A Chorus of Detectives (22 page)

“Then you think he means what he says?”

“‘Means'?” The chorister thought a moment. “I think he wishes us all dead, at one time or another. I also think he is sincerely horrified when five of us do die. He worries about what the public thinks, you see. It does not look good, somebody killing choristers.”

“Then you do not think he is killer himself?”

“Mr. Ziegler? Eh, no. Why would he kill choristers?”

Caruso shrugged. “You make much trouble for him.”

Tommaso laughed. “It is his job, handling trouble. And he does get the life insurance for us that we demand. No, Mr. Ziegler understands what singing in the chorus is like. He knows why we do what we do.”

“He understands … what you mean, he understands?”

“Because he knows from experience! Do you forget he is once chorister himself?”

Caruso's mouth dropped open. “I never know this! He sings in Metropolitan chorus?”

“No, no, not the Metropolitan. The old Manhattan Opera—you remember? Mr. Ziegler, he is young man then.”

“How do you know this, Tommaso?”

“Two of our chorus, they sing at the Manhattan at same time. They say he has good voice for opera, good quality—but the voice is not flexible. They say he is not good
singer
.” Tommaso paused. “I think they make fun of him. He is there only one year.”

“He quits after one year?”

“I am not sure, I think he is let go. Then he becomes music critic for newspaper! And he looks down his nose at chorus.”

Caruso closed his eyes and thought about that for so long that his host suspected he'd fallen asleep. But then he sat up and said, “Tommaso, consider. He is failure as chorister. He takes job with newspaper where he can criticize choruses to his heart's content. He becomes Mr. Gatti's assistant and finds most of his time is spent trying to solve problems the chorus creates. He does not see things from your side anymore, not for long time. Perhaps this year the chorus … pushes him over edge. He goes a little crazy, he starts hitting back. Is possible, no?”

Tommaso frowned. “But he is same now as always. He is not crazy man.”

“Ah, but he can lose control of himself! You see it once yourself.”

The other man rubbed both eyes as if they hurt. “I do not know, Rico, I do not think so. He is too reserved, too frosty—”

“Cold-blooded?”

Tommaso smiled. “I do not mean that. I just cannot imagine Mr. Ziegler risking his own position for any reason. No, if anyone goes a little crazy and starts hitting back, as you say, I think it is Mr. Gigli. He has temperament for killing, that one.”

“So does Gerry Farrar, but you do not suspect her, do you?” Caruso was a little put out; he wanted his old friend to agree with him. “You do not still cause trouble for Gigli and young Rosa?”

Tommaso was innocence personified. “Me, I do not cause trouble for either of them, not ever! It is the others who play the mean little tricks.” He stopped to remember a few and couldn't help smiling. “But I never take part, I do not cause trouble, not for Mr. Gigli and not for your protégée.”

Caruso hesitated, but then said, “Do you hear rumor, Tommaso? About Rosa and me?”

His friend made an angry sound. “I hear, and I say it is crazy! I know Ponselle does not get roles
that
way! She sings because of Mr. Gatti's promise, no other reason!”

“Promise?”

“You remember, during war he promises subscribers that Metropolitan Opera will be at least half American. So he hires Rosa Ponselle to help keep that promise.”

Caruso sighed. “I think he hires her because of her singing. But it is nasty rumor, about Rosa and me … and not true! She is a
child
. I fear Doro will hear.”

“Do not worry, Rico. The rumor, already it begins to die. Your Doro will hear nothing.”

Reassured, Caruso thanked the other man and got up to leave. “You think about what I say. About Mr. Ziegler?”

“I think about it,
sì
.”

“The killings, perhaps they stop? There is no attack since
Forza
. This is good news, no?”

“It is the guards who prevent more killings. So many guards—they are everywhere!” Tommaso chewed his lower lip. “But when there are no more guards, when Mr. Gatti tells them all to go home—what happens then?”

Caruso didn't have the answer to that.

9

Ruggiero Leoncavallo's four-act opera
Zazà
was first performed in 1900 at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, where it flopped. Three years later the San Francisco Opera tried it, and it flopped again. In 1909 a new production was bravely mounted at the Coronet Theatre in London.
Big
flop.

