There are few things in life more satisfying than living the life you see in your head. Such moments are rare, but when they happen, you have to savor them. Such was the case Thursday, Feb. 23, as Westfair Communications Inc. presented its first literary luncheon in White Plains, New York.
“History: Fiction and Nonfiction” was the theme of “Literary Westfair,” featuring Mary Calvi’s new “If a Poem Could Live and Breathe: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt’s First Love” (St. Martin’s Press) – about his first wife, the former Alice Hathaway Lee – and John A. Lipman’s biography “Alfred B. DelBello: His Life and Times” (Atmosphere Press). As Westfair’s chief cultural writer and luxury editor, I had a lot of skin in this game, serving as moderator and one of the authors who would be reading. As moderator, I was gratified to see the interplay between the two other authors.
Mary is not only a 12-time New York Emmy Award-winning anchor of WCBS-TV but first lady of neighboring Yonkers. Al DelBello, Lipman’s subject, was mayor of Yonkers from 1970 to ’73. DelBello, a Democrat who went on to become Westchester County Executive and New York state Gov. Mario Cuomo’s first lieutenant governor, and Theodore Roosevelt, a New York state governor who became the United States’ 26th president, were both progressives. And John mentioned that in writing the DelBello book he was inspired by Edmund Morris’ biography of T.R., “Theodore Rex.”
Both authors are passionate about research. Even as a fiction writer, Mary said she tried to adhere closely to the voices she found in the “treasure trove” of love letters between Theodore Roosevelt and first wife Alice that are housed at Harvard University, Roosevelt’s alma mater.
As an author myself, I read from one of the strongest chapters in my new novel, the historical thriller, “Riddle Me This” (JMS Books) – charting the development of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Turandot” against the backdrop of the legends of Alexander the Great, which may have inspired it, and a futuristic tale of international espionage that mirrors “Turandot’s” battle-of-the-sexes, East-versus-West plot.
“Turandot” belongs to the genre of riddle narratives that date at least from the “Alexander Romance” – boy meets girl; girl poses three riddles he needs to solve to woo her. Puccini’s opera is the only version, though, that has a tragic element. And some music historians think that may be because of something that happened in Puccini’s own life, as portrayed in the excerpt here:
At the literary luncheon with a poster of my latest novel, the timely historical thriller “Riddle Me This,” which explores in part the “trivalry” among the United States, China and Russia and the cross-purposes at which men and women often find themselves. Photograph by Sarafina Pavlak/Westfair.
Among the servants employed at Villa Puccini was a young woman named Doria Manfredi. The Manfredi family was an old, venerable one in Torre del Lago, and Doria lived up to the family name….Indeed, Doria’s respectful forthrightness, her insights and her industry, made her a standout in the household and soon she graduated to tasks more in keeping with an assistant than a servant. Still, ever mindful of Puccini’s jealous wife, Elvira, Doria was careful to defer to her and to keep her distance from her husband….”
Nevertheless, this did not stop La Signora from putting two and two together and coming up with five, particularly after she observed the pair alone together in the garden. What she did not overhear, however, was the exchange:
“Doria, I must speak with you.”
“Maestro, I do not think we should be alone here. Your wife sees all.”
“And knows nothing.”
“Which makes her and this very dangerous.”
“Nevertheless, I am compelled to speak to you. I have fallen in love with one very close to us both—your cousin Giulia.”
Puccini didn’t know if he should be happy or hurt by the relief in Doria’s face. But that relief turned to alarm at what he next said: “There is no one else the two of us can trust.”
“You want me to be a go-between?” Doria asked….“No, no, I cannot,” she said, folding her arms and shaking her head as she walked away.
“Doria, please.”
“In the first place, I don’t believe in what you are doing. That said, if you and my cousin want to betray your wife, have at it. You’ll never hear a word from me. But why drag me into it?”
“Because you are someone we both love and admire. And need I remind you that I am your employer? Should you leave my employ, it would not be so easy to find other work in a small town where people gossip. The Manfredi family is an honorable but poor one seeking to rebuild itself. It would be a shame for it to suffer a reversal of fortune.”
Puccini could see by Doria’s face that she now understood the limits of his love and admiration.
“Very well, maestro, what do you wish me to do?”
From that moment on, Puccini and Doria became both closer and more distant. They had worked out a system in which she would pick up and deliver the love notes in various books so they could not be discovered. She no longer offered her opinions of his works and he no longer sought them out. Even so, this did not stop the whispering that now grew louder in the household. Nor was it limited to there….
