Prima Donna at Large (38 page)

Scotti cleared his throat. “Rico, do you think we have snow tomorrow?”

“It is his first time on the Metropolitan stage,” Caruso rushed on, unheeding. “His first and his last!”

“I think we go to Belasco Theatre tomorrow night,” Scotti persisted, “if we do not have snow.”

“Poor man.” Caruso shook his head. “Poor, poor man.”

“Rico, listen to me,” Scotti insisted. “I have problem you help me with, yes? I do not know what Christmas present to give to Gerry. You suggest something?”

“
Sì, sì
—tomorrow. Why does the trap door fall open? It never happens before!”

Amato tried to help. “I, too, have problems with Christmas presents—”

“Christmas, Christmas!” the tenor cried. “Christmas is two weeks away! Why all this talk of Christmas? Something terrible happens last night—and you do not talk about it!”

Amato smiled ruefully at Scotti. “It is hopeless, Toto.” Scotti nodded in resignation. Then Amato asked Caruso, “Do you know the new man, Rico?”

Caruso said he'd never spoken to the dead man. The other man who had fallen through the trap had suffered a hip injury as well as multiple fractures of the leg. “He is gone the rest of the season,” the tenor said mournfully. “That is still two more chorus singers that must be found!”

“How do you know this?” Scotti asked.

“Mr. Gatti tells me. You understand what all this means?” Caruso laid one finger alongside his nose. “
Una maledizione!
”

“Oh, Rico!” Amato exclaimed in amused exasperation. “There is no curse! Do not say such things.”

Caruso nodded wisely. “The chorus of the Metropolitan Opera—it is cursed! How else do you explain what happens? First the young soprano in
Samson and Delilah
. Then the poor man who hangs himself. Then last night … eh, I
feel
disaster in the air, even before we start! And I say so—ask Emmy! Then the voice breaks, and I think
that
is the disaster! But no, it is merely sign of worse things to come. A trap door that never mal-, mal … never misbehaves before—wide open it drops! One more death, and another man seriously hurt. That makes one injury, two fatal accidents, and a suicide, all within a week. Do you ever know so much misfortune to come so close together before? There is only one explanation.
Una maledizione
.”

All the time Caruso was talking, the waiters had been putting food on the table while listening openly to what the tenor was saying. Both Scotti and Amato had made shushing gestures to Caruso, who either did not or would not see. When the waiters had gone, Scotti burst out, “Now all of New York will be saying the Metropolitan chorus is under a curse! You should have waited until they are gone, Rico.”

“Who?”

“The waiters,” Amato said. “They drink in every word you say.”

Caruso waved a fork in dismissal. “Is not important!
La maledizione
, that is important! Think, my friends—what starts in the chorus, can it not spread to us as well? Pasquale, you are there last night, you hear! Do you not understand?” He put down his fork and grasped his throat dramatically. “The voice, it is the next to go!”

“Rico, you are foolish man,” Amato remonstrated. “Your voice, it breaks because you sing too often. You need to rest it more.”

“He is right,” Scotti added. “I tell you many times, not so much singing! You do not listen, and see what happens? Right in most important part of
Vesti la giubba
—”

“It is not too much singing,” Caruso insisted stubbornly. “It is a curse. Only on the chorus right now, but—”

“And who places this curse on the chorus?” Amato asked patiently. “Who has the power? Who hates the chorus so much?”

“I do not know. Perhaps we find out?”

“Perhaps we forget this nonsense and finish our lunch. Your pasta grows cold.”

“It is not nonsense!” the tenor protested. “Tell me true—are you comfortable when you go in opera house now?”

He had them there; the two baritones acknowledged the point. “Always, backstage there are accidents,” Scotti said, “but so many? And so close together? No, I am not comfortable.”

“And it does not end,” Caruso said in a whisper, beginning to take a perverse enjoyment in his role of forecaster of doom. “There will be more accidents, more suicides. You will see! The curse has not yet run its course. Something else happens—perhaps tonight!”

Amato frowned; Geraldine Farrar was singing
Carmen
that evening. “Rico, you do not say this to Gerry, do you?”

The tenor was indignant. “What you think? You think I want to frighten her? No, I say nothing.”

“Good,” Amato smiled. “She is perhaps already nervous—no need to make it worse. Do you think she is nervous?”

Scotti sighed. “I call her on the telephone this morning. She screams at me to leave her alone and slams down the receiver, crash!”

“She is nervous,” Amato nodded.

“We go tonight,” Caruso decided. “We keep close watch, yes?”

The others agreed. Although all three men had sung in
Carmen
in the past, none of them was scheduled to sing that evening. Scotti had only recently added the role of the toreador to his repertoire; he'd sat down to learn the part the minute he heard Geraldine Farrar was divorcing her husband. Now that she was free again …

“
Per dio!
” Caruso cried, jumping up from the table.

Scotti slowly became aware of something hot and wet on his chest. Amato was angrily wiping at one sleeve with a napkin. The frightened-looking waiter stood paralyzed, the coffee pot he'd just dropped still lying in the middle of the table.

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
?”