“Is he here?”
“No,” she said with a smile. “Verdi died a hundred years ago. He was the world’s greatest composer when he lived. Have you read much Shakespeare?”
“Oh sure.”
“Good.” The lights went dimmer. Anna flipped through the program, then aimed the light at page four. “This is the summary of the story. Give it a quick look. The opera is in Italian, of course, and it might be a bit hard to follow.”
Rick took the light, glanced at his watch, and did as he was told. As he read, the crowd, quite noisy in anticipation, settled down and everyone found a seat. When the theater was dark, the conductor marched out and received a rousing ovation. The orchestra came to attention, then began playing.
The curtain rose slowly to a silent, still audience. The stage was elaborately decorated. The setting was the island of Cyprus, a crowd was waiting for a ship, and on the ship was Otello, their governor, who’d been off fighting somewhere, with great success. Otello was suddenly on the stage singing something like “Celebrate, Celebrate,” and the entire town joined in the chorus.
Rick read quickly while trying not to miss the spectacle before him. The costumes were elaborate; the makeup thick and dramatic; the voices truly sensational. He tried to remember the last time he had watched live theater. There’d been a girlfriend at Davenport South who starred in the senior play ten years earlier. A long time ago.
Otello’s young wife, Desdemona, appeared in Scene 3, and the spectacle took a different turn. Desdemona was stunning — long dark hair, perfect features, deep brown eyes that Rick could see clearly from eighty feet. She was petite and thin, and fortunately her costume was tight and revealed marvelous curves.
He scanned the program and found her name — Gabriella Ballini, soprano.
Not surprisingly, Desdemona soon attracted the attention of another man, Roderigo, and all manner of backstabbing and scheming began. Near the end of Act 1, Otello and Desdemona sang a duet, a high-powered romantic back-and-forth that sounded fine to Rick and those in the Bruncardo box, but others were bothered by it. Up in the fifth level, the cheap seats, several spectators actually booed.
Rick had been booed many times, in many places, and the booing had been easy to shake off, no doubt helped by the sheer magnitude of football stadiums. A few thousand fans booing was just part of the game. But in a tightly packed theater with only a thousand seats, five or six rowdy fans booing heartily sounded like a hundred. What cruelty! Rick was shocked by it, and as the curtain dropped on Act 1, he watched Desdemona standing stoically with her head held high, as if she were deaf.
“Why did they boo?” Rick whispered to Anna as the lights came on.
“The people here are very critical. She has been struggling.”
“Struggling? She sounded great.” And looked great, too. How could they boo someone so gorgeous?
“They think she missed a couple of notes. They are pigs. Let’s go.”
They were on their feet as the entire audience stood for a stretch. “So far, you like?” Anna asked.
“Oh yes,” Rick said, and he was being truthful. The production was so elaborate. He had never heard such voices. But he was baffled by the boo birds in the top level. Anna explained: “There are only about one hundred seats available to the public, and they are up there,” she said, waving at the top. “Very tough fans up there. They are serious about opera and quick to show their enthusiasm but also their displeasure. This Desdemona was a controversial selection, and she has not won over the crowd.”
They were outside the box, taking a glass of Prosecco and saying hello to people Rick would never see again. The first act lasted for forty minutes, and the break after it lasted for twenty. Rick began to wonder how late dinner might be.
In Act 2, Otello began to suspect his wife was fooling around with a man named Cassio, and this caused great conflict, which, of course, was played out in dazzling song. The bad guys convinced Otello that Desdemona was being unfaithful, and Otello, with a hair-trigger temper, finally vowed to kill his wife.
Curtains, another twenty-minute break between acts. Is this really going to last for four hours? Rick asked himself. But then, he was anxious to see more of Desdemona. More booing, and he might scurry up to the fifth floor and punch someone.
In Act 3, she made several appearances without provoking any boos. Subplots spun in all directions as Otello continued to listen to the bad guys and became more convinced that he must kill his beautiful wife. After nine or ten scenes, the act was over, and it was time for another recess.
Act 4 took place in Desdemona’s bedroom. She got murdered by her husband, who soon realized that she was faithful after all. Distraught, out of his mind, but still able to sing magnificently, Otello produced an impressive dagger and gutted himself. He fell onto his wife’s corpse, kissed her three times, then died in a most colorful fashion. Rick managed to follow most of this, but his eyes rarely left Gabriella Ballini.
Four hours after he first sat down, Rick stood with the audience and applauded politely at the curtain call. When Desdemona appeared, the booing returned with a fury, which provoked angry responses from many of those on the floor and in the private boxes. Fists were pumped, gestures made, the crowd turned on the disgruntled fans way up there in the cheap seats. They booed even louder, and poor Gabriella Ballini was forced to take a bow with a painful smile as if she heard nothing.
Rick admired her courage, and adored her beauty.
He thought Philadelphia fans were tough.
The palazzo’s dining room was larger than Rick’s entire apartment. A half dozen other friends joined them for the post-performance feast, and the guests were still wrung out from Otello. They chatted excitedly, all at the same time, all in rapid-fire Italian. Even Sam, the only other American, seemed as animated as the others.
Rick tried to smile and act as though he was as emotionally charged as the natives. A friendly servant kept his wineglass full, and before the first course was finished, he was quite mellow. His thoughts were on Gabriella, the beautiful little soprano who had not been appreciated.
She must be devastated, ruined, suicidal. To sing so perfectly and emotionally, and not be appreciated. Hell, he had deserved all the booing he’d received. But not Gabriella.
There were two more performances, then the season was over. Rick, deep in the wine and thinking of nothing but the girl, thought the unthinkable. He would somehow get a ticket and sneak into another performance of Otello.
Chapter 14
Monday’s practice was a halfhearted effort at watching game tapes while the beer flowed. Sam ran through the film, growling and bitching, but no one was in the mood for serious football. Their next opponent, the Rhinos of Milan, had been easily thumped the day before by the Gladiators of Rome, a team that rarely contended for the Super Bowl. So, contrary to what Coach Russo wanted, the mood was set for an easy week and an easy win. Disaster was looming. At 9:30, Sam sent them home.
Rick parked far from his apartment, then hiked across the center of town to a trattoria called Il Tribunale, just off Strada Farini and very near the courthouse where the cops liked to take him. Pietro was waiting, along with his new wife, Ivana, who was very pregnant.
The Italian players had quickly adopted their American teammates. Sly said it happened every year. They were honored to have real professionals playing on their team, and they wanted to make sure Parma was hospitable enough. Food and wine were the keys to the city. One by one, the Panthers invited the Americans to dinner. Some were long meals in fine apartments, like Franco’s, others were family feasts with parents and aunts and uncles. Silvio, a rustic young man with a violent streak who played linebacker and often used his fists when tackling, lived on a farm ten kilometers from town. His dinner, on a Friday night, in the renovated ruins of an old castle, lasted four hours, included twenty-one blood relatives, none of whom spoke a word of English, and ended with Rick sprawled safely on a bunk in a cold attic. A rooster woke him.