Prima Donna at Large

by Barbara Paul

  “What?!”

  He looked very uncomfortable. “I’m setting up a tour for him. Benefit performances. All over the country.”

  “You signed Duchon?”

  “He’s reading the contract now. I already got seven dates set, firm. Possibility of twenty more. We can make some of ’em joint concerts—Duchon’s suggestion, darling,” he added hastily. “He really wants you to sing with him. So he’s a little high-handed, so what? The tour will be good for you, Gerry—it’s patriotic, it shows you aren’t really on the Germans’ side. You want to help all those poor, er, Alsatians, don’t you? You haven’t toured for a while anyway.”

  “What are you getting out of all this, Morris?”

  “Only expenses, darling,” he said innocently, “only expenses. Plus Philippe Duchon under contract, of course. But that’s for the future. On this tour, I won’t be making a cent.”

  I believed that the way I believed Enrico Caruso would develop a sudden aversion to Italian food. “He expects me to tour with him? Of all the gall! I suppose he’s already decided what I’m to wear as well?”

  Morris brightened; you could just see him thinking, safe ground! “Not a bit of it, darling. He didn’t even mention clothing. Come on, Gerry. We can all sit down and work out the program. He just doesn’t know how we do things over here, that’s all. Be nice, darling. We don’t want to scare him off.”

  So that’s the way the wind was blowing. I smiled coolly. “That’s right, he hasn’t signed the contract yet—you did say he was reading it, didn’t you? So you don’t mind putting me on the spot just to land him! Morris, you’re fired!”

  “Not again,” he sighed. “Look, even the Old Man thinks it’s a good idea, you touring with Duchon. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

  That was a sort of dirty trick. Morris knew I liked his father-in-law and respected his opinion. But I wasn’t ready to give in. “What does he know about concert tours?”

  “He knows publicity, darling, and he says joint appearances would pack ’em in. Besides, think of all the other sopranos who’d give their eye teeth to be invited to tour with Duchon.”

  “What other sopranos?” I asked scornfully.

  He started to name some names but then thought better of it. He argued a little longer, until I cut him off.

  “I tell you what,” I said. “When Philippe Duchon appears at my door carrying two dozen orchids and apologizes on his knees—”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “Then I’ll think about it.”

  We left it at that. As a matter of fact, I had no intention of going on tour with Philippe Duchon. I couldn’t stand the man and the thought of actually traveling with him set my teeth on edge. But I might do one joint concert here in New York, the one I’d originally agreed to.

  If he asked me nicely enough.

  Scotti and I were scheduled to sing a Tosca the next Wednesday, and fortunately a tenor other than Caruso was doing the third leading role. I say fortunately because it was my turn to be the target of one of Caruso’s little tricks. He “got” either Scotti or me every time the three of us sang together, and the last time it had been Scotti. What Caruso had done had been a masterpiece of artlessness. He’d simply gone on stage and handed Scotti an egg. Poor Toto—he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t want to put it down someplace where Caruso could pick it up again and do something really messy with it. He couldn’t put it in his pocket because he knew Caruso would find some reason to slap him on the hip or bump up against him before the curtain closed. So he’d had to sing out the rest of the act with this egg in his hand.

  Tosca was one of my best roles—Tosca and Butterfly, with their hauntingly beautiful music that I never tired of singing. Puccini’s Tosca was special to me, an opera about an opera star. Scotti had been singing the villainous Scarpia for a long time and he’d helped me learn the opera some years back, during one long idyllic summer we’d spent together in Como. In performance I’d fallen into the habit of apologizing right before I killed him in the second act. Scotti said that when he sang Tosca with other sopranos he was sometimes late picking up his cue to fall to the floor, unconsciously waiting for that whispered Sorry, Toto right as he was being stabbed.

  My acting in Tosca had been highly praised. And why not? I’d been coached in the role by Sarah Bernhardt—lovely, generous woman. But even more importantly, the composer liked my Tosca. He’d told me I was exactly what he’d visualized and heard while he was writing the opera. From Puccini, that was high praise indeed—especially when you considered the fact that the man and I were barely speaking to each other.

