Italian dramatic tenor Enrico Caruso in Rigoletto.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1903
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023, United States
World-renowned tenor Enrico Caruso in costume for an opera set in the 18th century. The Italian singer became a leading tenor of the Metropolitan Opera House company after his United States debut in Rigoletto.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1909
Enrico Caruso, Italian opera singer in the United States, 6 November 1909.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1910
Full-length promotional portrait of Italian tenor Enrico Caruso as Canio from Leoncavallo's opera 'I Pagliacci', 1910s, dressed in clown costume and beating a drum.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1910
Enrico Caruso dressed as Don Jose in Carmen.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1910
Enrico Caruso as Radamès in Opera Aida by Giuseppe Verdi, 1910.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1910
Enrico Caruso sitting on park bench holding book looking into camera, circa 1910s.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1910
Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, circa 1910.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1913
From left to right, Italian baritone Antonio Scotti, American soprano Geraldine Farrar, and Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, circa 1913.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1913
Titta Ruffo, Enrico Caruso, and Feodor Chaliapin in 1913.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1914
Geraldine Farrar, American soprano and Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor in opera 'Julien' 1914.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1915
Opera singer Enrico Caruso gesturing.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1915
Enrico Caruso at the piano.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1917
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Enrico Caruso singing at Police Games at Sheepshead Bay Speedway.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1917
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Enrico Caruso, tenor singer, and his wife at the Police Games, Sheepshead Bay.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1918
Mr. and Mrs. Enrico Caruso stroll hand in hand.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1919
Vienna, Austria
Enrico Caruso with his wife Dorothy and her sister (and NN) in Vienna, around 1919.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1920
Naples, Italy
Italian opera singer, Enrico Caruso on a balcony in Naples.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1920
East Hampton, Long Island, New York, United States
Enrico Caruso, Italian opera singer, fishes off the side of a small boat near his home in East Hampton.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1920
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Enrico Caruso standing with one arm resting on the back of chair, Chicago, Illinois, 1920.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1920
Studio portrait of Italian opera tenor Enrico Caruso. Photo by E. O. Hoppe.
Gallery of Enrico Caruso
1921
May 1921, Enrico Caruso, his wife Dorothy and his daughter, Gloria.
Achievements
Membership
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Caruso was elected an honorary member of the music society, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, in 1917.
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023, United States
World-renowned tenor Enrico Caruso in costume for an opera set in the 18th century. The Italian singer became a leading tenor of the Metropolitan Opera House company after his United States debut in Rigoletto.
Full-length promotional portrait of Italian tenor Enrico Caruso as Canio from Leoncavallo's opera 'I Pagliacci', 1910s, dressed in clown costume and beating a drum.
Enrico Caruso was an Italian opera tenor singer. He was an early recording artist and the foremost Metropolitan Opera attraction for a generation.
Background
Enrico Caruso was born Errico Caruso on February 25, 1873, in Naples, Campania, Italy to the family of a mechanic and foundry worker. The third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21) and one of only three to survive infancy, Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace was a two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, accommodating several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality, it lacked indoor sanitation.
Education
As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. While attending the Scuola sociale e serale in Naples, Caruso received some training in oratorio and choral singing. By the age of 11, he was serving as principal soloist in its choir. He also received lessons from Amelia Tibaldi Nicola. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.
At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs - mechanic, jute weaver - but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney.” Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But the lessons ended after three years, and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. Caruso played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.
Caruso's vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.
Career
Caruso made his operatic debut on March 15, 1895, at a back street theatre in Naples. After a two-year stint on the South Italian circuit he auditioned for Giacomo Puccini in the summer of 1897. Puccini was looking for a leading tenor for a performance of 'La Boheme' in Livorno. Puccini was so impressed with the range and tone of the young Caruso's voice, that he reportedly mumbled in awe, "Who sent you to me? God himself?" After an unfriendly reception of his performance in Naples, Caruso vowed to never sing in Naples again, and he never did.
Caruso's first major role creations were in operas 'Il Voto,' composed by Umberto Giordano, on November 10, 1897, and 'L'Arlesiana' by Francesco Cilea on November 27, 1897, at the Teatro Lirico di Milano. Next season Caruso started with a role creation in 'Fedora,' composed by Umberto Giordano, performed on the same stage on November 17, 1898. On January 27, 1899, he made his first appearance in St. Petersburg as Alfredo, where he sang until 1900. He sang Loris at his debut in Buenos Aires on May 14, 1899, and continued to appear there until 1901, returning again in 1915 and 1917. On March 6, 1900, he made his first appearance in Moscow at a concert at the Bolshoi Theater, and then made his stage debut there as Radames on March 11. Caruso first sang at La Scala in Milan on December 26, 1900, as Rodolfo. After appearing in the premiere of Mascagni’s Le Maschere there on January 17, 1901, he scored an enormous success there as Nemorino on February 17. On March 11, 1902, he sang in the premiere of Franchetti’s Germania there.
