Enrico Caruso

I would like to thank Thomas Silverbörg for the recording (Over there).

Don't fail to visit the definitive Caruso website, created by Tom Frøkjær; it contains a wealth of information, excellent uploads of all (I think) Caruso recordings, and not least, Caruso's single (silent) film! Great and highly recommended.

From a very poor family, Caruso had a difficult time studying voice: he had to agree to pay his teacher a percentage of his future fees. (For how long had eventually to be determined in court; the teacher would have wanted him to pay that percentage for his whole life, which was prevented by the court.)

Caruso made his debut in 1895 with a touring troupe at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples. In his first years, he was not overly successful, although he already sang in Cairo, Russia or Palermo. His breakthrough was the world premiere of Fedora at the Teatro Lirico in Milano, where he sang Loris (17 November 1898). In 1899, he was at the Colón in Buenos Aires, in 1900 at the Bolshoj, in St. Petersburg – and at La Scala (debut role: Rodolfo), where he had one of his most spectacular successes as Nemorino the following year. His first (of many) appearances at Covent Garden followed in 1902, and from 1903 to his death, he was at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, while also touring the world and singing, as a guest, in Berlin, Vienna, Paris (Opéra), Monte Carlo, Havana, Ciudad de México, San Francisco, Chicago, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Prague, São Paulo, Buenos Aires... but only very rarely in Italy.

Caruso died from a lung disease.

It's pointless to repeat that Caruso was the most famous tenor of his and of all times, because this site will probably never have any visitor who doesn't already know. That he seized the possibilities that the emerging recording process offered him, and that he was made famous by his discs as much as the disc in and of itself was made famous by him, is common knowledge, too. He is quoted to have said "My records will be my biography".

Of course, nowadays any singer half as good as Caruso would be a sensation like a Martian visitor, and his ability of coloring the voice has been unheard of for decades now; but for his age, Caruso sang like a peasant: no remarkable coloratura, very (too) few self-devised embellishments, rough musicality, pushed top notes. But his style – less aristocratic, more real-life, less refined, more thrilling – prevailed, and determined the further course of operatic history. (It was, to be sure, not his style alone: think of Ruffo, think of Burzio, think of Schmedes; also of Shaljapin, who was however, for all unparalleled expressiveness, deeply rooted in 19th century vocality. But Caruso was beyond doubt more influential than the others, except Shaljapin.)

Reference: Caruso/Farkas/Kaufman Enrico Caruso My father and my family, Amadeus, 1990