He stopped, and looked at Dick Donnelly in awe. “My golly, are you really—” he mumbled. “Are you the Ricardo Donnelli?”
“I guess I am,” Dick grinned. “I haven’t run into any others.”
“The famous Metropolitan opera star!” Tony cried. “And we’ve never heard you sing a note!”
“Well, I didn’t think many people in the Army would be very interested in the kind of stuff I sing,” Dick said.
“Say—I’ve stood back there with aching feet at the Met so often,” Tony said. “I’ve waited in line for those standing-room tickets just to hear you sing. And now I’ve been your pal for months and you’ve never even warbled!”
“No, I haven’t really felt like it,” the sergeant said. “I started getting upset about this war long before we were in it. My folks hated fascism since Mussolini first started spouting in Italy. I wanted to join the Loyalists in Spain but I was just getting started in my singing career then, and felt I couldn’t do it, after working so hard for the chance I finally got at the Met. I’ve been seeing it coming for a long time, and when I finally got a chance to fight I joined up and forgot everything else. I’m no Ricardo Donnelli any more. I’m Dick Donnelly, paratrooper in the United States Army!”
“You studied in Italy, didn’t you?” Max asked.
“Sure, everybody does if he gets a chance,” Dick said.
“Why is that?” Max asked. “America’s got plenty of good singing teachers, plenty of good music.”
“Sure, but not the way it is in Italy,” Dick explained. “You see, in Italy there are little opera companies all over the place. Every town has its own opera and its own orchestra. They’re not like the Met, of course, but there are dozens of them which give a newcomer, an unknown, a chance to sing. And that’s what counts—plenty of singing in public, on an actual stage, in a real performance. I sang in half a dozen small companies in my two years in Italy. And somebody noticed me and gave me a chance at La Scala in Milan, and there somebody from the Metropolitan heard me and signed me up. Of course, when I had come to Italy to study and sing, it was natural for me to go back to my old Italian name, Ricardo Donnelli. So I’ve stayed Ricardo Donnelli as far as singing is concerned.”