A Chorus of Detectives Page 7

  A thought struck him. About the only ones he’d not complained to were the choristers themselves. Lead singers did not normally involve themselves in the concerns of the chorus, but in circumstances as extraordinary as these—

  “Magnifico!” a world-famous voice boomed out. “Stupendo! Eminente!”

  Gigli groaned inwardly as Caruso burst into his dressing room, followed by his Nordic American wife. Smile. Show him a rival who is self-confident and relaxed.

  “A great Mefistofele tonight!” Caruso cried. “You make great Faust, eh?”

  “We both enjoyed your performance immensely, Mr. Gigli,” Dorothy Caruso said quietly.

  “Me, I am jealous!” Caruso sang joyfully, looking anything but jealous. “You steal my role from me, yes?”

  Gigli squinted at Caruso suspiciously. If the older tenor were indeed worried about being permanently replaced in Mefistofele, why was he acting so happy about it? Did he really mean he thought Gigli’s performance so lackluster that he didn’t have anything to worry about? Gigli managed to choke out a civil answer.

  Caruso’s mood changed abruptly; he became conspiratorial. “It fails tonight, does it not? The four ladies in the chorus, they are not hurt.”

  Gigli didn’t understand. “What fails tonight?”

  Caruso glanced quickly at his wife. “Whatever is causing so much trouble for the chorus.” He’d promised Dorothy to stop talking about a curse. “The falling flat, it hits no one. No one is hurt tonight.”

  “The performance is hurt,” Gigli said touchily. In his view the Metropolitan’s chorus was unusually accident-prone, and that was the source of the mishaps that had been plaguing the opera house for the past few weeks. It didn’t quite explain the woman with the knife in her chest, though. “We have to stop, while stage is cleared.”

  “Only un momento,” Caruso said reassuringly. “When you sing again, everyone forgets the accident.”

  “That’s true, Mr. Gigli,” Dorothy added. “The performance resumed so quickly, no one had time to think about what had happened.”

  Gigli allowed himself to be persuaded. He relaxed a little and said, “Do you know the police question me? What do I know of the choristers’ problems?”

  “Sì, they question all of us,” Caruso said. “They even talk to Doro because she is backstage some of the time.” Dorothy nodded. “Right now, all they want to know about is the poor lady who is stabbed,” Caruso went on. “That is no accident! But who hates her?”

  “I do not even know her,” Gigli said. “I do not know any of them, except as members of group of singers who are nothing but trouble! In no other house I sing in is chorus like this one tolerated—not for one minute!”

  Caruso looked shocked. “It is not the lady’s fault she is stabbed!”

  “Of course not,” Gigli said testily. “Her I do not blame. But the others—I think they invite trouble.”

  “You say they deserve what happens to them?”

  Gigli threw up his hands. “I do not say this! I say they are troublemakers. Perhaps they make trouble for themselves?”

  Dorothy saw the outrage building in her husband’s face and started urging him toward the door. “We’ll leave you to change now, Mr. Gigli. And we do thank you for such an exciting performance! Goodbye.”

  Gigli wondered at the odd look Caruso threw him as he allowed Dorothy to usher him out the door. Cielo, it is strange evening all around, Gigli thought. “Roberto! Assist me!” He quickly changed into street clothes, eager to get to a more friendly environment than what the opera house had provided that night. He left his valet to clean up behind him and hurried down the steps, almost bumping into a poorly dressed woman as he rushed out.

  “Hey, there!” the doorkeeper called to her in a friendly way. “You’re here mighty late, ain’t ya?”

  “Leave thing,” Mrs. Bukaitis said. “Mistake.”

  “You forgot something? Well, better hurry up and get it, then. I’ll be locking up in a few minutes.”

