Prima Donna at Large (39 page)

“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
.

She finished the
Habanera
to enthusiastic applause—and to the sound of a few voices chanting
Ger-ee, Ger-ee!
from the back of the auditorium.
Not yet, girls
, Gerry thought as she sashayed off the stage;
mustn't cheer yourselves out before the final curtain
. Every year new gerryflappers appeared in the audience, fresh-faced young girls eager to join the army of females who worshipped the ground Geraldine Farrar walked on. The ones who'd been around a while knew just when to start the chanting—not too early, not too late.

Gerry's maid was waiting offstage with a towel and make-up so she wouldn't have to run up the stairs to her dressing room and right back down again; she had to go back on again as soon as the tenor finished singing his duet with the
second
lady of the opera. Gerry took the towel and started patting dry the light film of perspiration on her face.

“I hold the mirror, yes?” a familiar voice asked.

“What are you doing, Rico?” Gerry asked, powdering down. “You and Toto and Pasquale—what are you up to?”

“We watch,” he said importantly. “We watch and make certain no more accidents bedevil us.”

“Hold it a little lower—there. How can watching stop an accident?”

“Oh, we are very busy,” Caruso announced. “We check stage ropes and props and scenery—hey,
scugnizz
',” he broke off, “what do you do here?”

Rosa Ponselle came over for a hug from her favorite tenor. “Everybody else was staying backstage—I didn't want to miss anything. Gerry, that was a great
half
a
Habanera
.”

“Mm, yes, it took Quaglia a while to catch on. Hold the mirror still, Rico.”

“I think Mr. Gatti and Ziegler are both on the verge of nervous breakdowns,” Rosa remarked. “They're both fussing around like old mother hens.”

“We all check,” Caruso explained. “We make sure no more accidents.”

“I've got to go on,” Gerry said, patting her hair. “Everybody go away.”

They left her alone and once again she directed all her concentration toward her role. In the next scene she got into a fight with one of the chorus women. She'd always liked that part.

Yelling and screaming—all musical, all rehearsed. Women pouring on to the stage, filling the stage, taking over the stage. Geraldine Farrar in the middle of it all, pulling free from the soldier who was trying to restrain her, turning to strike at the chorus woman …

… who wasn't there.

Without hesitating, Gerry lashed out at a different woman of the chorus—who looked shocked at first but then caught on and played out the incident. It wasn't art, but it got done.

Eventually everyone left the stage except Gerry and the tenor, the seduction of whom she was to complete in exactly one aria. Halfway through the
Seguidilla
, she became aware of raised voices backstage. Angry, she started singing louder, causing Maestro Quaglia to raise an eyebrow at her. But the backstage voices didn't stop, and she could even hear someone running. The
idiots
—creating a disturbance while a performance was in progress!

Then it hit her. There'd been another accident.

Her fears were confirmed when she glanced off into the wings and saw Scotti standing there watching her worriedly. When next she happened to look off the other side of the stage, there stood Caruso, wringing his hands, anxiety written all over his face. The tenor she was singing the scene with missed a cue, also aware that something was wrong.