Puccini knew well the source of these rumors—Elvira. But he did little to stop them other than telling her, “There is nothing between us. She and I are not having an affair.”
One day, Puccini went to look for a note in the expected place but didn’t find it. Nor did Doria come to work that day. Instead a cry crescendoed as it went through the house: Doria had been found dead, the foam around her blue lips indicating poison—and suicide. In accordance with church precepts, which viewed the funeral as a sacrament for the dead rather than a ritual for the living, she was buried outside the church graveyard but not before an autopsy vindicated her: It concluded that she had been a virgin.
No one from the Puccini family attended the funeral. But they would soon hear from the Manfredis in two letters. The first was from a lawyer the family had scraped the money together to hire, charging Elvira with slander. The second was a note addressed to Puccini himself in Doria’s hand.
“Maestro, by the time you read this I will be dead. In the words of your Madama Butterfly—'Death with honor when one can no longer live with honor.’ I do not blame you for what has befallen me. Rather, I blame myself for dishonoring your marriage by becoming part of your affair. And if I should pay with my life for that betrayal, so be it…. I hope that you will find peace with what will no doubt be a torment for a long time and that you will come to a greater understanding of yourself. Doria.”
In court Elvira was sentenced to more than five months in prison, but Puccini paid the Manfredi family off to keep her out of it. When he returned home, he found her sitting in the loggia with their son, Antonio, who quickly fled. The servants seemed to be engaged elsewhere, too. Only the music of nature permeated the air.
“It is ironic, isn’t it?” Puccini began. “All this tragedy because you misread the situation.”
“No,” Elvira spat, “because you insisted on betraying your marriage vows. I merely misread with whom, not the act itself. None of this would have happened had you not been unfaithful.”
Years later, when he was casting about for what would unwittingly be his last opera… Puccini knew his Turandot would be one with a difference. She—implacable and heartless—would be Elvira; he, Calaf; and Doria, Liù, the faithful servant whose self-sacrifice would make them clean and whole.
Art would make them clean and whole. “If you think that, then you’re a fool,” he could almost hear Doria say.
He could certainly hear Elvira say it, or words to that effect. “You think that if you turn us into one of your operas, that it makes up for everything that happened,” she hissed at the top of the stairs as he left for Milan and conductor Arturo Toscanini to discuss the unfinished work. “But while art may ennoble the living, it cannot bring back the dead.
“You think I am your Turandot, but you need only look in the mirror, for she is you and you are she.”
As he made his way to Toscanini’s home, the pain in Puccini’s throat worsened till it became a stab of dread to the heart. He thought of the poison slipping down Doria’s throat, setting her ablaze from within. He could see her ghost standing behind Toscanini as he took his leave of him for Brussels and his last radiation treatments and, clasping his hand, exhorted him: “Don’t let my Turandot die.”
As I read, I felt I had the audience with me. I not only read well, but I did all the voices of the characters, in the tradition of Charles Dickens. It was a fulfilling moment.
And yet a frustrating one, too, as I realized my work could, should have a bigger audience than it does. Is that a question of marketing, of offering something the public doesn’t really want, of not being a better storyteller? Or is it simply not my destiny? It might be a combination of all of these.
As moderator, I wish we could’ve gotten into more of a conversation about disclaimers in historical fiction and drama – which became a hot topic when the fifth season of “The Crown” aired two months and one day after the death of Queen Elizabeth II – as well as a discussion of cultural appropriation. The historical novelist, like the biographer, tells the story of other lives. Still, it’s in effect the biographer or the novelist’s story to tell. S/he’s the one who is shaping it.
There are those who think that that certain stories can only be told by those who belong to certain cultures. Yet in his new book “Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop,” Martin Puchner argues that culture is not a possession but a kind of give and take in which each generation and society remakes it as a way of understanding themselves. So that in “Riddle Me This,” the riddle story of the ancient Greek “Alexander Romance” finds its way into Persian poetry, Italian commedia dell’arte and opera, German Romantic theater and contemporary explorations of feminism and the relationship of East and West. Culture is a melisma – the original title of my book – many notes sung on one syllable, a theme and variations.
Still, I would argue that thanks to imperialism, culture has become a one-way street between the haves and the have-nots. Because of their technical demands, opera and ballet remain color-blind. But while you may cast Black actors in “Bridgerton,” you couldn’t case white singers in “Porgy and Bess.” That’s the consequence of years of Blackface and “Charlie Chan.” Power – the abuse of power -- limits freedom for those who were once exclusively powerful.
This may, however, have been too weighty a luncheon topic and instead, as you might say, be another story for another time.