy grinned broadly, “I hear.” Uncle Hummy was one of those characters who are always hanging around opera houses, but with a difference. To say he loved opera would be an understatement; this one lived for opera. The stage-door-keeper would sometimes let him in, and other times he’d sneak in. When I’d given him a copy of the new Madame Sans-Gêne score, he’d cried. He was a harmless old man who asked nothing more of life than to be allowed to listen.

  “Did someone let you in?” I asked him.

  He grinned sheepishly, showing lots of teeth. “No, Miz Zherry. Just self I come.”

  He’d sneaked in. “Well, don’t let Mr. Gatti see you.”

  He shuffled back into the shadow. Uncle Hummy was an elderly Italian who’d lived in this country since his young manhood without ever mastering English; some people simply can’t learn languages. He was a nice old fellow who lived mostly on hand-outs, and mostly from Caruso; the rest of us gave him a few dollars now and then.

  I forgot all about Uncle Hummy when I heard a new voice talking and laughing. Philippe Duchon had arrived, ta-ta, making his entrance from the other side of the stage and ushered in by a beaming Gatti-Casazza. Duchon was a huge man—big head, big body, big hands. He’d always been a dominating presence on the stage, but up close he was downright intimidating. Gatti was trying to introduce him to Toscanini (oddly, the two had never met) when the French baritone spotted Caruso. “Rico!” he boomed.

  “Philippe!” the tenor sang back, and the two men embraced. Everybody liked Caruso.

  Gatti finally got his introductions made, and I was delighted to hear Duchon spoke English perfectly (with a good, British accent). Gatti was looking around worriedly. “I suppose we could start … but I think it is better if we wait for our prima donna.”

  Now there, was an entrance cue if ever I heard one. “Hello, hello, hello!” I trilled, sweeping onto the stage, flashing my second most dazzling smile (save the good stuff for more important occasions). “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting?”

  It was Toscanini who stepped forward and bowed gallantly over my hand, playing the courtier to the hilt. “Cara Gerry—waiting for you is always a pleasure.”

  I made some appropriate reply, and Toscanini led me over to Duchon and introduced us. I held out my other hand. “Monsieur Duchon,” I smiled. “A great honor.”

  He did not take my hand. “Ah yes,” he said with an icy smile I did not immediately understand, “Miss Geraldine Farrar. The German-lover.” He turned his back on me.

  You know what that kind of rebuff feels like? As if someone h
as just slapped you about the head four or five times. I stood there with my hand foolishly extended and felt the shock wave run through the others on the stage.

  “Monsieur!” Toscanini said reprovingly.

  I withdrew my hand. “I have friends in both Germany and France,” I said as evenly as I could. “Am I to be treated rudely for that?”

  Caruso and Gatti both jumped in, babbling alternately in Italian and English. Everyone was embarrassed to death, everyone except me; I was mad.

  Duchon quickly realized that the general sympathy did not lie with him, so he turned to me and in a voice that fooled no one begged my pardon. For the sake of amity, I granted it. But if we’d not had a performance that night, I wouldn’t have been quite so obliging, you can be sure. This one was going to require close watching.

  A few of the props from Act II had been brought on stage, and we began the scene in which Escamillo makes his first appearance and plunges right into the Toreador Song. Toscanini interrupted every few seconds, but both he and Duchon were going out of their way to accommodate the other and no major problems emerged. Duchon did not, I was happy to see, jump up on the table at any time.

  After the first walk-through, Duchon started singing. He sang half-voice for most of the aria, but then he opened up and finished full voice, testing the acoustics of the auditorium. It was what we’d all been waiting for, and my resentment of the man’s ill-mannered behavior evaporated as if it had never been. When you can sing like that, you can get away with a lot.

  And he could sing! The voice was undimmed by the years, deep and lustrous and rich. And he sang with a panache that made you forget that the tune was as familiar as your own face. With Duchon’s sophisticated singing on one side of me and Caruso’s golden tenor on the other, we would make musical history that night! Ha!

  Carmen sings one word toward the end of Escamillo’s aria—L’amour—and without any warm-up I gave it my sultriest reading. Duchon raised an eyebrow at me and finished the aria. Everyone on stage broke into applause.