Masques and Murder — Death at the Opera 2-Book Bundle

by Blechta, Rick

  Over dinner we discussed how things would work. We’d already decided with Shannon that Dan would pose as a ghost writer working with me on my autobiography, making it easier for him to hang around without too many questions being asked. I’d already arranged for him to have tickets for the two performances I still had to do.

  Knowing that I had big, strong Dan around to keep watch for any low-flying stalkers, I was feeling more relaxed than I had in days.

  “Have you ever been to the opera?” I asked.

  Dan stopped with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. “Actually, no.”

  “Do you know what opera I’m performing in?”

  He nodded, and once he’d swallowed, answered, “Now that I looked it up. It’s Tosca.”

  “Know what it’s about?”

  He grinned sheepishly. “Didn’t get that far.”

  It wasn’t surprising. A big macho guy like Dan Hudson probably did sports through high school and university. Heck, I really didn’t pay much heed to the opera world until I began singing seriously, and that was not until I was well into university. Even though I now found the subject of opera endlessly fascinating, there was a time where it skimmed right by me, barely registering on my radar.

  I’m a firm believer in people knowing an opera’s plot and characters beforehand, otherwise they’re often unclear as to what’s going on and why. So I spent the rest of the meal telling Dan about Floria Tosca and the two men who desired her: Mario Cavaradossi and the detestable Baron Scarpia. The fact that the action is set in real places still existing in Rome and that he’d even visited one of them (the Castel Sant’Angelo) seemed to capture Dan’s attention. If he was bored by my chatter, he hid it well.

  “And what about this new opera you’re doing when you get back to Toronto?” he asked. “The article I read says it’s about a woman who died alone in an apartment and her body wasn’t found for nearly three years. That doesn’t sound particularly romantic or exciting.”

  “On the surface, it’s not, but the composer and librettist have made it interesting, almost engrossing, by giving this woman’s back story, starting when she is twelve. Basically, Naomi is a gentle spirit, incredibly naive and trusting, who doesn’t ‘get it’ when those around her take advantage, and in many ways, terrorize her. As the abuse mounts up she withdraws more and more until in middle age she’s living alone in a subsidized apartment. The final act is where she’s slowly dying, more or less from neglect — her own and others — and fills her days with hallucinations of her ‘torturers,’ as she calls them.”

  “But she dies and no one finds her for three years? That’s ridiculous.”

  I shrugged. “Actually, that part of the story is true. It happened in England as few years ago.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were, but it is true. The music and libretto of The Passage of Time are very powerful and I think it’s going to be a compelling production. I only wish I could spend more time learning my part. With this mess in my current life, that’s more difficult than ever. I’m hoping to be able to put in some hours on it this week.”

  “I think I’d like to get a ticket for it.”

  “Better get one soon. All the press and the rock star status of Andrew McCutcheon, the composer, is making a ticket the hot item in the opera world.”

  Even though I was exhausted, I wanted to go upstairs to exercise my vocal chords a bit, even if it meant singing into a towel so I wouldn’t disturb my neighbours at that late hour (a trick I’d learned from a friend whose husband calls it a “singer mute”). I’d barely sung while I was in Toronto, and the role of Tosca is no walk in the park.

  I didn’t vocalize all that long, more because it’s no fun to sing into a towel (difficult too). I just needed to get things a bit loose and warmed up for the next morning when it would be back to work for me.

  Before hitting the sack shortly after eight, having been up for close to thirty-one hours by that point, I gave Tony a good night call. Nothing was up in T.O. and he hadn’t heard from Shannon since we’d last spoken.

  He wished me pleasant dreams and to keep safe. I told him that with Dan on the job, I’d be fine.

  As I was drifting off, I realized that probably wasn’t the smartest way to put it.

