Prima Donna at Large

by Barbara Paul

  At the act break we slipped out of the box and hurried backstage. What we found was absolute chaos—everyone yelling, and no one yelling louder than Emmy Destinn. (When Emmy yells, watch out for your eardrums.) Duchon wasn’t anywhere in sight. In the center of it all was Gatti-Casazza, desperately trying to calm everyone down. Poor Gatti; it was one of the few times I’ve ever felt sorry for him.

  “He is impossible!” Emmy was shouting. “He is ruining the performance!”

  “Shh!” Gatti cautioned. “They hear you out front!”

  “I do not care if they hear me out front! How do you expect me to sing with that monster undercutting everything I do?”

  Even Caruso was angry. “This time he goes too far. Mr. Gatti, you do something, yes?” He caught sight of Scotti and me. “Toto, Gerry—am I not right? He does not care what he does to the rest of us. He does not care about the opera. Am I not right?”

  “Assolutamente,” Scotti said without hesitation. “No question of it.”

  “Everyone out front can see what’s going on,” I added.

  “There, you see!” Emmy yelled at Gatti. “We are being made to look like fools, all because of that … that …” she sputtered ineffectually, unable to think of a word nasty enough. “You must replace him. Now!”

  Gatti pulled anxiously at his beard. “I think it is not so bad as you believe. Besides, he has only one more scene, yes? It does not look good, to replace him now.”

  “Then why do you have Jimmy stand by if you do not use him?” Caruso demanded.

  Jimmy? Jimmy Freeman?

  “Or Scotti,” Emmy interjected. “Scotti is here—he can finish.”

  “Only one more scene,” Gatti pleaded.

  I looked around for Jimmy while the argument went on. I didn’t see him, but I did spot Osgood Springer listening intently to everything that was being said. I made my way over to the vocal coach and asked, “Did I understand correctly, Mr. Springer? Jimmy is on stand-by?”

  He nodded dourly. “Duchon was complaining of a sore throat. I told Mr. Gatti James was not ready for this role, but he wanted someone at hand anyway.”

  That was just like Gatti, building up Jimmy’s hopes a second time for nothing. “Where’s Jimmy now?”

  “Getting into costume. Just in case.”

  Just then an uproar broke out from the direction of the stairs leading to the dressing rooms. Duchon came thundering down the steps, hauling poor old Uncle Hummy along by the neck of his shabby overcoat. “Mr. Gatti!” Duchon bellowed. “Is this the kind of opera house you run in America? Where tramps can come in off the street and give instructions to the singers?”

  “Uncle Hummy!” Caruso rushed over and grabbed the old man’s shoulder. “Let him go, Duchon!”

  “How did he get in here?” Gatti cried in exasperation, and went off to bawl out the doorkeeper. (Or to escape.)

  “Let him go!” Caruso repeated. A brief tug-of-war took place between the two singers that ended only when Uncle Hummy’s well-worn overcoat ripped all the way down the back. The old man began to cry.

  “Do not cry, Uncle Hummy,” Caruso said hastily. “I buy you new coat.”

  “Uncle,” Duchon repeated unbelievingly, “Hummy. This man is your uncle?”

  “No, no, I mean yes, I mean he is everybody’s uncle. You do not treat him this way!”

  “Well, everybody’s uncle,” Duchon said sarcastically, “invited himself into my dressing room and told me I was spoiling the performance. At least I think that’s what he said—he does not speak well, this one.”

  Scotti decided to get into the act, speaking to Duchon for the first time ever. “Uncle Hummy is a sort of fixture at the Metropolitan, Monsieur. He is here longer than any of us, yes? He means no harm.”

  Duchon examined the most famous baritone in the world from head to toe and then said, insolently: “I do not believe I know you, sir.”

  Every mouth in the place dropped open. Scotti waited a moment and then said in a quiet manner, “There seem to be many things you do not know, Duchon.”

  Good for him! But the one I was really impressed by was Uncle Hummy. He’d actually gone into Duchon’s dressing room to try to talk the baritone into mending his ways. In the nine seasons I’d been at the Met I’d never once seen him do anything like that before. Uncle Hummy had always worked at being inconspicuous, at staying out of the way; his presence would not have been tolerated otherwise. Speaking to Duchon was a big risk for him, and it was a thing even Gatti had not found the courage to do.