  I’d seriously offended the composer four or five years ago, when I refused to learn his Manon Lescaut. But the circumstances were such that I couldn’t accept his offer. Since the originally scheduled soprano had fallen ill a week before the performance, I would have had to learn the role in only six days—and I’d have had to learn it while on board ship crossing the ocean. Some roles can be learned that fast, but Manon Lescaut was simply too subtle, too complex to be mastered in so short a time. So I’d had to tell Puccini no.

  But he got even—oh, did he get even! He made a point of telling everyone that I’d turned down Manon Lescaut because he had chosen Emmy Destinn to create the title role of La Fanciulla del West instead of me! That hurt. That really hurt. Of course I’d wanted the role; every soprano at the Met had wanted it. Fanciulla was Puccini’s opera about America’s Wild West and it had had its world première at the Metropolitan, in 1910. Caruso and Amato had sung the male leads, and those two choices were understandable. But why Puccini had selected an overweight middle-European to sing the role of a young girl in a California mining camp—oh, it was beyond me! Surely an American girl would have made better sense? But no, Puccini had wanted Emmy, and Emmy it had been. Losing the role to Emmy was bad enough, but when Puccini made me out to be a bad sport about it—well, what can I say? Has anyone ever been more injured, more wronged?

  “Gerry?” said Emmy, inviting herself into my dressing room. Now she was dropping in backstage before performances! “Do you know that Duchon is out front?”

  “Duchon? Whatever for? Scarpia isn’t one of his roles.”

  “Not yet.”

  Oh-oh. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  She nodded. “He’s thinking of learning a Puccini role, I’ve been told. And he likes Tosca.”

  Oh dear. “Does Scotti know?”

  “He’s the one who told me.”

  So that made two of Scotti’s roles Duchon was after, Rigoletto and now Scarpia. “What’s he doing learning a new role at his age?” I grumbled. “He should be thinking of retiring.”

  “That’s what Scotti said.” She looked around my dressing room. “You know, this would be quite nice if it were a little larger.” She left before I could answer.

  But I didn’t need to answer. It galled Emmy that I had my own private dressing room; it galled everybody. Too bad. The other principal singers had to take turns using the star dressing room. But nobody used my dressing room except me. It had been an old storage room that I’d had decorated in bright and cheerful colors; then I’d had a lock installed, the only key to which stayed with me. I didn’t share my dressing room with anybody.

  I put Philippe Duchon and his lusting after Scotti’s roles out of my mind; there were more important things to think about. Tosca’s entrance, to begin with. Toscanini was not conducting tonight; that meant I’d have more leeway in what I did on stage. The other conductors at the Met weren’t nearly so unreasonable about following my tempo as Toscanini was.

  Jimmy Freeman was singing the small role of the Sacristan, and I was pleased to see he was looking more chipper than the last few times I’d seen him. I soon found out why; while we were waiting for the opera to start, he told me that Gatti-Casazza had said he could have Amato’s role in the next performance of Madame Sans-Gêne if he could learn it in time.

  “I start studying tomo
rrow,” he grinned. “I wanted to start today, but Mr. Springer wouldn’t let me. He said today should be spent thinking only of Tosca.”

  “Oh, Jimmy, I’m so glad!” And I was. Gatti had sort of kept his word about finding a role for Jimmy. Madame Sans-Gêne would not be in the repertoire next year, but I didn’t want to remind Jimmy of that. At least Gatti was giving him a chance; if he sang well in Sans-Gêne, other roles would follow.

  “It might be for only one performance,” Jimmy said realistically. “Amato is recovering from his bronchitis. But it’s one of the leads, and I’ll be singing opposite you!” He took my hand. “Gerry, I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I—”

  Just then the harsh chords that signaled the opening of Act I sounded from the orchestra. Jimmy had to enter almost immediately, so we both forgot about everything except Puccini’s tragic opera.