  Chapter Ten

  There was a meeting and walk-through rehearsal at the opera house the next morning, more to get everyone back into the head space needed for the performance the next evening than to actually work on anything. I felt pretty certain Davide, our assistant director, a fussy little man who obviously thought a lot of himself, would want to give us notes from the previous performance a week earlier — the one where I hadn’t sung well.

  While I was certainly eager to get back to doing what I enjoy best, the feeling was tempered by the knowledge that I’d have to be around Arturo De Vicenzo, who was singing the role of Scarpia. If Tosca disliked the wretched Baron in the opera, this soprano disliked the baritone handling the role in our production nearly as much. We’d already had two run-ins, but that was nothing out of the ordinary for him. He’d been unpleasant to nearly everyone in the cast and crew by then. The director of the chorus wasn’t speaking to him anymore, the conductor had a scowl on his face anytime De Vicenzo was singing, and I was having a hard time not cringing in the second act whenever he had to touch me. Since Tosca the character is supposed to feel this way, I’d actually received a glowing mention about my acting during this critical scene in a review from Rome’s biggest paper, pretty amusing if you knew the situation — which the rest of the cast did.

  Problem was, De Vicenzo was a damned fine Scarpia — even if he didn’t have to act very much to handle the role. He was also a letch of the first order, and more than a few times I’d grabbed his hands to stop them from roaming a little too freely. I didn’t think he’d actually grope me in the middle of a performance or rehearsal, not with everyone watching, but he certainly had pushed the boundaries. And I did not like him getting up close and personal behind me.

  We’d be working with a just piano that morning, but Tomasso Giorgi, our wonderful conductor, was present, and as expected we received copious notes from Davide. He still didn’t like the way I leaped from the battlements of Castel Sant’Angelo in the dying moments of the opera. In explaining things to him, my Italian vocab was stretched to the limit.

  “Look, if I just fling myself the way you want, I’ll probably kill myself for real. Tosca isn’t trying out for a spot on the Olympic diving team.”

  The little maggot just snorted. “It must seem real! The way you do it does not seem real to me.”

  De Vicenzo looked up from his smartphone where he’d been annoyingly tapping out texts nearly the entire time, pointedly ignoring what was going on. “It might give the audience more for their money, especially after the way you sang in the last performance.”

  With a sneer, De Vicenzo put a thumb to his mouth and tilted his head back in the universal sign for drinking. It was a completely outrageous thing to do. Everyone on or near the stage stopped moving. I was absolutely speechless with fury. If he hadn’t been on the other side of the very large stage, I would have marched right over and given his face a resounding slap. Hell, I should have slapped him even if it meant walking across all of Rome!

  But knowledge that what he said was partially accurate kept me rooted to the floor. True, I hadn’t been at my vocal best because of that damned late party the night before, and I had to wing a couple of lines because of an inexcusable mental lapse and not being able to see the prompter without being incredibly obvious, but De Vicenzo’s remark was certainly uncalled for — nor was it politic.

  Giorgi went over, pulled the baritone offstage, and it wasn’t long before they were shouting at each other.

  Javier Ramírez, the tenor singing Tosca’s lover Cavaradossi, eased in next to me. “He can be such an ass,” he said in English. “De Vicenzo always goes after cast members who get better reviews. He is an extremely jealou
s man. I would watch yourself, my dear.”

  The rehearsal pretty well collapsed after that. De Vicenzo marched out of the opera house in high dudgeon. When the general manager rushed onstage to find out what the hell was going on, Giorgi only looked partly contrite as he filled in the boss, giving me a sly wink when the GM wasn’t looking.

  Since the weather was rather nice, I’d walked over from the apartment, keeping a brisk pace as Dan followed discreetly about ten feet behind, close enough to be able to instantly help if there was a problem, but far enough to make it seem we were not together. With the rehearsal closed, I’d left him outside the stage door. He said he’d hang around nearby until we were done. Since festivities at the theatre were most definitely over for the day, I could get an early start with my practice session at the studio of the vocal coach I was working with during my stay, something that went back to my days with Gerhard. A phone call fixed that up. Since Giovanni was well on in years, he didn’t coach much anymore.