  The scrubwoman nodded and made her way to the substage area, which was not only deserted but dark. Mrs. Bukaitis pulled a flashlight out of her bag and aimed it upward. Following the night the trap door in the stage had given way, Edward Ziegler had issued the order that the pneumatic platform be kept in a raised position whenever it was not in use so that no one would fall again. The trap and the lift both had been needed in that evening’s Mefistofele, but the stagehand in charge of working the lift had followed Ziegler’s order and returned the platform to its up position as soon as the performance had ended. It was the underside of the platform that Mrs. Bukaitis was interested in.

  She tucked the flashlight into an armpit and use both hands to work the lever, stopping the platform’s descent at about six feet above floor level. She shone her light under the platform … yes, there it was. She stripped away the tape holding the rectangular box in place, and considered opening it right then.

  No, better wait—wait and show it to Antanas. Antanas could tell her why the bomb had failed to go off.

  “You must find new chorus master,” Alessandro Quaglia told Gatti-Casazza in no uncertain terms. “Setti is not doing the job. He has no control over the chorus.”

  “Can anyone control the chorus?” Gatti murmured. “It is not simple matter of discipline, Maestro. They have reason for their anger.”

  “They need no reason! Their behavior is unprofessional and must not be tolerated. Do you see how they sabotage Gigli in Mefistofele last night?”

  “I see. Do you see how falling flat almost kills four choristers?”

  “Do you suggest one justifies the other?”

  “No certamente.” Gatti pulled at his beard. “I mean to say now is not good time for the, er, cracking down.” Quaglia had come storming into the general manager’s office, snow melting on his overcoat, demanding action, and Gatti was looking for a way to stop the conductor from pressuring him. “We must first end these ‘accidents’,” he said. “Then the chorus is more manageable.”

  Quaglia snorted. “They use the ‘accidents’ to demand more for themselves! Are they not asking for more money? Again?”

  “My assistant handles all contract negotiations,” Gatti said, ducking the question.

  “How do you plan to stop so-called accidents? The police cannot stop them. How do you stop them?”

  “Ah.” Gatti sat up a little straighter. “The police cannot be everywhere during a performance—there are not enough of them. That is where I can do something. I employ firm of security protection agents to patrol the opera house before and during every performance … until the man behind these dreadful events is caught.”

  “Guards?” Quaglia thought a moment. “The man who is doing these things—he is very clever.”

  “But is he clever enough to stay hidden when everyone is looking for him? If nothing else, the presence of large numbers of guards discourages him, no? It goes on long enough. It must stop.”

  The conductor nodded slowly. “So we wait a little longer. Then, if it does not stop—then you replace Setti?”

  Gatti told him he would think about it. Quaglia saw he was going to have to be satisfied with that and left. In the foyer, three scrubwomen were on their hands and knees; Quaglia wondered if one of them was the woman who’d discovered the hanging man in the chorus dressing room. He slipped into the back of the auditorium and sat down in the last row. The chorus master whom he’d wanted Gatti to replace had called an onstage rehearsal, ostensibly for the benefit of the new members of the chorus. But actually Setti was more worried about the regular choristers than the new ones, and he took every opportunity he could to rehearse them. Recalcitrant old singers and nervous new ones, both on the stage together. Quaglia wanted to hear what they sounded like.

  What they sounded like right then was a gang of revolutionaries getting ready to storm the Bastille. They were shouting and waving their fists and clomping about the stage with unnecessarily heavy feet. Last night’s falling scenery flat was th
e day’s bone of contention, and the singers were making the most of it. Gatti’s assistant was on stage with Setti, the two of them working at calming down the irate singers. But the choristers didn’t want to calm down; they were feeding off one another’s anger and excitement.

  Finally Giulio Setti planted his feet, threw back his head, and roared: “Sta’zitto!” In the auditorium Quaglia flinched; so big a voice coming out of so small a man was a surprise.

  The choristers were startled too, lapsing into a silence that could only too easily prove temporary. So Edward Ziegler stepped forward and began to speak rapidly. He told them Mr. Gatti had hired guards to protect them; the guards would be backstage, in the greenroom, in the chorus dressing room on the fourth floor. He explained that some guards would even dress in costume and accompany them on stage during performances. He promised them that this protection would continue until the person who had killed one of their number had been caught.

