A Chorus of Detectives (2 page)

Gerry sighed; it was a little scene she should be used to by now. Scotti was perpetually announcing to the world that he was head over heels in love with Geraldine Farrar.

Again.

Gatti-Casazza sat in his office at the Seventh Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street corner of the Metropolitan Opera House. Although the steam heat was on full, he was wearing overcoat, muffler, and gloves. Even after twelve years, Gatti had never gotten used to New York winters.

Less than a month into the new season, he was worried. Caruso was not in the best of health. Baritone Pasquale Amato had cancelled a performance, unusual for him. Soprano Emmy Destinn was not herself—had not been, in fact, ever since her return to the Met after the war's end. And it had been a mistake to let Geraldine Farrar sing Marguérite in
Faust
. Her top notes, alas, were gone—and not only her top notes. Since her throat operation a couple of years ago, Gerry's voice had lost something. The operation, coming as it did in the midst of the trauma of an ugly divorce, had taken its toll; the voice had never quite returned to form.

Not that it made any difference to the singer's popularity; Geraldine Farrar was still the public's
beniamina
, the pet child who could do no wrong. She was the only Carmen the Met audiences wanted. Her
Zazà
, now in its second year of production, was a
succès de scandale
. A Farrar performance still filled every seat in the house, and every year the soprano attracted new gerryflappers—those hordes of teen-aged girls who jumped up and down and squealed every time their idol opened her mouth. But the role of Marguérite in
Faust
was too high for Gerry now; letting her sing it had been a mistake.

All of which was why Gatti-Casazza was thinking now in terms of back-up singers and eventual replacements. Young Rosa Ponselle had enchanted New York audiences from the moment she first set foot on the stage—but she was still learning; she had a long way to go yet. Not so with Maria Jeritza, the Viennese soprano Gatti was bringing to the Metropolitan the following year. Jeritza was an established star, and a glamour girl in the tradition of Farrar. New York would love her. Geraldine Farrar would not.

But that wasn't all. Sad as the thought was, Gatti mused, Caruso couldn't go on forever; eventually he, too, would have to give way to a younger singer. No one could ever replace Caruso, of course, but the world was full of young tenors eager to try. Gatti had taken a chance on one of them, and on November 26, 1920, newcomer Beniamino Gigli had made his Metropolitan Opera début. The audience had responded warmly to the bright-voiced new tenor; if their enthusiasm continued unabated through the rest of the season, the transition to the next generation of singers might go a little easier when the time came.

Gatti's assistant, a man named Edward Ziegler, walked briskly into the office, the very picture of no-nonsense efficiency. With his silver hair parted in the middle and wearing rimless pince-nez, Ziegler looked more like an investment banker than an opera impresario's assistant. His presence had its usual effect of making Gatti straighten his shoulders. “Quaglia and Setti have agreed on the new chorus tenor,” Ziegler said. “I'll make out a pay sheet.”

The general manager grunted. “They agree? Unusual.”

“Actually, the man is Quaglia's choice,” Ziegler said. “Setti gave in just to keep the peace. He doesn't have the appetite for controversy the Maestro does.”

Alessandro Quaglia was a conductor now in his second season at the Metropolitan. An imperious and inflexible man, Quaglia was not the one to yield when differences of opinion arose. Giulio Setti, on the other hand, was usually tactful and persuasive enough to get what he wanted without having the matter come to a confrontation. Something must have gone wrong this time. Setti was the Met's chorus master; he'd come to New York from Milan with Gatti-Casazza … and with Toscanini. When that temperamental conductor had eventually departed the Metropolitan in a huff, Setti had stayed. Gatti trusted him and valued his opinion.

“Eh, it is good to have this unpleasant business done with,” Gatti murmured, more to himself than to Ziegler. The singer just hired was the replacement for the unfortunate man who'd hanged himself. The Metropolitan had a pool of available singers to draw upon when the need arose, both choristers and soloists alike. The replacement of the dead man should have been a simple matter; but Quaglia, it sometimes seemed to Gatti, enjoyed complicating things. Probably it was only a way of asserting his authority; any conductor living in the shadow of the great Toscanini was bound to feel diminished by comparison now and then.