  Duchon was saying something when his voice suddenly tightened up on him. He put his hand to his throat in alarm.

  “The spray!” Caruso commanded.

  Duchon looked around vaguely. “I think it’s in my dressing room.”

  “I get! I get!” said Uncle Hummy, and hurried off up the stairs, the two halves of his ruined overcoat flapping behind him.

  “You see,” I said to Duchon with a smile, “he can be useful if you let him.”

  “Mm.” A noncommittal sound.

  Gatti was back. “Places, please! Places!” he cried frantically, now that everyone else had calmed down. “The curtain is late!”

  “I am not ready,” Emmy announced firmly.

  “Then get ready!” Gatti screamed.

  “Ssh!” Emmy frowned. “They hear you out front.”

  Uncle Hummy came back with one of the atomizer bottles Caruso had given Duchon. The baritone sprayed his throat, tried a few notes, and sounded fine.

  Scotti and I decided to watch the rest of the performance from backstage. We were joined by a forlorn-looking Jimmy Freeman, dressed in a costume he would not be wearing on stage that night. Even Scotti felt sorry for him and tried to cheer him up. We all agreed that Giulio Gatti-Casazza was just about the lowest form of life on earth and fully deserved to be consigned to Dante’s version of hell. But we could not agree on whether he belonged in the fourth circle with the misers or the eighth circle with the hypocrites and evil counselors.

  “I really thought I’d have a chance to sing tonight,” Jimmy lamented. “The way Mr. Gatti talked, Duchon was practically on his deathbed. Mr. Springer worked with me all day getting ready for tonight.”

  “Your chance comes soon,” Scotti said encouragingly. “It seems not so, but it comes.”

  I added, “Everyone goes through this, Jimmy—don’t be discouraged. You have to work your way up.” Or so conventional wisdom said. As for myself, I’d started out singing leads and never looked back.

  Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m beginning to think the only time I’ll get a chance is when some other baritone drops dead.” He shot a sudden horrified glance at Scotti. “Oh … ah, I didn’t mean, uh …”

  “Put your conscience at ease,” Scotti said wryly. “I do not, ah, drop dead, not I.”

  The Huguenots resumed. In his final scene, Duchon pulled the same stunt he’d used earlier; he staked out center stage for himself and wouldn’t yield to anybody. But they got through it somehow; Duchon made his final exit—and gave me a start. The minute he was off the stage, one leg flew out from under him and the other buckled. If it hadn’t been for a quick-thinking stagehand who caught him, he’d have fallen straight back and taken a nasty crack on the head.

  “Water on the stage floor? Right where I make my exit?” Duchon looked around. “Nowhere else—just where I make my exit!”

  The stagehand mumbled something.

  “Why is there water on the stage floor?” Duchon was making no attempt to keep his voice down. “Why only there, where I come off the stage?”

  Mumble mumble from the stagehand.

  “How did it get there? You must have seen who put it there!”

  Mumble.

  “Why did you not clean it up? Did someone pay you to spill water where I was sure to slip in it?”

  Mumblemumblemumblemumblemumble!

  Duchon took a deep breath and next spoke in more moderate tones, but what he said wasn’t moderate at
all. “I shall insist to Gatti-Casazza that you be dismissed immediately.” He turned and walked away.

  “Of all the ungrateful …!” I exclaimed, outraged. “That man saved him from injuring himself, and he’s going to get him fired!”

  “No, he does not get him fired,” Scotti said tightly. “I speak to Gatti and tell him what transpires. I tell him his Monsieur Duchon is accident-horizontal.”

  “Accident-prone,” I said. “He actually thought that water was spilled there deliberately—to make him fall!”

  “He does have a high opinion of his own importance, doesn’t he?” Jimmy murmured.

  The Duchon-less scenes that followed went smoothly enough, but the curtain-call applause was not the most enthusiastic I’d ever heard. The opera was too long and there’d been that delay between acts and the audience had just had enough. That happens, sometimes. Caruso came off the stage scowling, unusual for him. Emmy steamed up to her dressing room without a word. Duchon started up the stairs but then caught sight of the three of us in the wings and came over.

