Prima Donna at Large Read online

  Although I do have to admit that sometimes it got out of hand. I remember receiving letters from total strangers offering to adopt any or all illegitimate semi-royal children I might have! And journalists kept pestering me about our plans to marry. We never did plan to marry. Well, Willi may have had a plan or two, but I didn’t. Willi would one day be Kaiser, or so we thought then. When the war is over, who knows? But if I’d married Willi, I’d have had to give up singing and devote my life to helping rule the country. Give up singing? Ha, that didn’t require any hard decision-making. I was an opera star and I liked being an opera star. I still like it.

  Eventually Willi realized we would never marry and accepted his parents’ choice of a wife for him, a pleasant young woman who turned out to be exactly right for Willi. I stayed friends with both of them. And as for la grande passion Willi and I were supposed to have had, it was really nothing more than a sweet romance. As far as I was concerned, Willi went into his marriage as virginal as the day he was born.

  It was that innocent quality of Willi’s that Jimmy Freeman reflected so exactly. Jimmy’s shy and respectful courtship took me back to those happy times in Berlin, before life turned ugly and my European friends started slaughtering one another. But before that happened—oh, those were grand and glittering days! Americans were popular in Imperial Germany at the turn of the century; commercial relations were good, Teddy Roosevelt and the Kaiser were friends, alles was in Ordnung. As a young American opera star, I was sought after and courted and fussed over. I remember some young lieutenants who would break champagne glasses once my lips had touched them—imagine! And now every time I looked at Jimmy Freeman’s unspoiled young face, I thought of those innocent days. Jimmy reminded me of my youth, I suppose. Thirty-three is not old, but it’s not nineteen.

  It was glorious while it lasted. I sang in other houses, at the Paris Opéra and the Opéra Comique and at Monte Carlo—a gay place, pure froth and frivolity. I sang in Salzburg and Munich and Stockholm, where I made a fan of King Oscar, dear man; he actually presented me with the Order of Merit. I sang in Warsaw, then under Russian supervision and bitterly resentful of it; I saw more than one bloody clash in the streets. I had to cancel singing engagements in Moscow and St. Petersburg because one of their many revolutions was going on at the time. Once I even had trouble getting back to Berlin, there were so many soldiers stopping people everywhere. By the time I left for the Metropolitan Opera in 1906, it was clear that the good times in Europe were over.

  But I was back there last year when it started. When the war broke out in August, I was in a Munich sanitarium recovering from a stomach disorder. I wasn’t particularly worried at the time; I felt at home in Germany and America didn’t seem likely to join in. But by the time I was well enough to travel, Antwerp had fallen and the border was closed. I couldn’t arrange passage to America. Everything I tried failed.

  I was just beginning to panic when a message arrived from Gatti-Casazza; he was holding a ship at Naples for all the Metropolitan’s artists who were having trouble getting out of Europe. With the help of an attentive young officer, I bribed my way through Switzerland, smiling and chatting gaily and pretending that was the way I always traveled. Then I hastened down the length of Italy to the harbor at Naples, where I found a ship full of musicians every bit as frightened as I was. Caruso spent the entire crossing on deck watching out for U-boats.

  It’s impossible to express the anguish this war has caused me. I have friends and professional associates all over Europe, but Germany has always been a special place to me. My vocal coach who saw me through my early years is still there; I don’t even know if she is safe. I don’t know if anybody is safe. But from the moment the first German soldier set foot on Belgian soil on the march to invade France, Germany placed itself squarely and irredeemably in the wrong.

  How could the Kaiser even consider such a thing? I find it hard to reconcile this bloody warmonger with the friendly, laughing man I knew in Berlin. Now every time I think of Germany I get a burning sensation inside. It’s a horrible feeling. The way you’d feel if you suddenly found out your father was a murderer. What happens then? Do you stop loving him? Can you ever again love him in quite the same way?