  Dan was the next call. “Rehearsal got knocked into a cocked hat. I’m done.”

  “Have anything to do with the guy who stormed out the stage door fifteen minutes ago?”

  “Did he have a brown fedora jammed on his head and an overcoat over his shoulders?”

  “That’s the one. What happened? His expression could have curdled milk at fifty paces.”

  I laughed at Dan’s description. “I’ll tell you about it while we’re travelling to my coach’s apartment.”

  “Do we have time for a bite? I’m starving.”

  “You can eat during my coaching if you want. I can’t eat right before I sing.”

  “Perhaps I can grab a little something on the way, then.”

  “There are shops on the north side of the Piazza della Repubblica. You can pick up something there before we get on the Metro and cross the Tiber to Trastevere, where Giuseppe Grimaldi lives.”

  It was my first opportunity to introduce Dan as my ghost writer, and Peppe wanted to ask him all kinds of questions about getting published since, of course, he’d produced a manuscript of his life’s story. Doesn’t everybody these days?

  Dan did his best to deflect since he knew absolutely nothing about book publishing, and I did my best to move Peppe along to the piano so we could get started.

  Because Peppe specialized in contemporary opera, we’d been working on The Passage of Time. So we started with that. I’d gotten really good insight into how some of the trickier passages worked with the orchestra, so I now knew where I could hold back and where I needed to sing at top volume, really important information to help me pace myself.

  But with a week away from performing and almost no chance to practise in Toronto, I wanted to shake the rust off Tosca and get my voice honed to razor sharpness for the following evening. After that crack from De Vicenzo, I had to be nothing less than perfect. Javier told me the remaining performances were all sellouts — mostly on the strength of the reviews complimenting what I had done. He was such a generous man and I wished he could pass some of that generosity on to De Vicenzo, whom, incidentally, the reviewer had remarked sang with “his usual competence.”

  Still upset by the confrontation, Peppe asked me what the problem was. So I told him. He was suitably scandalized, more because he likes me a lot and our relationship goes back so far. He made it clear that he thought De Vicenzo a first class shit, while equally praising his musicality and vocal prowess, which made me smile at his correctness. With Dan sitting there, I was more forthcoming about the way I felt since we were speaking Italian throughout the coaching. Even though my bodyguard and I were becoming friends, you never knew when someone’s going to speak out of turn.

  Through the warm-ups, which we took slow and easy, and into the first arias I sang, I was holding back until my voice felt supple and comfortable. As expected, Peppe, with his encyclopedic knowledge of Italian opera, had very enlightening comments about some details in the way I was singing various passages.

  “You are giving too much too early, Marta!” he said after I finished “Non la sospiri” from act 1. “Hold back. Less at the beginning means that more at the end will have greater effect! Dole out the emotion with a very small hand.”

  Toward the end of the session, we moved to Traviata since I wanted to warm up a few key arias and feel like I was truly ready to hit the stage in Venice the following week.

  I finished with “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca, singing full voice and finally feeling whole again after my trying week in Toronto. It is one of my favourite arias in the repertoire, rich with emotion, and for many, it really is the high point of this fantastic opera. Peppe followed me beautifully on the piano, making it easy to add as much expression as I desired.

  On the way back to our digs, Dan had a pensive look on his face.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” I asked.

  “You certainly can sing loud,” he responded after a moment.

  “It takes a lot to fill an opera house with sound, especially when there’s a big orchestra with good parts to play. I’ve been blessed with a big voice.” I grinned at him. “Hope I didn’t hurt your ears.”

  “No, no, it was fine. Honest. It just sort of overwhelmed me, that’s all. I’ve never heard an opera singer up close and personal before. What were you singing about? It sounded so beautiful and so sad.”