Then in 1919 Gatti-Casazza revived the opera as a starring vehicle for Geraldine Farrar—and suddenly
Zazà
was a razzle-dazzle, everybody-talking-about-it,
roaring
success. The first and only time.

The reason wasn't hard to understand;
Zazà
was, quite simply, the most risqué production the Metropolitan Opera had ever mounted.
Scandalous!
the horrified first-night audience cried and rushed out to buy tickets to see it again.
Shocking!
the newspapers bellowed and reviewed the opera over and over.
Almost as good as a girlie show
was the word on the street, sending non-music-lovers by the score to the yellow brick opera house at Thirty-ninth and Broadway.
Zazà
, to Gatti-Casazza's delight, became the hottest ticket in town.

When Gatti first considered reviving the opera, he knew something spectacular would have to be done with the production. They couldn't count on the music alone to do the job; it just wasn't good enough. It was sometimes hard to believe that
Zazà
had been written by the same man who gave the world the dramatic and exciting
I Pagliacci
. The ultra-lyrical third act, in fact, sounded more like Massenet than Leoncavallo; that distinctive Leoncavallo ‘voice' was missing in
Zazà
. The opera needed help.

Gatti's solution had been to ask famed theatrical producer and director David Belasco to stage the opera. Belasco had directed for the Met before, to everyone's mutual satisfaction. He was always welcome in the opera house, in spite of the fact that for years he'd been trying to lure Geraldine Farrar away from opera to the Broadway stage. When Belasco heard the
Zazà
music, he understood the problem immediately. He decided to direct the opera as if it were a stage play, a play in which all the dialogue just happened to be sung instead of spoken. He set out to make what was going on in the plot so visually enticing that the audience wouldn't listen to the music too closely.

So he started off by suggesting that in one scene the star pick up an atomizer bottle, lift her skirts, and perfume her panties. The entire opera company gasped and waited for their volatile soprano to take David Belasco's head off.

It didn't happen. She thought about his suggestion, smiled … and did it.

Then she went him one better. In the seduction scene in the first act, she dropped her blouse for a moment. Geraldine Farrar, the first singer at the Metropolitan Opera to go topless. The day following the première, one of the critics wrote: “Geraldine Farrar has two excellent reasons for appearing in the role and last night she displayed both of them.”

That had been the year before, and
Zazà
was still going strong. Gerry was well aware that if the opera had been staged before the war, she'd never have been able to get away with it. But times were changing—skirts grew shorter and shorter, people were restless, novelty was not only welcome but actively sought after. The timing was perfect.

Early Monday evening Geraldine Farrar arrived at the Metropolitan on the arm of Antonio Scotti and trailed by her maid. They lingered outside the door a few moments to chat with the crowd of gerryflappers that had already gathered. After the performance the crowd would be so thick and so noisy and so excited that a line of policemen grasping hands would be needed to hold them back; it had been that way since the first performance of
Zazà
last season. Gerry loved it.

Backstage, the usual mob of chorus singers, personal guards, and police took up every square inch of floor space. Gatti-Casazza was trying to talk to five people at once and didn't see them come in. Upstairs, they were surprised to find Emmy Destinn waiting impatiently outside Gerry's dressing room. She was not dressed for the opera.

“Emmy!” Scotti exclaimed. “Is something wrong?”

“Gerry, I've been trying to get you on the phone for hours,” Emmy said accusingly.

“I wasn't taking any calls today,” Gerry answered as she unlocked the door and went inside. “I don't like distractions on the day of a performance.”
You should know that
, her tone implied.

The others followed her in, and the maid started laying out Gerry's make-up and first-act costume. Scotti moved a chair three inches and offered it to Emmy, then took his usual seat beside Gerry's dressing table. The small dressing room was crowded with four people in it.

“Is Rosa Ponselle coming tonight?” Emmy demanded peremptorily.

“Rosa? Not that I know of,” Gerry said. “Why?”

“She thinks Setti is behind the way the chorus has been treating her.” She immediately had everyone's full attention, including the maid's.

“Why does she think that?”