  But that wasn’t the half of it. The anti-German feeling in this country was so strong that I found I was actually suspect because of my long association with Germany and the royal family. My patriotism was being questioned, of all things! Why, I was born practically at the foot of Bunker Hill—there’s never been the slightest question in my own mind as to where my true allegiance lay! I’ve sung at war relief benefits, I’ve sold Liberty bonds, I’ve done my bit to help. I am American; and if America joins the Allies in the war against Germany, then it’s the Allied side I’ll be on.

  Yet numerous unpleasant things kept happening. I was once cut dead by some society women because I did not rise for the few bars of the national anthem that appear in Madame Butterfly. A little book I’d written about my early career in Germany was withdrawn from public libraries. When I invited Fritz Kreisler to a party I gave last Christmas, I received a rash of scurrilous letters (all anonymous, of course) reviling me for giving succor to the enemy. Sometimes I actually have to remind people that the United States of America is not at war with anyone.

  Not yet, at any rate.

  Antonio Scotti kissed the fingers of my right hand one by one. “Gerry, cara mia—tell me when we marry. How long do you keep me suffering? Say you marry me.”

  I laughed. “Now, Toto, I thought we’d settled all that.”

  He picked up a fork from the table and waved it in the air. “We settle nothing. All you do is keep saying no.”

  And that, from his point of view, was no answer at all. I never met a man who enjoyed being in love so much as Antonio Scotti. He was in love all the time—if not with me, then with someone else. But he was an attentive lover and fun to be with, and I didn’t mind the attention.

  “You must practice saying maybe,” he admonished me gently. “You do not know what joys can be found in marriage.”

  “And you do?” I smiled. Scotti was a tall, easygoing bachelor whose eyes even now followed an attractive woman as she crossed the room. Scotti was fastidious in his dress and had the natural bearing of an aristocrat. He had a mop of lustrous black hair and a good physique; only a rather long nose kept him from being unbearably handsome. He and Caruso and Pasquale Amato were all from Naples and had been friends for years. I liked all three of them; I liked them a lot.

  We were in the dining room of the Hotel Knickerbocker. Caruso was holding court across the room at his usual corner table, surrounded by friends and a few freeloaders. Both Scotti and Caruso lived in the Knickerbocker, and the place had become a sort of gathering place for the opera world. But neither Caruso nor I should have been there right then; the day of an evening performance ought to be spent resting.

  Scotti looked over to Caruso’s table. “I suppose we should join them.”

  “I suppose.”

  I had awakened that morning not knowing which baritone I’d be singing with that night. But now it was settled; Philippe Duchon had said yes. Jimmy Freeman would just have to wait a little longer, poor boy. Caruso and I were to go to the Metropolitan that afternoon to rehearse the stage movements with Duchon. That alone told you in what high regard Gatti-Casazza held the French baritone; normally a substitute singer was taught his stage movements in fifteen minutes by an assistant stage manager and then tossed in to sink or swim. But not Philippe Duchon. For Duchon, the Met’s two biggest stars would give up their afternoon of rest and preparation to help the newcomer learn where he was supposed to be on the stage at what time. Some baritones like to leap up on a table to sing the Toreador Song; I hoped Philippe Duchon was not one of them.

  Just then Gatti-Casazza himself walked in, looking understandably triumphant. Without exchanging a word Scotti and I got up and went over to Caruso’s table. When we all had chairs, I found myself sitting opposite Emmy Dest
inn—who was looking well-fed, as usual. “Toto!” Caruso cried. “Gerry, bellissima! You hear the news? Duchon may join us permanently!”

  “For the duration,” Gatti corrected.

  “Is that why he came here, then?” I asked. “To join the Metropolitan Opera?”

  “Eh, no, as a matter of fact,” Gatti said. “He comes to solicit funds for Alsatian war relief. I promise him a benefit performance.”

  “Which opera?” umpteen voices asked.

  Gatti waved a hand. “Details, we work out later. For now, he agrees to sing Carmen and The Huguenots.”

  Emmy Destinn put her cup down with a clink. “The Huguenots? You promised him The Huguenots?” The Huguenots was one of Emmy’s operas.

  “Until Amato is well again,” Gatti explained. “Thereafter—we will see.”

  Emmy nodded toward Scotti. “Toto can sing it.” Scotti and Amato alternated in the role of the villain in the opera.

