My Mother the Detective by James Yaffe

short stories, collected  2016

this story: Mom Sings an Aria

first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1966

[There has been a murder at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York…]

“According to the other regulars on the standing-room line, the fights between Cohen and D’Angelo have become even more bitter than usual in recent years. They’ve been aggravated by a controversy which has been raging among opera lovers all over the world. Who’s the greatest soprano alive today—Maria Callas or Renata Tebaldi?”

Mom dropped her fork and clasped her hands to her chest, and on her face came that ecstatic, almost girlish look which she reserves exclusively for musical matters. “Callas! Tebaldi! Voices like angels, both of them! That Callas—such fire, such passion! That Tebaldi —such beauty, such sadness! To choose which one is the greatest —it’s as foolish as trying to choose between noodle soup and borscht!”

commentary: This is sheer bliss for an opera lover. I was enchanted by James Yaffe’s Mom stories (as recommended by Christine Poulson on the sadly-missed blog of Margot Kinberg), I loved all of them. But then to find one of them hinged on opera-going….

The stories all take the same form: the narrator, a police officer in New York, takes his wife to dinner with his Mom on a regular basis. He tells his Mom about a current case. She asks a number of specific, mystifying questions. Then she solves the case. You’d think that might wear thin after a few go-rounds, but it absolutely doesn’t. There are stereotypes and ‘views of the era’ in the tales, but they are easy to forgive, and the three participants (and sometimes four...) are lovely, memorable characters. All the stories are charming and funny and just a delight.

The plot in this one revolves round a performance of Tosca at the Met, and as it happens I myself attended a performance of Tosca at the Met almost exactly a year ago: there were no murders, except on stage, but it was a most memorable evening. (I was in New York for the Edgar awards ceremony – I like saying that.) So two photos are ones I took that night at the Met.

Mom says

“The opera lover’s psychology we are talking about. This is why you and the Homicide Squad and the District Attorney couldn’t make heads and tails from this case. Because you don’t understand from opera lovers. In this world they don’t live—they’ve got a world of their own. Inside their heads things are going on which other people’s heads never even dreamed about. To solve this case you have to think like an opera lover.”

Special opportunities you see. There was a sentence early on (a reference to opera singing) that made me raise my eyebrows and tut, but of course it was the big clue, the key to solving the crime.

Renata Tebaldi really was one of the best opera singers ever, though she is (I think) not as famous as some others – everyone knows about Maria Callas, but Tebaldi is the opera fans’ singer.

And that is a massive issue in a much-loved episode of the sitcom Frasier: the phrase ‘She’s no Renata Tebaldi…’ is key in the 2000 ‘Out with Dad’. Marty Crane pinches the judgement from his son, just to impress, but his listeners assume he must be gay because ‘How many straight men remember Renata Tebaldi?’ There are some gay stereotypes in the episode, but the plotting is clever and funny.

Frasier and Marty would have gone to the Seattle Opera House (since rebuilt) a place I also knew well at that exact era. A large chunk of the episode is set there, and it is quite plain that the programme-makers had never darkened the door or seen a photo … the set is some generic idea of opera seats.

Anyway, James Yaffe is a wonderful writer and I am delighted to have read these stories. So thank you to Chrissie, to Margot, and to Mike - who remembered the Frasier epi.

Top picture is – of course – Renata Tebaldi.