  “That last aria was from Tosca. It’s called ‘Vissi d’arte’ and Tosca just agreed to give herself to the wicked Baron Scarpia in exchange for her lover’s life. The words tell how she’s given all of her life to her art — she’s a singer, you know — and honoured God with her prayers. Lived a good life. Now she feels abandoned and alone and is asking why God is treating her this way. It’s heartbreaking, really, when you think about it. The entire opera is completely tragic. Everyone dies by the end. I love performing in it.”

  Dan was silent then for another long span, before he answered. “I think I may be getting it.”

  I liked the streets around Via Flavia because it felt like a neighbourhood, as if I was actually living there and not just visiting. All the shopkeepers greeted me loudly whenever I came in (partially a by-product of who I was). There was a fruttivendolo who always steered me to his best vegetables and perfectly ripe fruits, another shop where I could buy fantastic meat, cheese, and pasta, an artisanal gelateria that I tried to forget existed, great restaurants, and a café I adored. All were within a five-minute walk of my apartment.

  I dragged Dan into several shops so I could restock my larder and stock his, although he said he wasn’t much of a cook. Of course, I let myself be tempted by a few bottles of wine the shopkeepers just had to show me. We were pretty burdened with bags as we continued down the street to our building.

  I told Dan I’d make him a dinner in repayment for his pack animal duties.

  While I was busy in the kitchen putting things away and making a meal of soup, salad, and a bit of cheese with bread, he was in the living room checking the small surveillance camera he’d secreted in a bookcase opposite the apartment’s entrance.

  Feeling eyes on me, I turned to find him leaning against the kitchen doorway.

  “All clear?” I asked.

  “Yup. Nothing to show for our time away.”

  “Maybe your finding his stuff in Toronto spooked the guy.”

  “Oh, he’s still around. You can bet on that.”

  “Thanks for reassuring me,” I responded unhappily.

  “Marta … may I call you Marta?”

  “Please do.”

  “If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s to plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

  “Sounds like words to live by.”

  He nodded. “In this case, yes.”

  I spent a quiet rest of that day marshalling my resources for the performance the following evening. Tony called (lunchtime for him) with nothing much to report except for missing me extraordinarily.

  “Shannon is working with the police, trying to trace th
e owner of the apartment where those signals were being broadcast to. I had to file an official complaint with the police. She’s of the mind that your stalker may be local, and that, oddly, will make it harder to track him down. They’re probably going to have to bring the RCMP in because the situation is international. Interpol, too.”

  “Do you think that’s wise? The more people who know about this, the more likely word will slip out.”

  “I don’t think we have any choice. Lili agrees with me. I have stressed and Shannon has stressed to the cops that we really want to keep this out of the public eye.”

  “I don’t know if I’m a particular favourite with the Mounties after what happened in Paris.”

  “They’ll get over it.” Then the conversation switched to more mundane topics. “How did rehearsal go?”

  “Not well. Arturo De Vicenzo pretty well accused me of ruining the last performance before the break by drinking.”

  “What?”

  “Well, that’s sort of the way it came out.”

  Tony laughed. “You didn’t deck him did you?”

  “I certainly felt like it. Giorgi jumped to my defense and De Vicenzo stomped out. End of rehearsal.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “More excitement is just what I don’t need at the moment.”

  “I don’t get it. Why do they continue to hire this guy if he’s so obnoxious?”

  “Because he does Scarpia like no one else. He’s utterly diabolical and very believable.”

  “Typecasting?”

  “Oh, Tony, love, you do make me laugh.”

  “Just forget about him. Three more performances then you’re out of there, and hopefully you’ll never have to work with him again.”

  “One can hope.”

  I’d had a glass of wine with dinner so I curled up with a novel I’d picked up in the airport back in Canada to enjoy a second. Dan knocked on the door about nine, saying he was bored, and checked once again that all his gadgets were operational. We even tested how fast he could get to the apartment if the alarm went off. Even from his bed, he could manage it in under ten seconds. I told him to make sure he had his pajama bottoms on.