Ziegler interrupted his thoughts. “We may have a problem, Mr. Gatti. Emmy Destinn is now saying she doesn't want to sing on Christmas Day.”

Gatti-Casazza muttered one word: “Contract.”

“Oh, she's read her contract. She's saying she may wake up ill Christmas morning. We have a
Tristan
scheduled for the Wednesday after Christmas—I suppose we could switch.” His tone of voice made it clear he thought little of his own suggestion. A rather frosty man by nature, Ziegler had scant patience with singers' whims. “Shall I make the change?”

“No.” Gatti got up from his desk. “
Aïda
is scheduled for Christmas Day and
Aïda
it will be. I talk to Emmy.”

“Do you think it will do any good?” Ziegler asked. “Nothing seems to please her anymore.”

Gatti shrugged and changed the subject. “The new man—Setti coaches him now?” At Ziegler's nod he walked out of the office; he wanted to make sure the chorus master was satisfied with Quaglia's choice.

As Gatti cut through the foyer, he had to detour around a woman down on her knees wringing water out of a rag over a scrub bucket. He looked again and saw it was the woman who'd led him to the dead man in the chorus dressing room.

“Excuse me,” he said to her, “I do not have chance to thank you for …” Gatti trailed off when he realized she didn't understand what he was saying. He tried Italian. “
Le sono molto tenuto
.…” But she just gazed at him uncomprehendingly. Gatti raised his voice and tried again. “What is your name?”

At the word
name
the woman's face lit up. “Mee-zhus Bukaitis. Bukaitis.” She jabbed a forefinger against her chest three or four times to make sure he understood.

Gatti smiled. “Mrs. Bukaitis, I want to thank you for your help. I know it is upsetting for you.…” She was scowling. Gatti ended up doing a pantomime of a hanging man.

Mrs. Bukaitis slapped both hands over her eyes and let loose a stream of words in a language the general manager didn't know. The scrubwoman shook her head vigorously and went back to her job of cleaning the lobby floor, apparently not knowing she'd just been thanked.

Gatti sighed and continued on his search for Setti and the new chorus tenor. He found them in a small rehearsal room; the chorus master was seated at a piano, playing with his left hand and conducting with his right. Setti was a small man and getting on in years; he looked like a gnome hunched over the keyboard. The new tenor had a good voice, one with an unusual quality to it. Gatti stood in the doorway until the chorus master noticed him. Setti told the singer to wait and stepped out into the hall.

“You are satisfied?” Gatti asked. “You do not take someone you do not want?”

“No, no—a good singer, this one,” Setti reassured him, his head tilted back to gaze up at the much taller man. “My only concern is—his voice, does it blend with the others in the chorus? You notice the distinctive sound?”

“
Sì
, I notice.”

“Well, we find out tomorrow night. In
Pagliacci
.”

“You start him so soon?”

“He knows the music.
Pagliacci
tomorrow night, and
Carmen
Thursday.
Parsifal
he does not know—in English, that is. So he does not sing Friday. But by then we know if he blends with the other choristers or not.”

Gatti nodded. “Eh, that is all right, then.”

“Perhaps.” Setti scowled. “The other choristers—they may make trouble for him.”

“
Cielo
—why?”

The chorus master shrugged, a gesture involving arms, shoulders, and back. “Who knows why? Always they fight—they
look
for things to fight about. The Italian singers hate the Austrians, the Austrians hate the French, the French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Americans, and the Americans hate everybody. Squabble, squabble, squabble! And when they fight among themselves, they do not listen to
me
.” His eyes twinkled. “Sometimes I think I fire them all and start over from scratch.”

“Oh, you cannot do that!” Gatti was aghast, taking him literally. “To train an entirely new chorus … in midseason? Unthinkable!”

Setti grinned. “Eh, perhaps I fire only part of them. The German part, yes?”

Gatti understood he was joking and gave him a weak smile. “In time, the squabbling stops. The war is over. They cannot go on fighting forever. It is against human nature.”