  “So you see,” Ziegler finished, “the management truly is concerned about ensuring your safety. We are doing everything we can conceive of to protect you. If you can think of anything else we could be doing, please tell us about it. We are open to suggestion.”

  There was a little sub voce muttering, but no one came forward with a specific suggestion; Ziegler had taken the wind out of their sails. One of the singers wanted to know how much the guards were being paid, but Ziegler pretended not to hear. “For the time being,” he said, “just stay together, don’t wander off alone. Try to keep a guard in sight at all times. Well, if that’s all, I’ll leave you to Mr. Setti now.”

  Ziegler hurried off into the wings but paused when he got there. He didn’t want to run out on Setti if the chorus should still prove intractable. And besides, Gatti would be sure to ask him how the chorus sounded.

  Setti said one word: “Forza.” A few of the new choristers were carrying scores; they hurriedly located the choral music for La Forza del Destino. At Setti’s indication, they began to sing.

  Ziegler winced. Their attack was dreadful, everyone coming in at a different time. Setti let them continue awhile, until they were getting into the feel of the music, and then had them start over. The second time was a little better, but they still sounded more like a group of highly gifted amateurs singing together for the first time than the chorus of a professional opera company.

  “Stop!” Setti cried. “You new people, you do not watch me! Put the scores aside. If you do not know the words, go la-la-la. But watch me.”

  This time, with every eye in the chorus on Setti’s hands, the attack was crisp and sharp, the way it was supposed to be. Ziegler felt a tingle of excitement as the chorus began singing with enthusiasm; Setti was getting the ringing tones out of them that Verdi had intended when he wrote the music. They were beginning to sound like a real chorus when—for reasons known only to themselves—every tenor in the chorus started singing flat.

  At the back of the auditorium, Alessandro Quaglia got up and left in disgust.

  Ziegler stayed, waiting as Setti patiently rehearsed the tenors alone until he was satisfied they could stay on pitch. The reunited chorus tried again. This time they got all the way through one number without anything disgraceful happening; Ziegler released the breath he’d been holding. It would do. They weren’t setting any new standards for choral singing, but it would do.

  Setti called a break and hurried over to where Ziegler was standing. “Well? What do you think?”

  “I think it’s possible we may have a chorus again,” the assistant manager said cautiously. “Not just yet, but there was a moment there—”

  “Yes, yes!” Setti cried excitedly. “The singing, it is still in them! They can do it, if they will.”

  “If they will.”

  “And they will. I make them sing right. I must waste no time.” The chorus master hurried back to his singers.

  Ziegler nodded and left them to it, wondering if Setti could pull it off.

  Rosa Ponselle had made her Metropolitan Opera début as Leonora in La Forza del Destino. She’d been taught the role one phrase at a time, slowly and painstakingly. When the night of her début arrived, it finally sank in on her that all those people backstage actually expected her to go out on that enormous stage alone and face that glittering Diamond Horseshoe of an audience all by herself. She was twenty-one years old and had never even seen a performance of Forza. She panicked.

  But someone pushed her out on the stage, she sang, the audience loved her, and all was well. Now starting her third season at the Met, she’d learned more roles, sung more performances—and she still panicked. Part of the reason was that in Forza she was partnered with Enrico Caruso, whose pre-performance stage fright was legendary; Rosa couldn’t help but pick up some anxiety from him. The rest of the reason was that she still thought of herself as an ex-vaudeville performer, one-half of a sister act, who was only slowly coming to feel that she really and truly belonged at the Metropolitan Opera.

  Matters were not helped any by the fact that the backstage area was as crowded as Ebbets Field on the opening day of the World Series.

  “Everywhere are police!” Caruso cried. “All the time, I am bumping into policeman!”

  “Shut up, Rico!” Rosa screamed. “You’re making things worse!”

  “Do not tell your elders to shut up!” he screamed back. “You shut up!”

