Caruso to the American President: You are almost as famous as I am!

On February 25, 1873, the world-famous tenor Enrico Caruso was born in the Kingdom of Italy.

It has been 150 years since the birth of one of the emblems of world opera art.

Caruso died very young – only 48, on August 2, 1921 in his native Naples. Not only Italy, the whole world shuddered at the news of his death. Because Caruso was not only a unique performer, but also an incredible person who left an example of kindness and humanism to people.

Enrico Caruso as Rigoletto / Photo: Getty Images

Enrico Caruso was born in Naples and began his career in his hometown in 1895. His first public appearance was laughable. He was in a pub with some friends and everyone had a good meal when he was told to leave immediately for the opera because one of the performers had fallen ill. Caruso ran to the opera house and sang at the top of his lungs, but he could barely stay on his feet. After the performance, the director of the theater said that he did not want to see this “gifted drunkard” anymore.

Later, every opera director in the world would proudly consider it a high honor that Caruso had sung on his stage.

Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873 – 1921) dressed as Piero in Pagliacci / Photo: Getty Images

Enrico Caruso was born into a large family with 21 children, 18 of whom died. As one critic noted, “God preserved him to endow him with an amazing voice, like a wind that rushes in through the windows and leaves you in awe to hear God’s voice.”

You will hardly believe it, but his first steps in the art of singing were very difficult. In 1891, young Enrico began taking lessons with the famous vocal teachers Guglielmo Vergine and Vincenzo Lombardi to master his voice. Natural features were not enough for him to feel confident on stage.

On November 16, 1894, he debuted with great success at the Neapolitan Opera. The audience was delighted by his extraordinary tenor voice. Throughout his career, Caruso maintained his voice with warm salt water gargles for his throat and Swedish snuff for his nose. He had broad chests and followed a breathing technique that stretched their conduction by 18 centimeters.

In 1898, Caruso sang at the Milan premiere of the newly written opera “Fedora” by Giordano. The role of Loris brought great success to the singer. Immediately received invitations with offers of engagements from all over the world.

In 1898, Caruso left for St. Petersburg. In 1900, he sang in the famous “La Scala”, and two years later, in the role of Rigoletto, he was on the London stage.

Enrico Caruso, ca. 1900 / Photo: Getty Images

This was followed by performances in Egypt and Italy, in the main tenor parts of the operas “Peasant Honor” by Mascani, “Faus” by Gounod, “La Traviata” and “Rigoletto” by Verdi, “Gioconda” by Ponchielli, “Bohème” and “Manon Lescaut” by Puccini, “Carmen” by Bizet, “Huguenots” by Meyerbeer, “The Favorite” by Donizetti, “Puritani” by Bellini and many others.

His first big success, after which the world talked about Caruso as a phenomenon on the opera horizon, was on the stage of the “Metropolitan” Opera in New York in 1903. This opera house became his home for nearly two decades.

From 1903 to 1920, Caruso was the indispensable first tenor of the New York Metropolitan Opera, with over 600 performances in 40 productions.

Enrico Caruso, ca. 1900 / Photo: Getty Images

After a long and triumphant tour of the opera stages of New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, Barcelona and Budapest, he was offered to sing in front of 25,000 people in a bullring in Mexico. It was really an unusual and very spectacular spectacle – a real sensation for its time. The fame of the singer is growing.

Caruso’s popularity reached such a staggering rapture of the public that he was literally chased through the streets and wherever he appeared. It so happened that in order to be able to eat in peace with his favorite spaghetti, he began to avoid restaurants and eat at home.

One of his fans named a horse after him and the singer started betting on it in races. Caruso took care of poor people and supported 200 paupers monthly. Once his wife asked him if he was sure that each of them needed or deserved his help, and he replied that since there was no way to know that, it was better to continue doing it “from the heart”.

Sam set the price of $2,500 per show for himself. You had your own rules and principles, which you did not violate even at a high cost. It is not known for what exact reasons, but it is reported that he turned down a fee of 250,000 dollars to participate in South America.

Caruso was one of the most recorded singers of his time. Most of his records are kept at the Caruso Museum in New York.