  There I was standing between two baritones, either of whom could replace Duchon on a moment’s notice. He ignored both of them and lifted my hand to his lips. “Ah, la belle Geraldine! If only you had been singing tonight instead of that Bohemian sow! The entire production would have been elevated.”

  Well, of all the ungracious things to say! Duchon had evidently decided he wanted me on his side again and this was his way of winning me over? He’d figured all he had to do was insult my rival and I would be all smiles and simpering acquiescence. Emmy Destinn wasn’t the only one he’d insulted; I was not so easily manipulated as that! He was undoubtedly right in asserting I’d have been better in the role than she, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in The Huguenots—and said so. “Emmy probably made you look as good as any soprano could,” I added sweetly.

  A tic appeared beneath Duchon’s eye. Scotti was laughing while Jimmy Freeman just looked uncomfortable. Duchon forced down his annoyance and said, “You and I, we will still make beautiful music, ma charmante.”

  I thought the ma charmante a bit familiar but simply said, “I hope so, Philippe.” But I said it in a way that let him know I had my doubts. He bowed stiffly and left.

  Scotti laughed again and gave me a light kiss (partly to show off in front of Jimmy, I suspected). “He wants to make beautiful music with you, Gerry! Perhaps you need bodyguard? I volunteer!”

  I accepted with a laugh, but turned down his invitation to stop in at the Hotel Knickerbocker for a bite to eat. It was late and I wanted to get to sleep; I’m a morning lark, not a night owl. Scotti hesitated only a moment before asking Jimmy Freeman if he’d like to join him. Surprised, Jimmy stammered out his acceptance. So the two baritones in my life delivered me to my apartment and then went off together for a late supper, and perhaps for a man-to-man talk.

  Poor Jimmy.

  6

  The next morning I telephoned Gatti-Casazza. “You owe Jimmy Freeman a major role. Right now. And two new roles next season.”

  He moaned. “So, Gerry, you are now Jimmy Freeman’s manager? Already this morning Osgood Springer is here, demanding the moon for his star pupil. I tell you same thing I tell him. The schedule is set for the rest of the season, yes? For next year, I will try to find him a role.”

  “You’ll ‘try’? Is that all? Just ‘try’? Well, that’s not good enough. As long as you’re going to keep calling him in to stand by for Duchon—”

  “One time!” he protested.

  “—then he deserves a firm commitment from you for next season at least. Jimmy is a professional, Mr. Gatti. You’re treating him like a schoolboy.”

  “I do not like all this pressure!” he said testily. “It is not yet eleven o’clock and already I have Springer and then a complaint committee from the orchestra and now you. It is too much! I tell you I will try to find Freeman a role next season.”

  I considered. “Gatti, tell me the truth. Will you truly try, or are you just putting me off?”

  His sigh echoed along the telephone wire like a dying wind. “I tell you the truth, Gerry. Upon my word, I will try.”

  I’d have to be content with that, then. “What’s the orchestra committee complaining about now?”

  “Toscanini, as usual. He is calling them names again.”

  “What’s he been calling them?”

  He didn’t want to tell me, but I insisted. “Castrade,” he said, “words like that. I tell them they should hear what he calls me.”

  That seemed like a good opening. “There’s trouble between you and Toscanini, isn’t there? Anyone can see it. What’s the matter?”

  “Money is the matter!” he growled. “The board of directors has ordered a policy of retrenchment, yes? And Toscanini, he refuses to accept! He refuses!”

  “He wants more salary?”

  “More salary, more other things—things that all cost money. More rehearsal time, for one. Better sets and costumes. And he wants me to stop hiring what he calls the ‘second-rate’ singers. He wants me to spend a fortune, that is what he wants! Where does the money come from?”

  The same old excuses, I thought in irritation. “None of those things sound so dreadful to me.”

  “Not dreadful, no. But impossible! You and Toscanini and Caruso, all of you, you think I have endless supply of money to spend! I know you call me penny-pincher and other names behind my back—do not deny it! But the directors decide these matters, not I. Come into my office, Gerry, I show you the books.”

