Herma

by MacDonald Harris

  “Ah! in the opera,” said Grasse. “But in life,” he said roguishly, “it’s the other way around.” He nudged Lucì with his elbow. She shrugged.

  “I don’t understand why it is,” said Herma, “that all the great love duets are between people who can’t—you know”—she colored slightly—“get married. Turridu and his mama. Rigoletto and Gilda.”

  “Germont and Violetta,” agreed Caruso. “That is why they are so sexy. Germont and Violetta do not come together in bed, but they come together in the duet, which is better, because it can be done over and over.” Here Herma blushed even more. “Da capo, ma più forte!” he went on. “When Violetta mounts to her sacrifica for the second time—che emozione! And Germont follows her with his own A flat an octave lower, until it is resolved in a beautiful harmony, he on G and she on the E flat above.”

  He attempted to demonstrate.

  “che a lei il sacrifica,

  a che morrà, e morrà, e morrà!”

  In the middle he abruptly slipped down an octave, without saying anything—since he was singing—but with a little grimace that said clearly, “Falsetto is bad for the voice.” Herma helped him. In mezza voce they sang the couplet together.

  “che a lei il sacrifica, “Il nobile cor vincerà.

  e che morrà, e morrà, e morrà.” Sì, il cor vincerà!”

  They stopped. People at the other tables were turning to look at them.

  “You have not quite got it yet,” said Caruso. “In any case, I am afraid we are disturbing.”

  “No, no!” said Grasse. “You are Caruso! They wish to hear you sing.”

  “Not for free,” said Beckworth.

  Herma was entranced. “I didn’t know you could sing baritone.”

  “I can sing anything. Once when I was singing with Chaliapin his voice happened to fail and I sang the basso part. The Victor company asked me to make a record of it, I said no, because it would not be fair to other bassos.”

  It was never possible to tell whether he was being entirely serious or not. He went on, “We cannot sing here, because we would disturb these people, and besides my friend Beckworth will not let me sing for nothing, as he has told you. But we must go back to the theater, all three of us, and there I will show you how to sing the ‘Dite alla giovine.’”

  Grasse looked at Lucì, and then at Caruso.

  “Me too?”

  “Of course, my friend, since you are the baritone.”

  “You sing it,” growled Grasse.

  “No, for a trick I can do it, but too much will hurt my voice.”

  “I have something else to do tonight.”

  “I am sure you have, but that can be done at any time, and meanwhile we have two more performances of the opera, so we must rehearse the ‘Dite alla giovine’ more to be sure we have it exactly right.”

  The bill for the supper came, and Caruso paid it without looking at it.

  “Our friend Beck can take Lucì home,” he said.

  Grasse sighed. Herma was disappointed too, because they never had decided whether to drink the toast to her.

  18.

  First it was necessary to go and wake up the accompanist, who was staying not at the Palace but at the less expensive Grand across the street. Caruso went up for him while Herma and Grasse waited in the lobby. It was three o’clock in the morning. The lobby was deserted except for a clerk dozing behind the desk. Presently Caruso came down followed by the sleepy-looking pianist, who was wearing an overcoat over his pyjamas and shoes without socks. Since all four of them couldn’t fit into the cab, they walked the two short blocks to the Opera House at Third and Mission.

  It was a mild spring night with a light breeze from the sea. Herma wore a light velvet cloak, which she left open. The moon, sliding down to the west over Twin Peaks, was visible through a broken curtain of clouds. They passed a policeman who hardly glanced at them, and a drunken woman who shook her fist at them and attempted to speak, but was unable to articulate even a word. They left her clutching the wall of the building in a paroxysm of frustration. Finally, as they turned the corner, Herma looked around to see her sliding to the sidewalk.

  At the Opera they walked around to the rear on Jessie Street. There was no one on duty at the stage entrance. Grasse had a key, and they entered. The building was totally dark. They found their way by feeling with their fingers along the walls. The accompanist seemed to be still half asleep. “Have to turn on some lights,” he mumbled.

