Prima Donna at Large

by Barbara Paul

  Caruso stared down at the big brown stain on his green vest. “Una maledizione,” he muttered gloomily.

  “There it is, Mr. Gatti,” said the stagehand. “I dint touch a thing, just like you said.”

  Gatti-Casazza and Edward Ziegler stood on the pneumatic platform thirty feet below the stage, looking up at the trap door hanging open over their heads. “Take us up, please,” Gatti said to the stagehand. Slowly the platform lifted until the general manager and his assistant were almost at eye level with the stage. “Stop.”

  “Look at that,” Ziegler said immediately. “The middle one’s pulled loose.”

  The trap door was hinged at the back and normally fastened into place at the front by means of three heavy bolts, one at each corner and one in the middle. In addition, a heavy crossbar had been installed to run the width of the trap door, providing reinforcement. But the crossbar was not in place, and the middle bolt was wearing its holder, which had been wrenched free from its bracing crossbeam.

  Gatti peered closely. “These other two bolts …”

  Ziegler made a clucking sound. “Somebody forgot to shoot the bolts!”

  From below, the stagehand called out, “Thass not my job!”

  “So instead of three bolts and a crossbar,” Ziegler went on, “the trap was supported by only one bolt—which eventually pulled loose. I’m surprised it didn’t fall open sooner than it did, what with the chorus tramping back and forth over it for an entire act.”

  Gatti thought back. “Monday night. The trap door is used Monday, in Mefistofele.” Mefistofele was performed on Monday, Tuesday the opera house was dark, and Wednesday the trap door had broken open during the final minutes of Pagliacci. “Only a little longer,” Gatti lamented. “If the bolt holds just a little longer, maybe someone notices—and corrects the error, yes? And nobody dies.” He motioned to the stagehand to take them back down.

  As they were being lowered to the substage floor, Ziegler said thoughtfully, “Mr. Gatti, why would anyone bother riding this platform up to the trap—and then shoot only one of the bolts?”

  The general manager shrugged. “Haste? Absent-mindedness?”

  Ziegler turned to the stagehand. “Is there any way one person could operate this platform by himself—and ride it up to the stage, too?”

  “He could get hisself up there,” the stagehand answered, “but he couldn’t get hisself back down. You need somebody down here to pull the lever.”

  “So there’s no way for one person to get up there alone?”

  “Well, you could climb a scaffold.”

  “We have one that tall?”

  “Sure we do. Right over there.” He pointed.

  Gatti stared curiously at his assistant. “You think it is deliberate?”

  Ziegler looked perplexed. “Well, considering the other things that have happened … I think this platform must be kept raised all the time from now on. We don’t want to chance its happening again.”

  Gatti turned to the stagehand. “Whose job is it to see the trap door is properly bolted?”

  The stagehand scratched his head. “Don’t rightly know. Depends on who was crewin’ Monday night. You’d hafta ask the stage manager.”

  Gatti nodded. “Ziegler, I want you to find out from the stage manager who it is and have him dismissed. Even if trap door is deliberately unbolted by someone else, it is responsibility of backstage workers to check everything, yes? If you—”

  Abruptly, the sound of a piano being played on the stage above their heads interrupted him. The music had an incongruous sound in the opera house; someone was pounding out a sassy ragtime tune.

  Ziegler adjusted his pince-nez. “Our Rosa is here. I’ll leave her to you.” He hurried off to find the stage manager.

  Gatti sighed heavily and told the stagehand to raise the platform one more time. He’d told her and he’d told her—the Metropolitan Opera was not the proper place for a performance of Mr. Joplin’s ditties, no matter how impromptu.

  On the stage, a bright-eyed young woman broke off her playing and burst into laughter at the sight of the Metropolitan’s general manager rising majestically through a hole in the floor. “Oh, Mr. Gatti—now that’s what I call making an entrance!”

  “Rosa, please,” Gatti said with a pained expression. “I ask you many times not to play the jazz here.”

  “And I tell you many times,” she mimicked in a friendly way, “you’re making a mistake keeping American music out of the Met.”

