Free A Chorus of Detectives by Barbara Paul Page B

into a kind of paralysis; Scotti had burst into tears.
    According to what Gatti-Casazza told them the next day, Caruso had managed to finish the first act while filling up the stage well with bloody towels. Dorothy Caruso had called his doctor, whom she herself did not trust; he was waiting for the tenor in the dressing room by the time the act was finished. The physician who had cared for Caruso’s throat for most of his career was recently deceased; Dorothy did not believe his replacement was either conscientious enough or skilled enough to care for her husband properly.
    Her distrust was quickly justified. After a cursory examination, the doctor glibly announced that all the blood had come from a tiny burst vein in the tip of Caruso’s tongue—even though the tenor was so hoarse he could barely speak. The doctor pronounced him fit to continue singing; Caruso believed him and started getting ready for the second act.
    At that point the house manager took matters into his own hands. He went before the curtain and told the anxious audience that Caruso was ill but he was willing to continue if they wished him to. NO! they roared back, many of them in tears. Caruso had accepted their decision with relief. The rest of the performance was cancelled.
    The Sunday following the aborted Elisir performance the tenor spent resting his throat, not even speaking, pointing and waving his arms when he wanted something. Dorothy Caruso said, Please, no visitors; and the tenor’s worried friends honored her request. Caruso reclined in regal splendor on a chaise longue, surrounded by baskets of flowers, reading messages from well-wishers, eating ice cream.
    The next day he was ready to conquer the world.
    â€œI sing!” he told Gatti-Casazza over the phone. “You listen.” Caruso demonstrated he hadn’t lost any of his high notes.
    Gatti admitted the tenor sounded as good as ever. “What does the doctor say?”
    â€œPah! What does he know? Doro is right, he is not good doctor. I tell you I sing now. Intendete ?”
    â€œI hear. Do you find new doctor?”
    â€œI have many doctors, Mr. Gatti. Do not worry so.”
    â€œStill, more rest might be wise.” Gatti was torn; he wanted to get the tenor back on the stage as soon as possible—but not at the risk of losing him for the rest of the season. “Stay home, rest. Do not exert yourself.”
    â€œStay home?” Caruso sounded insulted. “No, no, Mr. Gatti—I feel too good to stay home all the time! No, tonight I go hear the new tenor!”
    â€œEnrico—”
    â€œEveryone, they say I am afraid of him! They say that is why I do not go to his performances! So tonight I prove them wrong, yes?”
    Gatti argued with him for a while, but it was a lost cause. Caruso was determined to bounce back, and all the words of caution in the world weren’t going to stop him. He didn’t want to be sick, and that was that.
    It can be a mite disconcerting to see the man you’re trying to supplant stand up and applaud your efforts.
    Face frozen into a smile, Beniamino Gigli bowed as graciously as he could toward the artists’ box, where Enrico Caruso was pounding his hands together with enthusiasm. Everyone in the audience knew Caruso had risen from his sickbed to come hear Gigli sing, and most of them seemed to be paying more attention to the artists’ box than they were to the stage. Gigli felt his face would crack if he had to smile much longer.
    At last the applause began to die, and Gigli was able to escape. One more act.
    Backstage, a couple of the choristers sniggered as he hurried by; they thought it was funny, how Caruso had stolen his thunder without singing a note. Gigli sensed his face turning red as he rushed up the stairs to the star dressing room. He’d been haunted by the Neapolitan tenor throughout his whole career; even when the critics raved about his singing, they said things like Only