  They came out onto the stage. A few dim rays of moonlight penetrated from the clerestory windows at the top of the building. The curtains were open. Out beyond the edge of the stage there was nothing but a great gulf of shadows. It was the somnambulistic pianist who knew where the switches for the lights were. He disappeared off into the wings and presently a pair of bulbs hanging from overhead glowed into incandescence.

  The two bulbs illuminated the stage, after a fashion. Some stools were brought up and Grasse and the accompanist pushed out the piano. The gulf out beyond the stage had now turned into a dim ghost of a theater with its pit and its box circles, the gilt on the boxes glowing faintly in the shadowy light. In the middle was the great chandelier of Murano crystal, as large as a barouche. Now, with its lights out, it was only a kind of dim crystalline ghost hanging high in the air on its single chain, seeming to turn an inch or two, now and then, from some breath of air too slight for human beings to detect.

  Caruso himself did no work but walked around rubbing his hands, supervising everything. “The piano here. The two stools there. Where is the score?” No one had thought of the score, but luckily a copy was found on the conductor’s stand in the pit. “We’ll start from the ‘Pura siccome un angelo,’ a page or two into Act Two. That is a little before the place we want, but you cannot just jump into an aria from cold. You must work up to it first, like making love, with a few cuddles and kisses. Are you there, my friend?”

  “M’mm,” said the pianist. He turned the pages and found the place. Then, blinking sleepily, he stuck his fingers into the keyboard and played the chords of the A flat continuo. Grasse started off.

  “Pura siccome un angelo

  Iddio mi diè una figlia.”

  He sang the aria competently but without any particular enthusiasm. He had done it a thousand times. Oh, Germont and that precious daughter of his! He was so anxious for her to marry that silly goose of a fiancé. Caruso walked around nervously, still rubbing his hands, as though it were a real performance. The accompanist gave the impression that he was a man in an overcoat and pyjamas sitting at a player piano. The notes came out perfectly and in even tempo, without any variations in loudness. Caruso grimaced, showing his teeth. He sang along with the aria—“Deh, non mutate in triboli, le rose dell’amor”—and then stabbed his finger at Herma for her cue—“Ah, comprendo!”

  Germont and Violetta went down through their little recitative—sad ultimatums from Germont, and little plaints of grief from Violetta. She would have to give up Alfredo, that was all. It was not enough for her to go away for a few days. She would have to give him up for good. No, Gran Dio! cried Violetta. She would prefer to die. Yet it must be, Germont told her in his gentle rumble. They came to their little pre-duet, a kind of foreshadowing of the “Dite alla giovine.” Thus hope is now mute for an unhappy one, she sang. And he: Be the consoling angel of my family. It was not a true duet but a kind of two-part ensemble: he sang a line or two, then she another couplet, then they would join together melodiously for a few lines before separating again.

  “Stop,” said Caruso. “Basta, basta.”

  They stopped and looked to him. The accompanist yawned.

  “You are Violetta and you are singing your own death sentence. So how is it that you sing it as though you were riding a horse?”

  “I can ride a horse.”

  “Well, don’t do it now. The dramatic voice,” he said, “is something else. Here you have been trained by Melba and you do not even understand the dramatic.” Herma said
nothing to this. “First of all, to sing correctly you must stand correctly. How can I explain. You hold your chest up—so. And pull in your sit-down—so.”

  Herma imitated this posture.

  “Second, instead of chirping like a pretty bird you must get resonance by making the riso, the smile. Look now.”

  He opened his mouth and sang an A in a round tone: “Haaa.”

  “That is lyric.”

  Then he did the same thing again, except that the mouth spread into a kind of rictus, oval and tight at the edges: “Haaa.”

  “That is dramatic. That is the pathos, the voice stretched to the edge of a sob. It is not the head voice, it is still the chest voice, the voix de poitrine. But after coming from the chest it resonates in the head. You do not simply let the sound come out of the mouth from the larynx, you send it into the head and let it vibrate there and gather overtones, before it escapes from the body and is passed to the audience. In French that is called la voix dans le masque. It all depends on the riso. It is not really a smile but a kind of grimace, a stretching of the mouth.”