The chorus master grimaced. “I wish I share your view of human nature.” He nodded to Gatti and went back into the rehearsal room, to give the new tenor as much instruction as he could before Wednesday night's
Pagliacci
.

Emmy Destinn stared coldly at Gatti-Casazza's assistant, who was trying to persuade her to come speak to the conductor.

“
Bitte, kommen Sie mit
,” Edward Ziegler entreated from the doorway of her dressing room. “
Herr Quaglia erwartet
…”

“I do not speak
that
language,” Emmy said with enough ice in her voice to freeze over the sun. “Furthermore, I do not permit it to be spoken to me.”

“
La prego di dispensarmene
,” Ziegler switched immediately. “Signor Quaglia—”

“If Quaglia wishes to speak to me, he knows where the star dressing room is.” She dismissed Ziegler with a wave of her hand. The nerve of the man—speaking
German
to her!

Emmy had known the language most of her life and had sung it hundreds of times. But that was before the war; now she refused to let one word of German pass her lips, and everyone at the Metropolitan knew it. In spite of his last name, Ziegler was American-born; German was not his native tongue. His addressing her in the language he knew she loathed had to be a calculated insult.

Emmy was singing Nedda in
Pagliacci
, a role she normally enjoyed even though the tenor invariably stole the show—especially when that tenor was Enrico Caruso. But tonight she wasn't looking forward to it much, nor to the upcoming
Aïda
. Somehow, the joy was gone.

“We do the hair now?” her maid asked.

Wordlessly the soprano sat down at her dressing table and let the maid arrange her hair. For the first time in her life, Emmy Destinn found herself envying Geraldine Farrar. Gerry's voice was going, but she could still give a performance that left audiences standing and cheering. You could tell just from the way she made her first entrance how much she loved what she was doing; Emmy envied her that. Her own voice had never been better, but more and more Emmy was having to force herself to walk out on the stage and sing.

An impatient
rat-a-tat
sounded; the maid opened the door to admit Alessandro Quaglia, who had the profile of a Roman statue and the overmuscled body of a prizefighter. Emmy sniffed irritably. The conductor had an annoying habit of always passing on some new bit of instruction just minutes before the curtain. She dismissed the maid.

“Since the star will not come to me,” Quaglia said with sarcastic overpoliteness, “you see I come to the star.” He stood like a soldier at attention, stretching out his six-feet-two in an attempt to intimidate her.

“I had not finished dressing,” Emmy answered indifferently. “I knew you would not want me running up and down stairs and arriving on stage out of breath.”

Quaglia's eyes traveled slowly from the top of her head down to her toes, and then slowly all the way back up again. He said nothing, but his meaning couldn't be clearer:
If you'd lose forty pounds, you wouldn't get out of breath climbing stairs
.

“What is it you want?” she asked sharply.

Quaglia smiled, knowing he'd scored. “About the
Stridono lassù—
”

“You change tempo too quickly,” Emmy snapped. “It should be gradual.
” Stridono lassù
was her only aria in
Pagliacci
, and she didn't want to the orchestra playing tricks with the tempi.

“Tonight we do it your way. Gradual change.”

“What?”

“I think the gradual change is wrong, as you know,” Quaglia said earnestly, “but it is better that we are wrong together rather than you sing one tempo while orchestra plays another. Tonight, I follow you.”

“Thank you,” Emmy said numbly.

Quaglia bowed stiffly and left the dressing room. Emmy shook her head. What a strange man! Nasty one minute, understanding and helpful the next. God, how she missed Toscanini! With that hot-tempered man, you always knew where you stood. He made sure of that.

She finished warming up. It was still a little early, but Emmy made her way down the stairs to the stage level and was surprised to hear herself happily humming her entrance music. Well, well. Maybe some of the old spark was left after all.

At the bottom of the stairs stood baritone Pasquale Amato, who was singing the role of Tonio that night; he'd been waiting for her. “Quaglia,” he said, “he comes to you with last-minute instruction?”

“In a way,” Emmy answered. “He says he will follow my tempo in the
Stridono lassù
.”

The baritone nodded. “It is same for Rico and me. Always something! Quaglia, he is always tinkering, is he not? Right up until curtain time.”