I Will Have Vengeance Read Online Free PDF

Once they had rehearsed
La Traviata
in a week, due to the cancellation of
Swan Lake
when the prima ballerina sprained her ankle. But this time, don Pierino thought, they had really outdone themselves.
    As he was enjoying the second call for the entire cast—the performers all holding hands and bowing to the public—he heard a woman’s shrill scream behind him, coming from the dressing rooms.
    The priest was used to hearing emotional outbursts in the cool darkness of the confessional, and his long-time passion as an opera-goer had trained his ear to the tones associated with different moods. He had no doubt or difficulty recognizing the horror, the shock. He turned and rushed towards the scream, his heart in his mouth. A small crowd was already gathering in front of Vezzi’s dressing room.
    Â 
    Ricciardi looked around and spoke without addressing anyone in particular.
    â€œI’m going into that office now,” he said indicating the stage manager’s small room, “and one by one Brigadier Maione will admit those I tell him. No one can go home, no one can leave the theater. No one can enter this dressing room, unless he’s called in. You can’t stay here, you must go somewhere else . . .” He thought for a moment. Yes. “On the stage. You will all gather on the stage, until we have finished. For the rest, clear the theater of everyone who could not have had access to this area: the public, the entrance staff. The police, however, will take everyone’s information.”
    The theater director was purple with rage and rose up on his toes, sputtering.
    â€œSuch an affront . . . it’s . . . it’s unthinkable. Access to this area of the theater is highly restricted and selective. Moreover . . . do you realize who was in the audience tonight? And you want them to record information from the prefect, the nobility, the hierarchies . . . I demand, I insist that you respect the roles.”
    â€œMy role is to reveal a murderer. Yours, sir, under these circumstances, is to facilitate my operation. Any other stance would constitute a crime, and would be prosecuted. Act accordingly.”
    Ricciardi’s voice was a hiss, his green gaze was fixed on the director’s face without batting an eye. The little man seemed to deflate, his heels settling on the floor in silence. He lowered his eyes and muttered: “I’ll see to it at once. But I will speak out in the appropriate venues.”
    â€œDo whatever you like. Now go.”
    Stiffly, trying for some trace of his lost dignity, the director turned and walked towards the stage, followed by those present and their murmured comments.
    The stage manager’s office was tiny, almost entirely filled by a desk that held disorderly piles of drawings, notes and pages of scripts annotated by hand. On the walls, posters of performances. Two chairs stood in front of the desk, one behind. Light and air came from a small window high above. The first person Ricciardi spoke to was the stage manager himself, Giuseppe Lasio, the rumpled man who had broken down the door to Vezzi’s dressing room.
    â€œWhat exactly is your role?”
    â€œI’m in charge of the staging. Virtually everything that has to do with the stage is under my direction. The lighting technicians, the actors’ entrances and exits, the fixtures and equipment. Everything that isn’t artistic; organizational support, in a word.”
    â€œWhat happened tonight? Tell me everything, please: even details that you think are insignificant.”
    Lasio frowned under his mop of red hair.
    â€œIt was after the intermezzo of
Cavalleria
, we were handling the exit after the toast. It’s a choral scene, the entire company is onstage. The set was ready, the backdrop was in place. Signora Lilla came to call me at the stage entrance.”
    â€œSignora Lilla?”
    â€œLetteria Galante, but we call her Signora Lilla. She’s in charge of the