  The first act went swimmingly—a little faster than we usually sang it, but everyone’s energy was running high, so why not use it? We slowed down for Act II, deliberately, allowing the menace in the music to swell to its full sinister level. My big aria drew a standing ovation, which I was in no hurry to end. From the back of the auditorium came the wonderful chant “Geree, Geree”; Mildredandphoebe and their friends were out in force. Immediately came the scene in which Tosca murders her oppressor. I thrust the knife against Scotti’s chest in an overhead sweep, whispered Sorry, Toto, and stepped back out of the way as he collapsed to the stage floor.

  Right before the third and final act began, I heard Gatti-Casazza explaining to the firing squad what they were to do. Oh-oh—three things wrong with that. First, it was not Gatti’s job to explain stage actions to the supers, it was the production manager’s job. Second, the time to explain those actions was in rehearsal, not two minutes before the curtains were due to open during a performance. Third, they shouldn’t have to be given instructions at all, not this late in the season. A closer look at the six-man firing squad told me they were strangers; I knew all of our regular supers, by sight if not by name, and I didn’t know any of these six.

  “It is very simple,” Gatti was saying. “You follow Spoletta on and line up beside him in a row, yes? When he raises his arm, you lift your rifles to the firing position. When he drops his arm, you fire. That is all there is to it.”

  “Who’s Spoletta?” one of them asked.

  “He is the police officer who leads you on. He will be here shortly—you do not go on right away.”

  “What’s the story?” another asked. “What’s happening in the opera?”

  “There is no time for that now,” Gatti said hurriedly, and sent one of the stagehands to look for the man who was singing Spoletta.

  “What’s all this?” I asked Gatti. “Who are they?”

  “Students from Columbia University,” he muttered, plucking nervously at his beard. “Cielo m’ajuti! How do these things happen? Somehow the call for supers is overlooked for tonight and everyone is blaming everyone else! I do not find out until the performance is already started!”

  “So you recruited six college boys to do the job,” I said in amazement. “Why not just get the regular supers?”

  “There is no time to round them all up! I tell my assistant to go to one place where he can expect to find six reasonably intelligent men together.”

  “But they don’t even know the story of the opera!”

  “They do not need to. It will work out, Gerry. They are on stage only a few minutes.”

  I wondered whether he was reassuring me or himself. The orchestra had started playing the quiet prelude to Act III when one of the new firing squad thought of something. “How do we get off the stage?” he asked Gatti.

  “Just follow the principal off,” he said, meaning Spoletta. It was so standard a stage direction for supers that Gatti had forgotten these newcomers wouldn’t know it.

  The third act of Tosca is exciting, both dramatically and musically; its sole drawback is that the tenor has the only aria. The curtain opens to show the parapet of a prison, where Tosca’s lover (the tenor) is awaiting execution. Tosca arrives with the news that she’d managed to strike a bargain with the villainous Scarpia (recently deceased). Scarpia had offered to arrange a mock execution if Tosca would yield herself to him; the rifles would be loaded with blank cartridges. She’d agreed. But as soon as the lustful villain had made the necessary arrangements, Tosca had plunged a knife into his heart.

  So Tosca’s lover goes through with the charade; everyone connected with the mock execution acts out his part. But when the firing squad is gone, Tosca’s lover fails to get up from the ground. Scarpia has had the last word—the bullets were real. A couple of men rush in; Scarpia’s body has been discovered. In despair, Tosca hurls herself from the parapet to her death below.

  Oh, how I love that part of it! Tosca’s cries of excitement as the firing squad leaves turning quickly to cries of horror as she discovers her lover is not just feigning death, he really is dead. Then her mad dash to the parapet—where she leaps to her death not with the name of her lover on her lips, but the name of the man who has posthumously defeated her: O Scarpia, avanti a Dio! We’ll meet before God.

  Everything went well at first. The tenor sang his aria, I made my entrance, we sang our love duet. Just as we finished, Spoletta marched in from stage right with his college-boy firing squad. I moved over to stage left, leaving the tenor to face his doom upstage center.