  “But jazz? Ragtime? Not all Americans are so enamored of its sound as you are. Our audiences would be unhappy—you know they would.”

  “I s’pose,” she acknowledged. “I guess I just spent too much time on the circuit.” Young Rosa Ponselle had gone straight from vaudeville to leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera, the only singer ever to make such a leap.

  “Rosa, why are you here? You do not sing this week.”

  “Costume fitting. I had to have a new Forza costume made, since the old one got ruined.”

  Gatti knew better than to ask how the old costume ‘got ruined’, all by itself. “When do you finish?”

  “I’m finished now. It took only a few minutes.”

  “Then go home.” He wagged a finger at her in a fatherly manner. “A man dies here last night. Now is no time to play—”

  “You’re right.” She sobered instantly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think.” She left the piano and went over to the side of the stage where she started pushing among the teaser curtains, releasing clouds of dust that made her sneeze. “By the way, I think Mr. Setti could use some help. The chorus sounds as if they’re in revolt.” She finally found what she was looking for and wheeled out her bicycle.

  Gatti made a sound of exasperation. “Rosa, how many times do I tell you? Do not ride the bicycle in traffic!”

  She threw a sheepish grin over her shoulder and hurried away. American girls! Gatti thought in annoyance. Always they did what they wanted to do and rarely what they ought to do. Sometimes he thought young Rosa needed a good spanking.

  Not that anyone would ever give her one; she was too special. Rosa had a voice that could hypnotize audiences, and her musicianship was as impeccable as it was instinctive. But Rosa Ponselle had grown to young womanhood without having ever studied opera. Gatti-Casazza had been stunned the first time he heard her sing, at an audition Caruso had asked him to grant the young vaudeville performer. That had been two years earlier; the general manager had signed her to a contract even though at the time she hadn’t known even one operatic role. Everything she sang had to be taught to her, slowly and laboriously. She knew three roles now, and was learning a fourth. No one had ever before made a career of opera in quite so slapdash a fashion. But then, Rosa was Rosa.

  What had she said about Setti’s needing help? Gatti made his way upstairs to the rehearsal room where the chorus master was holding forth. From behind closed doors came the sound of angry shouting. The door burst open and a scowling man shouldered his way past the general manager. “What …?” Gatti started to ask, but the man stomped down the stairs without looking back.

  Inside, Giulio Setti was pleading with the rest of the chorus. “I know all that is possible is being done to ensure your safety! Do you think last night’s accident passes unnoticed? I am certain the backstage workers take extra precautions now to—”

  “Three deaths and one injury,” a tall, thin man interrupted, towering ominously over the chorus master. “All within one week. I tell you, it’s too much! Something has to be done.”

  “One of those deaths—it is suicide,” Setti said quickly. “Two accidents only, one in Samson and—”

  “That’s two more than there should be!” a contralto shouted. Murmurs of agreement ran through the group.

  A small dark man cleared his throat importantly. “Do you notice? These accidents, they never happen to the Germans, no?”

  Setti was appalled. “What do you say?”

  “Perhaps they are not accidents
after all?”

  An impossibly blond older man stared down his nose at the small dark man. “You accuse us? You accuse me?”

  “That is absurd!” the chorus master exclaimed. “I will hear no such accusations!”

  “Why do you always take the Germans’ side?” a woman shrieked at him. “Do you forget you are Italian?”

  “The war is over!” Setti bellowed. “Now we must work together!”

  The blond man sneered. “He never takes the Germans’ side! He is too Italian.” He made the word sound like an obscenity. Immediately three Italians stepped up to him and spat on the floor. Polyglot curses flew back and forth, accompanied by some energetic pushing and shoving and interrupted now and then when a disgruntled chorister would stop to shake his fist in the direction of the chorus master.

  Gatti-Casazza waited until Setti had restored order and then went in. The general manager explained to the chorus that the cause of last night’s tragedy was a bolt holder that had worked its way loose from its moorings. He explained that the man responsible for checking the trap door was even then in the process of being dismissed. He explained that all backstage workers were being instructed to doublecheck everything before the curtain opened each night.