  “No, thank you, you’ve shown me the books before.” Personally, I was convinced that Gatti kept two sets of books, one for the directors and the other to show to singers. “You know what I think of your policy of retrenchment, Mr. Gatti. It’s nothing more than an underhanded attempt to take advantage of the singers, now that a lot of your competition has disappeared.” The Manhattan Opera House had closed; opera had been suspended in Boston and Chicago—temporarily, one hoped. And if Antonio Scotti was right, there’d soon be an influx of singers from Europe, all of them looking for a new home at the Metropolitan. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. “Don’t use that excuse with me, Gatti, and don’t use it with Toscanini. You never gave up anything you didn’t have to!”

  He screamed something at me, and I screamed something back at him, and it went on like that until I hung up the telephone so hard I broke the little hook off the side. Sometimes Gatti made me furious! The Metropolitan was in a good position, from the board of directors’ point of view. It was already more than fully staffed for its own needs, and the number of available singers was bound to increase if the war dragged on much longer. In a year Gatti might have fifteen baritones standing by the next time Pasquale Amato got sick. That meant he didn’t have to listen to any of the singers’ demands; he could pretty much do what he wanted.

  My contract wasn’t due for renewal yet, but I thought a little preliminary work wouldn’t hurt. I decided to ask my manager to start negotiating my new contract now, before things got worse. Before I left home I told my maid Bella that we needed a new telephone and to notify whomever one notifies about such matters.

  Morris Gest kept offices on the third floor of a new building on West Forty-fifth Street, a big jump up from his ticket-scalping days. Morris’s private office had three windows that started at the floor and extended about three-fourths of the way up the wall. I sat in the client’s chair, framed by the middle window and fully visible to anyone down on the street who cared to look up. Quite a few did; one man I didn’t know blew me a kiss. I waved.

  “So, darling Gerry, what can I do for you?” Morris asked.

  “You can challenge Gatti-Casazza to a duel!” I explained what I thought was going to happen during the next few years, during the period of “retrenchment” that was to be the excuse for all sorts of inevitably shabby treatment we were bound to receive. “Gatti’s sitting pretty right now. I think we’d better work out a new contract now, before things get w
orse.”

  He gave me a big grin and started pawing through the papers in his desk. He came up with a handwritten copy of a letter he’d sent to Gatti a week ago, spelling out new terms he wanted for my next contract. “You see, darling, you have nothing to worry about. Morris Gest always has his ear to the ground.” The terms of the contract were exorbitant; Morris liked to leave himself plenty of room to maneuver.

  I congratulated him on his perspicacity. “You think I’m right, then? Things are going to get worse?”

  “Well, let’s just say they’re not going to get any better for a while. But we don’t have anything to worry about. Mr. Gatti’s not going to risk losing you, you sell too many tickets.” He scowled. “Look, as long as you’re here, there’s something else.” He pawed through his desk drawer again and pulled out another sheet of paper. “That concert you’re doing with Philippe Duchon—this here’s what he wants you to sing.”

  I took the paper automatically. “Excuse me?”

  Morris visibly braced himself. “Now don’t get mad, darling, but he says—and I’m quoting directly—he says, Tell Miss Farrar she is to sing these numbers.’ Something about complementing his own choices.”

  I was on my feet, shaking. “He is telling me what I am to sing? Do I understand you correctly? He is telling me?”

  “Told him you wouldn’t like it,” Morris said glumly.

  “How dare he!” I exploded. “Who does he think he is, telling me what to sing! Has he forgotten I am helping him? He doesn’t consult me, he doesn’t talk it over, he just decides … what arrogance! How dare he treat me like this!” I furiously tore up the list without reading it and flung the pieces at Morris, who flinched. “You can tell that, that baritone he can sing them himself—because I won’t be anywhere near the concert hall! The idea!”

  “Now, Gerry—”

  “Don’t you now Gerry me! And what were you doing, Morris Gest, the whole time Duchon was deciding what I was going to sing? Which one of us are you representing, Duchon or me?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Well, as a matter of fact, both of you.”