Enrico Caruso in the opera “Pagliacci”, 1910 / Photo: Getty Images

Its first records date back to 1902 and were the work of Fred Geisberg – a man who was advanced in technology and commerce. The first recordings cost the singer 50 dollars per record. Performed all compositions in their original language. He believed that the translation could not fully convey to the audience all the sensations put in by the composer.

At Christmas in 1943, 18,000 of his albums were released, the price of which he himself set at $10 per record so that they would be available to his fans.

In 1921, after his long “American” period, Caruso already felt pain in his chest and did not feel well. He returned to his native Naples with the hope that there he would rest and cure his lung disease, but fate decided otherwise – on August 2, 1921, he died after complications from purulent pleurisy.

His last – the 607th performance, Caruso played so ill that he barely survived the five acts of the opera, after which he finally collapsed backstage. The audience chanted “encore” for a long time as he agonized in the back. No one in the audience guessed that they were listening to Caruso live for the last time!…

Caruso left his earthly life only at the age of 48. It seems unfair that he died so young and from lung disease, but one of the singer’s friends said at his funeral, “God kept him alive as a child to give us a short time and take him back as his pet.” .

For more than 20 years, Enrico Caruso’s art has brought joy to people around the world. His phenomenal voice led the press to call him “the golden-voiced magician of Naples”.

Enrico Caruso (1873 – 1921), Photo: Getty Images

Caruso reached the highest achievements of the Italian singing school in the twentieth century. His career has taken him to all the big stages of the world. He is also known for learning not only his own parts, but also those of his colleagues. Immersed in the image with responsibility to the author of the work. “In the theater I have to think and feel exactly like the person whom the composer saw in his imagination,” said Caruso.

We have already mentioned that, apart from great singing talent, Caruso was a man of unique character and loving heart. He had a very lively sense of humor and loved banter with his loved ones. He was an amazing gentleman. Once on stage, the prop culottes came off under the skirt of one of the singers. She looked at him helplessly, terrified of embarrassing herself on stage. Caruso picked up the culottes from the stage and with a solemn look and bow presented them to her as a present on the stage. None of the spectators even suspected the scandalous incident – they decided that it was a prank included in the game.

Despite this artistic talent, Caruso was repeatedly reproached by envious opera luminaries for being a bad actor. However, Fyodor Chaliapin once said something that forever silenced the envious: “For the notes, for the phrasing that this great singer possesses, you must forgive him absolutely everything else.”

Caruso himself brushed aside criticism with his typical sense of humor. Once he responded to the remarks that he had no artistic talents like this: “If I were a good actor, my voice would be angry that I was giving the lead to the fake!” And another time he seriously said: “In the theater I have to think and feel exactly like the person whom the composer saw in his imagination. It is my right to judge that.”

Caruso was a man of dignity and never lost his composure, even in difficult situations. After a devastating earthquake in San Francisco, although he was greatly frightened by the tremor in the hotel where he was staying, he joked, “I told you the irreparable would happen if I sang a high note.”

He was kind in his dealings with people, but he hated politicians and did not hesitate to show them his disdain. They tell an incident that is indicative of this side of his character: At a ceremonial lunch at the invitation of the Spanish king, Caruso brought the dish – Italian macaroni. Announced publicly without hesitation that he preferred them because “they are nicer than the Spanish ones”. The king laughed diplomatically, preferring to take his guest’s remark more as a joke than an insult.

To this day, Caruso’s address to the American president is quoted: “Mr. President, you are almost as famous as I am.”

Despite the great fame and love of the public, not everything in Caruso’s life went smoothly. He was also often disappointed by people. Once there was an explosion on the stage, which later turned out to be sabotage by envious people. Another time, thieves robbed the singer’s home, and several times fraudsters tried to blackmail him for money.

But his admirers, who truly love the singer, after his death made a giant candle in his memory with voluntary funds, which for years has been lit once a year in front of the icon of the Virgin Mary in his memory. And so they hope it can be lit in Caruso’s honor five centuries after his death.

Emmy MARIANSKA