  “In fede mia!” protested Pasquale Amato, that evening’s singing villain. “Never do I hear so much noise backstage! Please—it is better without the screaming, yes?”

  “It is better without the screaming no!” Caruso roared.

  “Screaming is good for you,” Rosa informed Amato in an uncharacteristically schoolteacherish manner. “It clears out the clogs in the respiratory system. Where’s Setti?” She wandered away in search of the chorus master.

  Amato looked at one of the guards. “Clogs?” The guard shrugged.

  The new guards, mingling with those members of New York’s finest assigned to the opera house, were there to reassure as well as protect; but so many uniforms backstage at once were having the contrary effect of making a lot of people nervous. The guards and the police were making each other nervous. The only ones not upset by the presence of so many strangers were the choristers. In fact, they wouldn’t have minded if there’d been even more bodyguards in evidence. But police and private guards both had been busy; everything that could possibly pose a threat to the safety of the chorus was checked, double-checked, and triple-checked.

  “Eh, Maestro,” Gatti-Casazza said worriedly, “perhaps the choristers begin to feel more secure, do you think?”

  “Does feeling secure make them sing better?” Quaglia said testily as a large policeman bumped into him. “I think not.”

  “Oh?” Gatti was surprised. “Ziegler tells me they sing well in rehearsal.”

  “Not when I hear them—ow! Watch where you step!”

  “Sorry,” a guard mumbled and elbowed his way through the crowd.

  “Setti is optimistic,” Gatti persisted.

  “I hope he is right.” Quaglia noticed Gatti’s distraught air and relented a little. “I do not stay for entire rehearsal, you understand. Perhaps they improve after I leave.”

  “That must be—per la vita mia! What now?”

  Rosa Ponselle had the chorus master backed up against a scenery flat and was laying down the law—at the top of her voice. “I’m telling you, Mr. Setti, if any one of those orangutans so much as crosses in front of me tonight, I’m going to kick him where it hurts the most!”

  “Please, no—”

  “Or if it’s a woman, I’ll tear her hair out—right there on the stage! I’m through with waiting until the act is over to complain! I’m going to start defending myself, right out where everyone can see! Do you hear?”

  “Everybody hears,” the chorus master sighed.

  “Well, you make sure they all understand, now. I’m serious—I won’t let myself be blocked off or pushed or stepped on or
anything. I’m telling you, it’s got to stop tonight!”

  “Rosa!” Caruso sang out. “Do not bully Mr. Setti!”

  “The chorus is his responsibility, isn’t it? He’s got to make them behave!”

  Gatti insinuated himself into the one-sided argument and explained to the nervous young soprano that her declaration of independence could perhaps have been better timed. Eventually Rosa let herself be persuaded that tonight was going to be different and that she was worrying over nothing.

  An older woman in peasant costume came up to them. “Mr. Setti, we’re going to be short one bass tonight. Spike is sick.”

  All talking stopped. Simultaneously Gatti and Quaglia and the soloists figured out that ‘Spike’ was the name of an opera singer and that he sang in the chorus and he was sick.…

  “Misericordia!” Setti cried out. “Another one!”

  “No, no, it’s just something he ate,” the chorus woman said hastily. “He might feel well enough to sing later—he just can’t start.”

  “Where is he?” Gatti demanded.

  “In the greenroom.”

  “Alone?”

  “Of course not,” the woman said indignantly. “A guard is with him.” She started to add something but found herself unceremoniously pushed aside by a mob of people dashing to the greenroom to check on the state of health of a chorus singer named Spike.

  In the greenroom, a pale young man sat up on the settee where he’d been lying and shakily lifted his fists to protect himself against the horde bearing down on him. “What … what did I do?”

  “What is wrong with you?” Gatti demanded.

  “How do you feel?” Amato asked.

  “Lie down, lie down!” Setti urged.

  “How long you feel this way?” Caruso wanted to know.

  “Oh, is there anything I can do?” Rosa cried.