  “And he continues to sing it. Duchon substitutes only for Amato.”

  “That is encouraging,” Scotti said dryly.

  “It is decided, then?” Emmy asked.

  Gatti nodded. “Duchon sings with you next week.”

  “No. I want Toto.”

  Everyone at the table stared at her. “I do not understand,” Gatti said, puzzled. “I think you will be pleased with my arrangement.”

  Emmy thrust out her chin. “I do not wish to sing with Philippe Duchon.”

  Utter silence fell over the table. Not want to sing with Philippe Duchon? Was the woman out of her mind? I was the first to find a voice. “For heaven’s sake why, Emmy?”

  “I have sung with him before,” she said and stopped, as if that explained everything.

  “And?” Scotti urged.

  Eventually the story came out. According to Emmy, Philippe Duchon had a nasty tendency to take over every production he appeared in. “He wants to conduct, direct, and sing all the parts. He kept telling me—me!—how I should sing this or that phrase, what I should do in the duets, where I should stand while he is singing, everything. He is impossible to work with! He completely ignores the conductor.”

  Everyone at the table was thinking the same thing: Toscanini. Maestro Toscanini permitted no disagreement when he was at the podium; he simply did not permit it. Toscanini had nothing to do with The Huguenots, but he was conducting Carmen. Could be trouble.

  “We both sing with him, Emmy,” Caruso said. “At Covent Garden, at the Opéra. He is difficult, yes, but not impossible. I have no trouble with him. I like him.”

  “Oh, Rico, you like everybody,” Emmy said dismissively.

  Caruso thought a moment. “Almost everybody.”

  Gatti-Casazza had been sitting there in a state of shock. “I do not imagine … if you … but …” He used a table napkin to pat his brow. “I am sorry to hear you are unhappy,” he said to Emmy, “but it is settled. This year Duchon sings The Huguenots and Carmen and one benefit, and for next year we talk about a revival of, uh, muh, umm.” He shot a glance at Scotti and finished up mumbling into his beard.

  Scotti eyed him suspiciously. “A revival of what?”

  Gatti didn’t want to say, but did: “Rigoletto.”

  Scotti hit the ceiling. Rigoletto was his opera; it was his favorite role. “You say no when I ask for a revival this year!” Scotti shouted. “But all this Frenchman has to do is—”

  “Now, Toto, be calm, be calm! We only talk about it, you understand?” Gatti spent the next few minutes soothing the irate Neapolitan.

  As soon as I could, I asked Gatti, “Have you given any thought to Madame Sans-Gêne? You do remember our new opera, don’t you? Will the illustrious Monsieur Duchon undertake to learn Amato’s part? Or did you ask him?”

  “I count on Amato’s return to health in time for the next performance of Madame Sans-Gêne,” he said quickly and changed the subject. So much for my new opera. Well, we’d just see about that.

  “He will take over,” Emmy repeated stubbornly. “Every opera you put him in, Duchon will take over. He is worse than Toscanini.”

  Now that was ridiculous. Nobody was worse than Toscanini.

  “He has wanted to run his own opera company for years,” Emmy went on. “He wants to manage and keep on singing at the same time. For years he has been looking for a house where he could be singer-manager. And then he found one.”

  “Sì, sì,” said Caruso, remembering. “At Versailles?”

  Emmy nodded. “That old theatre that’s stood empty since the French Revolution—L’Opéra Louis Quinze. Duchon got the government to agree to restore it. But then.”

  But then the war broke out, and government-subsidized plans to restore old opera houses had fallen by the wayside. So Philippe Duchon had instead come to America to raise money for the Alsatian war relief fund and was on the verge of stealing one of Scotti’s best roles from him. “Why Alsatian war relief?” I asked. “Is Duchon from Alsace?”

  Nobody knew. “His plans are not firm,” Gatti said. “Evidently the fund-raising tour is arranged at the last moment, yes? Everything is done in such haste these days.”