  Right away I knew something was wrong. The six young men of the firing squad looked uneasy and kept exchanging questioning glances. A couple of them tried to get the attention of Spoletta, but the man singing the role was right in the middle of his big moment on stage and wasn’t paying any attention to the supers. I found out later our last-minute substitutes had come on the stage expecting to find one person there to shoot, only to be confronted with two—who weren’t even standing together! Pretty much left to their own devices, they reasoned out that the opera was a tragedy and its title was Tosca … so, when Spoletta gave the signal, they all pointed their rifles stage left, at me—and fired away!

  Upstage center, the tenor fell down dead.

  The audience roared. All during the tense moments that followed, the audience was laughing its collective head off. I looked at the conductor; he was desperately calling for more volume from the orchestra, trying to drown out the laughter. There was nothing to do but go on with it.

  But that fool firing squad was still on the stage, disconcerted by the laughter. Spoletta had exited, but instead of following him off the college boys were still standing around looking lost and blocking me from the audience. My big dramatic scene, discovering my lover was dead—ruined, totally ruined! But the end was in sight, thank God! I ran to the parapet, shrieked Avanti a Dio! as loudly as I could, and jumped down to the mattress on the floor behind the set.

  Only to look up and see all six members of the firing squad jumping down after me.

  That’s right. The firing squad jumped too. Well, Gatti-Casazza had said follow the principal off. So they’d followed me over the parapet.

  I did a little unrehearsed screaming—have you ever had six college boys land on top of you when you were least expecting it? The resulting bedlam backstage was more than matched by the noisy hilarity out front. Had ever a performance come to so humiliating an end! I was furious! “You imbeciles!” I screamed. “You were supposed to leave with Spoletta! You’ve spoiled the opera!”

  They looked first shocked and then crestfallen. “I, I’m sorry,” one of them stammered, shamefaced. “We didn’t know.”

  Well, of course they didn’t know; their instructions had been hurried and vague. “Ah, it’s not your fault,” I grumbled. “You aren’t the ones I should be yelling at.” I extricated myself from the tangle of arms and legs I was caught in and stood up. “Gatti!” I screamed.

  He was right there, behind me, too thunderstruck even to move. We were surrounded by screaming people—singers, backstage crew, maids and valets—all of
them anxious to tell the firing squad what they now already knew. The firing squad decided to yell at Gatti for sending them out on the stage so poorly prepared; I helped them. The noise level kept rising and rising.

  Finally Gatti grabbed me and screamed into my ear, “The curtain call! You will miss the curtain call!”

  “Are you crazy?” I screamed back. “Go out in front of that hysterical audience after a fiasco like this? Never!”

  “But they will think …”

  “And they’ll be right! I’m no fool! I’m not taking a curtain call tonight!” I pulled away from him and tried to work my way through the crowd. The tenor, as far as I could tell, had managed to disappear; smart man.

  Scotti came up to me laughing so hard the tears were running down his face. “Let me examine you! What, no bullet holes? Remarkable! But still, the first Tosca in history in which the soprano is executed—although I can think of a few productions that would improve with such an alteration.”

  “Do you mean me?” I shrieked.

  “Of course not, cara Gerry! I mean all those other Toscas, the ones who only wish they could sing like you! But what an ending! A firing squad that heroically leaps to its own death! In remorse over shooting so charming a lady, no doubt.”

  “It’s not funny, Toto!”

  “The curtain call!” Gatti shouted desperately. “The curtain call … somebody … Scotti?”

  Scotti gestured apologetically. Traditionally the baritone does not take a curtain call at the end of Tosca, since his part ends in Act II; Scotti had already changed into his street clothes. With my refusing to go out and the tenor turned suddenly invisible, not one of the opera’s three lead singers was available for the curtain call.

  So who did take the curtain call? Why, the firing squad, of course. The audience rose to its feet and cheered.

  Emmy Destinn came backstage, wearing an expression that said I-saw-it-but-I-don’t-believe-it. The last thing in the world I wanted to hear was some undisguised crowing from Emmy Destinn, so I pushed my way over to her and screamed, “Emmy, if you say one word—one word!—I shall pull your hair right out of your head! Every strand of it!”