“That's what I couldn't find out.” Emmy went on to explain her talk with Rosa's apartment-building supervisor and why she hadn't been able to ask Rosa about it herself.

Scotti was delighted. “You
steal
her bicycle?”

“I borrowed it,” Emmy snapped. “Stop that inane grinning, Toto—it's not funny.” The maid giggled but broke off when Emmy shot her a dark look. “Gerry, since Setti is your suspect, I'm telling you about it. Do what you like—I wash my hands of it.”

Scotti couldn't resist asking, “Does Rosa call the police?” Emmy didn't deign to answer.

Gerry was thinking. “You know, Emmy, she could just be looking for someone to blame.”

“There is one way to find out. Ask her.”

“I'll do that. In the meantime,” Gerry glanced at Emmy's street clothes, “since you're obviously not going to be out front tonight, how about keeping an eye on Setti during the performance? Try to hear what he tells the choristers.”

“He's not my suspect,” Emmy said, annoyed that Gerry wasn't sticking to the plan. “I just came here to tell you—”

“Yes, I understand, and I appreciate your taking the trouble and thank you. But as long as you're here …?”

“Why can't Toto watch him? He's on your team.”

Gerry went behind an Oriental screen to undress. “Toto,” she said dryly, “has his own job cut out for him. Toto is going to protect us all from scrubladies.”

“I check with Mr. Ziegler,” Scotti explained, unperturbed by the sarcasm, “and he tells me the cleaning crew finishes before six o'clock. So if Mrs. Bukaitis is even in the building, that means something is awry.”

“Awry, huh.” Emmy sighed. “Gerry, we are on different teams. But very well, I will help this one time. Hereafter, we stay with our plan.”

“
Ella ha troppa bontà
,” Scotti murmured, and kissed her hand.

From behind the screen, Gerry said, “Hadn't you two better start your, er, patrols?”

“
Sì, carissima
. Come, Emmy—to work!” The two of them left and descended to the stage level.

At the bottom of the stairs they ran into Gatti-Casazza. He smiled at Emmy and said, “I know why you are here tonight! You look for another bicycle, yes?”

She sagged. “Rosa complained to you?”

“Rosa says nothing. But it is all everyone else talks about! The lady who steals bicycles!”

“
I didn't steal it!
” Emmy roared. “Oh, what's the use?”

“No use,” Scotti teased. “You are branded for life.”

“How is Gerry tonight?” Gatti asked. “She is nervous? Worried?”

“She is very calm,” Scotti assured him. “Nothing happens since
Forza
, no? The guards, they do good job.”

“I hope they do good job,” Gatti frowned. “I also hope we do not grow complacent.” On that doubtful note he left them.

“He is worried,” Emmy remarked.

“It is his job to worry,” Scotti soothed. “Look—there is Mr. Setti. Now I must go search for my scrublady.”

They parted. Emmy followed Setti as he darted hither and yon backstage, listening to him listening to complaints from the choristers. Scotti busied himself asking the stagehands and the guards if they'd seen any scrubladies backstage.

“What do you want with a scrublady, Mr. Scotti?” a voice behind him asked. “Did you spill something?”

Scotti turned. “Captain O'Halloran! I do not see you there.” He lowered his voice. “I do not look for just any scrublady. I look for Mrs. Bukaitis.”

O'Halloran knew the name. “The woman who found the chorister hanging in the dressing room?”

“She is the one. I think she hides truth about herself!”

O'Halloran pulled a long face. “You too?”

“
Che cosa dite?
”

“You're playing detective too? Miss Farrar and Mr. Caruso and Miss Destinn and now you?”

“
Sì, sì
,” Scotti smiled broadly. “Pasquale and Gatti too!”

“Pasquale Amato? I thought he had better sense. And Mr. Gatti?” O'Halloran tried to imagine the slow-footed general manager in hot pursuit of clues and couldn't do it. “What do I have to say to get through to you people?
Keep your nose out of it!
Don't meddle in police matters. Do you understand?”

“No, Captain, I do not understand. Surely you welcome help?”

“I have all the help I need, thank you.
Professional
help. Mr. Scotti, you're not a detective. You've had no training. All you'll do is muddy the waters and make things more difficult for
me
. Now do you understand?”