  “You see!” Setti cried triumphantly. “I tell you all is well!”

  The various members of the chorus muttered under their breath and eyed the chorus master suspiciously, but their internecine squabbling eased off for the time being. Setti told them to warm up, that they would begin rehearsal in five minutes. He motioned Gatti-Gasazza out into the hallway.

  “You are having trouble finding the two replacements?” Gatti asked him when they were alone.

  “Five replacements,” Setti corrected. “Three resign today—two sopranos and one bass-baritone. If there are more accidents, we may not have a chorus.”

  The general manager pulled nervously at his beard. “There are no more accidents.”

  “You guarantee it?”

  More beard-pulling. “No.”

  Setti threw up his hands. “I say once I like to get rid of entire chorus and start over—but not this way!”

  “How can I make guarantees? Do I hire guards?”

  Setti’s face crinkled into a gnomish smile. “Not so bad an idea, my friend!”

  Gatti shook his head. “Too much fuss! We have one week of misfortune, yes—but it does not last forever. Discourage talk of the accidents, Setti. Everyone calms down in time.”

  “You think?”

  “Sì,” Gatti nodded emphatically. “All we need is few performances where nothing happens. They forget—you will see.”

  “I hope you are right. Pray for a Carmen with no accidents tonight. Now I must rehearse. They do not sing together as they should, do you notice?”

  Gatti had noticed. So had the soloists, the orchestra, the audiences, and the critics. “Buona fortuna,” he said to Setti.

  Geraldine Farrar was doing her warm-up exercises as she applied her Carmen make-up. Antonio Scotti sat in his usual chair beside her make-up table, humming along.

  Rosa Ponselle leaned on the back of Gerry’s chair, carefully watching the older soprano’s making-up process. “Do you s’pose I’ll ever sing Carmen?” she asked.

  “Not while I’m still here.” Gerry laughed.

  “The voice must darken first, little one,” Scotti said.

  Rosa looked around Gerry’s private dressing room. “Isn’t it awfully warm in here? I find I sing better if I keep the dressing room a bit cool.”

  Gerry smiled. “A bit cool? Emmy Destinn says you always leave the star dressing room feeling like an icebox.”

  Rosa made a face. “Oh, she complains about everything. Nothing pleases her.”

  Gerry and Scotti exchanged a look but said nothing. The Emmy Destinn who’d come back after the war was not the same Emmy they’d known for twenty years; but they weren’t going to talk about their old acquaintance in front of this knowing young woman. Gerry finished warming up.

  “Are you through?” Rosa asked, surprised. “It takes me a lot longer.”

  Scotti sat up straight in his chair and said, “Rosa, my charming child—as always, your presence is a joy and a delight, but please go away now. I want to ask this woman to marry me again.”

  Rosa’s face was all innocence. “Marry you again?”

  “Ask her again. Now go. Parti. Scout.”

  “Scoot,” Gerry corrected.

  Rosa heaved a big sigh and headed for the door. “I don’t know why you bother. You know she’s just going to say no.” She left.

  “Are you?” Scotti asked. “Going to say no?”

  “Of course I am,” Gerry said. “I’ve had enough of marriage, Toto.”

  “You do not have any marriage with me,” he said indignantly. “Do not judge me by that, that actor you marry with!”

  She leaned over and gave him a kiss. “I wouldn’t dream of comparing you, Toto,” she said, secretly doing just that—to Scotti’s advantage, if he’d only known. The attack of nerves that had pestered her all day was gone; just being in familiar surroundings and preparing to do something she loved doing was enough to restore her equanimity.

  But when Gerry and Scotti went downstairs to the stage level, they ran into a tension that had nothing to do with pre-curtain jitters. It was a toss-up as to who was more on edge, the choristers or the backstage workers who’d been threatened with mass unemployment if even one more accident occurred. “Cross your fingers,” Gerry said to Scotti. “This isn’t going to be an easy one tonight.”

  “It is better once the music starts,” he said reassuringly. “When they see you are not affected by what happens, they grow calm again.”

  “You’re right. It’s up to me to set an example … oh God, there’s Emmy.”