  Herma tried it. “Haaa.”

  “Not quite.” He came up and stared at her from a range of twelve inches.

  “Open your mouth.”

  She opened her mouth and he peered into it, although she didn’t see how he could see anything in the poor light on the stage. Since they were both about the same height, he had to bend slightly at the knees to look into it.

  “Excellent. You have a high palate, which makes it easier. Simultaneously with the riso of the mouth, you must raise the palate. There is a thin skin on the roof of the mouth, like a membrane. For the note of pathos it must be lifted.”

  “Haaa.”

  “Better. And then we come to the little catch, the sob on sacrifica. For this, there is no technique. You must feel. You must be Violetta, sacrificing. Because opera, carina, is partly technique but it is also feeling the part. Always I feel the part. In my Pagliacci there comes always, at a certain point, tears in my eyes. And with the tears comes the little catch on cor.”

  He demonstrated.

  “Ridi del duol

  che t’avvelena il c’or …”

  “I have become rich and famous,” he said, “through one little catch in my voice. So as you sing, you must remember in your emotions who you are. You are Violetta renouncing her Alfredo, the great love of her life, so that without him she must die. Now we will not bother anymore with these mute hopes and consoling angels, but go directly to the ‘Dite.’”

  The accompanist struck the dominant, and resolved it. Herma, her chest held up and her sit-down pulled in, her mouth stretched into the riso and the skin of her palate lifted, embarked into her part of the greatest duet in opera.

  “Dite alla giovine

  si bella e pura …”

  Caruso, rubbing his hands, walked up and down on the stage singing along with her and interrupting himself to shout instructions. “Now! The catch on sacrifica!”

  She came to the bottom and Germont joined in with his “Piangi, piangi!” They went on a few lines into the duet.

  “Stop!” said Caruso.

  They stopped. He walked up and down, rubbing his hands, and then turned back to her.

  “The catch is not right. You are still sobbing on the low note, not the high.”

  “But morrà is sadder than sacrifica.”

  “No, it is not sad that she dies. She dies anyhow. It is sad that she gives up Alfredo. And Germont, this rich man, so fat, with no troubles—” he pointed to Grasse, who turned away scratching his ear—“thinking only about his daughter, joins in telling her to weep. Piangi, piangi! She is not crying enough to suit him! He wants more crying! He sings piangi piangi and you sob. Now try it once more.”

  Herma clenched her teeth. Singing had been easy until she encountered this terrible Wop! The accompanist played his two chords. She started over again.

  “Dite alla giovine

  si bella e pura …”

  This time she felt like sobbing, somehow. The voice caught slightly on sacrifica, like the sleeve of a garment brushing a doorway. She stretched her lips and lifted the skin of her palate. Germont joined in and they came to the end of the stanza.

  “che a lei il sacrifica, “Il nobile cor vincerà.

  e che morrà, e morrà, e morrà!” Si, il cor vincerà!”

  “Da capo, ma più forte!” shouted Caruso over the piano chords. “The sob on sacrifica! If you will sing it with the right sob, you will bring the house down.”

  Herma went to the top again.

  “Ah … di-te alla gio-vine …”

  The liquid Italian sounds resonated in her head and then vibrated out into the vast dark theater: “bella … pura … vittima … sventura …” And some kind of a miracle happened. The voice became disembodied. It was no longer inside her but about a foot out in front of her, where she could control it effortlessly and do with it what she wanted. She had it—it was easy, easy! “… raggio di bene,” she sang, exultant and yet with the tremolo of full emotion. This time when she came to the high note of sacrifica the sleeve, passing through the door, caught on a nail and tore slightly. “Bene!” shouted Caruso. Herma went on with the warm hurt of sacrifice in her chest, a pain as keen and sweet as the climax of love. Under the voice there was a dull sound in the distance, a rumble as though of tympani. “E che morrà, e morrà, e morrà!” she sang. “Brava!” shouted Caruso while her voice still hung on the note. He whirled around triumphantly and shook his fist in the air. “Carissima, you’ve done it! That is exactly the catch!”