Caruso's La Scala success prompted the Gramophone & Typewriter Co. of England to make a series of recordings of him in Milan in 1902-1903. Caruso’s fame was greatly enhanced through these and other recordings, especially those made with the Victor Talking Machine Co. of the United States between 1904 and 1920. On May 14, 1902, he made a notable British debut as the Duke of Mantua at Covent Garden in London. He appeared there again from 1904 to 1907, and in 1913-1914. On November 6, 1902, he sang in the premiere of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur at the Teatro Lirico in Milan. Caruso made an auspicious United States debut as the Duke of Mantua at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on November 23, 1903. For the rest of his career, he remained a stellar artist on its roster, appearing not only with the company in New York but widely on tour. In his 18 seasons with the company, he sang 39 roles in 862 performances.
Caruso was the first recording star in history, who sold more than a million records with his 1902 recording of 'Vesti le gubba' from 'Pagliacci' (Clowns) by 'Leoncavallo'. His voice had a combination of the full baritone-like character with the smooth and brilliant tenor qualities. His range was broadened into baritone at the expense of the higher tenor notes, Caruso never sang the high C, and often transposed in order to avoid it. He was a master of interpretation, having a rare gift of portamento and legato, and a superior command of phrasing. His legendary 1904 Victor recording of 'Una furtiva lagrima', by Gaetano Donizetti is used in many film soundtracks.
Caruso contracted pneumonia and developed a complication in the form of pleural inflammation (plerisy), followed by abscesses in his lungs. After a series of unsuccessful surgeries, Enrico Caruso died on August 2, 1921, in Naples, Italy.
Caruso was born and baptized Roman Catholic at the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo in Naples. He wasn't very religious and considered himself just Christian not distinguishing various branches of Christianity.
Politics
Enrico Caruso was neither involved nor interested in politics or political ideology.
Views
Caruso believed in a thorough foundation of vocal technique, and the model he was in complete agreement with was that of the great masters of the past. Specifically, being a Neapolitan tenor, Caruso subscribed to the vocal ideals established by Nicola Porpora. Porpora was the legendary founder of the Neapolitan School, which produced singers such as Caffarelli and Farinelli.
Quotations:
"Watermelon - it's a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face."
"I suffer so much in this life. That is what they [the audience] are feeling when I sing, that is why they cry. People who felt nothing in this life cannot sing."
"During empathy one is simply 'there for' the other individual, when experiencing their own feelings while listening to the other, i. e. during sympathy, the listener pays attention to something about themselves, and is not 'there for' the client. Consider how you would feel if you sensed that the individual listening to you was getting into their own 'stuff' rather than hearing and reflecting exactly what you were feeling in a moment of need?"
"It was he who impressed, time and again, the necessity of singing as nature intended, and - I remember - he constantly warned, don't let the public know that you work. So I went slowly. I never forced the voice."
"Jewish cantors employ a peculiar art and method of singing in their delivery. They are unexcelled in the art of covering the voice, picking up a new key, in the treatment of the ritual chant, and overcoming vocal difficulties that lie in the words rather than in the music."
Membership
Caruso was elected an honorary member of the music society, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, in 1917.
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
,
United States
Personality
Supremely gifted for opera by temperament and physique, Caruso was also single-minded, hard-working, and self-critical. An awkward actor in the beginning, he developed into a superlative artist. Certain roles, such as Canio in Pagliacci and Radames in Aida, became so indelibly his that all other tenors suffer by comparison. He had a remarkable range, but when the lighter quality of his early years darkened, his voice was less suitable for some of the lyric roles. In power and expressiveness, however, his abilities suffered no impairment despite a temporary loss of voice during the 1908-1909 season. A natural comedian, he was also a gifted caricaturist. His warmhearted generosity made him genuinely loved by his associates and the public at large to a degree almost unique in the lyric theater.
Physical Characteristics:
Caruso was 5' 9" (1.75 meters) of height.
Quotes from others about the person
I was able to do it [achieve recognition] with television and radio and media and all kinds of assists. The popularity that Caruso enjoyed without any of this technological assistance is astonishing." - Beverly Sills, American operatic soprano
"As a voice - pure and simple - his [Caruso's] was the most wonderful tenor I ever heard." - Nellie Melba, Australian operatic soprano
"When you speak of tenors, you have to divide them into two groups. Caruso in the first group. All the others are in the second." - Rosa Ponselle, American operatic soprano
"I wonder what would have become of me if, like him, I had been born in a city slum; for I did not have the gifts of personality that enabled Caruso to create life and warmth around him wherever he went." - Beniamino Gigli, Italian operatic tenor
Interests
caricatures, fishing
Connections
Caruso's liaison (never legalized) with Ada Giachetti, by whom he had two sons, was painfully ended by court proceedings in 1912. In 1918 he married Dorothy Park Benjamin, daughter of a wealthy New York industrialist.