  Emmy Destinn sailed toward them like a battleship at top speed. Before the war she’d come to Gerry’s performances of Carmen simply because she liked them; now she came because she knew it annoyed Gerry. “You must wear this tonight,” she said without preamble, holding out a chain with a pendant dangling from it.

  Gerry took the chain. The pendant was a cross, ornately decorated in the Czechoslovakian manner. “It’s beautiful, Emmy—but I don’t think it goes with a Spanish costume.”

  “It is a good-luck charm. The chain is long—the cross will hang down inside your dress. But you must wear it.”

  Surprised and rather touched, Gerry slipped the chain over her head. She had no faith in charms and talismans and such, but this was the first friendly gesture the other soprano had made since her return. “Thank you, Emmy.”

  Emmy nodded curtly. “I want this accident nonsense settled and everything back to normal. Before I sing again.” She sailed away without another word.

  “I should have known,” Gerry said wryly. “Toto—is that Pasquale?”

  Scotti glanced over to the other side of the stage where he caught a glimpse of Pasquale Amato making his way cautiously through the wings. “Pasquale and Rico and I,” Scotti explained, “we watch from backstage tonight.”

  “Why?” she asked suspiciously.

  The baritone was saved from explaining further by the arrival of the man who would conduct that evening’s performance. Quaglia looked angry, his boxer’s body twitching in annoyance.

  “Maestro Quaglia,” Gerry smiled brightly, artificially. “I do hope you haven’t come with any last-minute changes.”

  “No, dear lady, not tonight.” Quaglia matched her artificial smile. “I have one or two things—but they must wait until we have full chorus again. Do you know three of the choristers quit today?”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Setti brings one elderly chorister out of retirement to help fill in for the time being … but if there is another accident, more will quit.” Quaglia suddenly gave vent to the anger he’d been suppressing. “They think they are soloists, these chorus singers! I must adjust to them! I never have so much trouble with a chorus before in my life!”


  Scotti started to say that wasn’t precisely true but then decided that wouldn’t be too diplomatic. “You can not blame them for worrying,” he said instead. “They are afraid.”

  “Pah!” Quaglia exclaimed, his face turning red. “Spineless nobodies! I am not afraid!”

  “You do not sing in the chorus,” Scotti said gently.

  “Why do they think they are singled out for such special attention? Some of them are claiming these accidents are no accidents—they say everything that’s happened is deliberate.”

  “Ridicolo.”

  “Of course it’s ridiculous.” Quaglia made a visible effort to calm down. “I’ve told Mr. Gatti, either Setti whips that chorus into line immediately or I will delete the chorus numbers from all the operas I conduct the rest of the season.”

  Gerry half-gasped, half-laughed. “Surely you’re not serious! You can’t just eliminate the chorus from opera!”

  “I am thoroughly convinced that I can.” The conductor pulled out a handkerchief and patted his forehead. “Ah, it is time.” He grasped Gerry’s hand, gave it a perfunctory kiss, and hurried away to take his place in the orchestra pit.

  The soprano watched him go. “Sometimes I believe that man thinks he’s Toscanini.”

  Scotti nodded solemly. “All of the temperament, but …”

  “But little of the artistry,” she finished. The sound of polite applause from the auditorium told them Quaglia was making his way to the podium. Scotti gave her an encouraging squeeze of the hand and slipped away.

  The opera started.

  Gerry listened carefully to the chorus; their attack was ragged and one or two voices stood out over the others. Not good. The tempo was too fast, for one thing, faster than what they’d rehearsed. She put the chorus out of her mind and concentrated on her own role. Enter … now.

  “Quand je vous aimérai?” She sang her first line with all the authority she could muster. When will I love you? Who knows. She deliberately slowed down the tempo of the Habanera and ignored Quaglia’s attempts to get her to pick up the speed. The first half of the aria was ruined by a conflict of the two tempi; but when Quaglia saw she wasn’t going to follow his beat, he glowered at her and slowed the orchestra to match the pace she was setting. She rewarded him with a smile, all the while thinking that Toscanini would never have allowed her to get away with that.