  The note of the tympani grew louder and the floor of the stage shook a little. A few pieces of plaster fell from overhead. The accompanist stopped playing and stood up at the piano. He set his hand protectively over the top of his head. A piece of plaster fell on the piano keys in front of him.

  Waves appeared and went rolling across the board floor of the stage. More masonry fell, some of it in chunks as large as a nail keg. The piano moved away to the left across the stage, stopped, and came rolling back again. Herma dodged it.

  “Oh dio,” said Caruso. “What is this?”

  Out in the shadowy gulf of the theater the great chandelier began moving. With great dignity it swayed to one side, paused, and then swung back to the other, in a slow arc of two seconds or more from side to side. Bricks and pieces of plaster fell all around it into the darkness below, but none of them struck it. It swayed more violently, almost to the diagonal, and swung back the other way like a great bell. Then the chain parted. The chandelier seemed to hang poised for an instant, then it moved downward, gathering speed and turning in a slow pirouette. When it struck onto the rows of seats below the sound was like that of a great cymbal struck by a Divine hand: a crash followed by a thousand tinkles, a shock that left the ears ringing and vibrated in the walls of the building. As an anticlimax, an arc lamp fell out of the roof of the theater and struck with a splat of breaking glass. The rumble of tympani continued.

  The four on the stage were the audience now, and the drama was taking place out in the darkened theater. As they watched, more things fell: stucco angels, and a large piece of mural from the ceiling, turning end over end in the shadowy air. Then, with a kind of grunt, the first balcony fell. It sagged in the middle like a badly made wedding cake, then simply dropped fifteen feet onto the rows of seats below. An immense cloud of dust arose. Through it the second balcony could be seen falling on top of the first. Then nothing more was visible, because the two lights over the stage went out.

  Caruso seemed to have lost his English entirely. “Oh dio dio dio,” he said in a strangled tone. “Scappiamo presto.”

  They groped in the darkness for their coats. Herma’s light cloak was draped over a stool. It was some time before Caruso found his overcoat, scarf, and fedora. Then they blundered their way off the stage and down the pitch-black corridor toward the stairs, led by the accompanist, who seemed to have a catlike ability to see in the dark. When they
came out onto Jessie Street, they found everything illuminated by a dim and undulating pink glow. It came from several fires, one in a storefront only a little way down Jessie Street and the others around the corner on Mission and Third.

  “Oh dio,” said Caruso. “I am back in Naples again. It is Vesuvio. Dio dio dio. We had better go back to the hotel.”

  When they came around the corner onto Mission they found that the entire façade of the Opera House had fallen down into the street, almost blocking it. One of the great caryatids lay stretched on the pavement, the muscular arms reaching almost to the curb on the other side. The lamp she had been holding was flung through the plate-glass window of the restaurant across the street. They skirted around all this rubble. Herma glanced at the downturned stone face: it was Attic, calm, and inscrutable as usual.

  They picked their way through the debris in the streets. The rumble of tympani had stopped now and it was silent except for the hiss of escaping gas and an occasional human wail in the distance. Now and then a loose brick fell to the pavement with a thud. One missed them by only a few feet. After that they stayed in the center of the street, keeping cautiously away from the buildings on either side.

  On the side street leading down to the rear entrance of the Palace, the drunken woman was still lying in the same place where she had slid to the sidewalk. But now there was an enormous piece of cornice from the building overhead on top of her, with her arms and legs sticking out. A pool of blood had appeared at one side, trickled out through the dust, and then stopped on the cement, where it was beginning to congeal.

  “Oh dio,” said Caruso. “The voice.”

  He took off the white woolen scarf and wrapped it carefully around the lower part of his face. They went on down the street. Caruso seemed to be breathing deeply but with his teeth clenched, so that every breath made a kind of seething. In, out, in, out. Herma wondered whether she should tell him to open his mouth and breathe naturally. But he answered for her. “There are millions of people in the world,” he hissed through the scarf, “but there is only one voice of Caruso. Dio dio.”