  It sounded to me as if the French were no longer anticipating a quick end to the fighting. But they’d guessed wrong about almost everything else in connection with the war, so maybe they were wrong again. But this time I didn’t think so. It was just beginning to sink in on everybody that this war was going to be a lot bigger than anyone had thought it would be.

  “No news in the papers about Prague today,” Emmy complained, “again. Alsace, Flanders, Hartmanns-Weiler, St. Mihiel, Le Prêtre—but nothing about Prague.” Emmy Destinn was a native of Bohemia who still considered Prague home. She was also an ardent supporter of the Slovakian desire to be free of Austrian rule. “Why do they never write of Prague?”

  Scotti offered the traditional comfort. “Perhaps the papers carry no news because nothing happens in Prague, yes? That is good news, Emmy.”

  “Mm, perhaps, but I would feel better knowing for certain that all is well. In Prague we are caught midway between the eastern front and the western front—not a safe place to be. It has been many years since Prague has been safe.”

  Caruso brought the talk back to the here and now. “Me, I look forward to singing with Duchon again,” he smiled happily, thinking no farther ahead than that night’s performance. “We fight good at the Opéra.” He meant the struggle between the tenor and the baritone in the third act of Carmen.

  “Watch out for Duchon in the last act, Gerry,” Emmy warned me. “He will upstage you.”

  “He’s welcome to try,” I said sweetly.

  Gatti snorted and turned it into a cough. “Please, I beg all of you. Cooperate, yield stage to him—it is only for a few performances. Right now, all that matters is putting on a good Carmen tonight, is that not so?”

  “Mr. Gatti-Casazza, I would like to speak with you, please,” a new voice said. Osgood Springer had come up to the table without anyone’s noticing; when Gatti saw who it was, his face fell. He hadn’t exactly double-crossed Springer and his star pupil, but he couldn’t have wanted to talk to either of them just then. He invited the vocal coach to sit down with us. Safety in numbers.

  Springer didn’t like it; he would have preferred a private conversation. But he pulled up a chair and told Gatti what he wanted: a commitment for Jimmy Freeman to sing at least one major role next season.

  Gatti went into his vague act, which he does better than anyone else I know. “Later,” he told Springer, pulling at his beard in obvious discomfort. “Now is not the time to discuss such matters.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Gatti, but now is the time,” Springer objected. “Only last night you heard what James can do. And you did call him in to audition, remember. You built up his hopes for nothing—you owe him something.”

  Mistake, I thought. There were ways of handling Gatti, but pressing a moral obligation was not one of them.

  “I owe Freeman nothing,” Gatti said curtly. “And now i
f you excuse me, I have matters to attend to.” With an abrupt nod at the table in general, he stood up and left.

  Caruso broke the silence that followed. “He is preoccupied with other things,” he told Springer kindly. “His mind, it is full of tonight’s Carmen. You ask again later, yes?”

  Springer muttered something inaudible.

  “I go to the opera house,” Caruso announced in a change-the-subject voice. “Gerry? You come too?”

  “In a moment,” I answered.

  “Emmy? Come welcome Duchon. A friendly gesture.”

  She shook her head. “I think I’ll go take a nap.”

  Caruso grinned. “You have to see him sooner or later, you know.”

  “Then I’d prefer later.”

  There followed some vague chitchat and a general pushing back of chairs, and before long only Scotti and I were still at the table with the disconsolate vocal coach. Springer stared unseeing at the Maxfield Parrish mural over the Knickerbocker bar, depression emanating from him like a tangible thing.

  I touched his arm. “Jimmy will get his chance, Mr. Springer. He’s far too good a singer for Gatti to pass over. Duchon’s arrival just means a temporary delay, nothing more. Jimmy’s time will come.”

  “Will you speak to Gatti-Casazza?” Springer asked me in a rush. “About a major role for James next season?”

  “Certainly. With all my heart.”

  Springer turned to Scotti, as if to ask the same thing—but then hesitated.

  Scotti smiled wryly, understanding. “Too many baritones, eh, Mr. Springer? I and Amato and now Duchon.” Plus all the second-rank baritones he didn’t bother to name. “But do not despair. I too will speak for your protégé. He deserves his chance.”