Read Online A Chorus of Detectives by Barbara Paul - Free Book Online

The audience had to keep consulting their programs to find out who was singing the female lead today—they certainly couldn’t tell by looking at the stage. The chorus blocked me out every chance they got.”
    â€œOh, Rosa—I’m sorry. Really, Setti must not allow this to continue.”
    â€œSetti can’t control them. Gerry, today one of them tried to trip me! They hate me.”
    â€œOh, that’s inexcusable! Do you know which one? You can have him dismissed … or ‘her’?”
    â€œThat’s just the problem—I don’t know which one it was! And it’s happened before … I couldn’t be sure then, but there was no mistaking it this time. They really hate me. They’re even spreading rumors about me now—they’re saying I’m having an affair with Caruso!”
    Gerry had heard that nasty little story. “You must go over Setti’s head. See Gatti.”
    â€œI’ve already done that. All he did was sit me down and give me a lot of fatherly advice I didn’t want.” Rosa was angry. “Don’t you see, Gerry? Mr. Gatti doesn’t dare crack the whip now, not with all these terrible things happening to them. He’s afraid more of them will quit. And they know that. They’re just going to keep on and on until one day they pick me up and throw me into the orchestra pit and I end up in the bassoon player’s lap.” Rosa made a face. “Look at me! Hiding from the chorus! I sang the lead role at the Metropolitan Opera this afternoon! Why should I have to hide from a bunch of second-rank musicians who’re so jealous they can’t see straight?”
    â€œGer-ee!” a baritone voice floated up from below. “Do you stay up there until Christmas?”
    â€œComing!” she sang back. “Rosa, listen. It’s not just you. The chorus has been nothing but trouble this entire season. They’re doing the same thing to the new tenor—”
    â€œOh, they’re just needling Gigli because he thinks he’s the next Caruso. They’d do that to anybody who wanted to take Rico’s place.” Rosa’s anger had died away. “Besides, what they do to him isn’t nearly as nasty as what they do to me. Gigli’s paid his dues, you see. He came to the Met the way you’re supposed to come … from other opera houses, from working his way up—not from vaudeville, the way I came. They resent me, Gerry. They resent me because I didn’t go through all the lessons and training and work they went through. Gerry, did you know I’d seen only two operas in my life before I made my début?”
    â€œNo … only two? Ever?” Gerry knew Rosa didn’t have the background the rest of them had, but to have seen only two operas in her entire life … Gerry thought what that meant. To have stepped out on that huge Metropolitan stage, to have faced that glittering audience that had heard every great voice of the times—what courage that must have taken! “I didn’t realize,” she said faintly.
    â€œDo you know what the first one I saw was?” Rosa mused. “ Tosca . You and Caruso and Scotti were singing. Gerry, it was as if I’d been sleeping all my life up to that night. Then sometime during the second act I woke up to the fact that it was that kind of singing I ought to be doing. I became an opera singer because of you, Gerry.”
    That came as a shock. Gerry knew she should feel flattered and did manage to murmur something by way of gracious acknowledgment. But she felt history was repeating itself; and this time around, it hurt. She too had decided to become a singer because of the first performance of an opera she’d attended as a girl, in her case, Emma Calvé’s Carmen . And now here was … the next generation telling her she had been a similar source of inspiration. Gerry suddenly felt a hundred years