Enrico CARUSO
(tenor) (1873-1920)
A Life in Words and Music
Written and Narrated by David Timson
CD 1
King of Tenors: Enrico Caruso
Family background
Early singing lessons
Caruso's first operatic roles
More auditions and Enrico meets Puccini
Caruso meets Ada Giachetti
Enrico and Ada
1898: St Petersburg
The 'monarch-in-waiting'
December 1900: debut at La Scala
CD 2
Humiliation in Naples
1900: Gaisberg records Caruso
1902: Covent Garden debut with Nelly
Melba
1903: Caruso joins the New York Metropolitan
Opera
The 'King' is crowned
1904-6: international touring
An earthquake and a brush with the press
1906: La Boheme at the Met.
CD 3
Caruso's health
1908: family upsets
Family and health problems
The 1909-10 season at the Met.
Mafia interest and a recording contract
Ill health 1912-13: back at the Met.
1913-14: Covent Garden, Tosca and Aida
The war years
Fund-raising concerts
CD 4
Caruso's daily routine
Caruso's private life
1918-20: marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin
Dorothy in Italy; Caruso on tour
1920: Cuba
1920-21: injury and worsening health
Goodbye to the Met. - Caruso retires
to Naples
The death of Caruso
Illustrated by 30 original recordings
of songs and arias recorded between
1902 and 1920 and taken from Volumes
1-12 of the Naxos’ Caruso: The Complete
Recordings series
Bargain Price
NAXOS. 8.558131-34 [4CDs: 59.57+58.55+64.21+62.32]
Regular browsers of
this site will have noted my enthusiasm
for Naxos’s series of ‘Introductions’
to various operas written by Thomson
Smillie and narrated by David Timson.
In this 4CD set David Timson is his
own author and researcher and a fine
and interesting job he makes of it.
The story opens (CD 1 tr. 1) rather
unusually by briefly recounting the
grand party Caruso and his wife gave
on New Year’s Day 1919 to mark his Silver
Jubilee. The life story proper follows
(tr. 3) with a full background to the
singer’s early life and family, particularly
his relationship with his mother, and
conditions in Naples in his childhood.
Caruso’s first singing lessons, and
early operatic efforts are covered (trs.
5 and 7), and also his brief ‘call up’
to military service, which was served
by his brother instead! This latter
arrangement enabled Caruso to make his
operatic debut at the ‘Teatro Nuovo’
in his home town of Naples on March
15th 1895 in the first production
of an opera long forgotten. However,
contacts had been made and the singer
filled in as Faust at the more important
‘Teatro Bellini’ in the city he was
on his way. By age 22 Caruso was able
to earn his living by singing and debuts
followed elsewhere. Of course no recordings
exist from this early stage in the singer’s
career and the narrative is interspersed
with arias from later recordings chosen
to relate to his roles in the theatre
at the time. CD 1 continues Caruso’s
life to include his setting up home
with Ada Giachetti, a dramatic soprano
in her own right (trs. 11 and 13) and
the mother of his sons. She was much
more versed in the ways of operatic
life than he and having had proper vocal
training was able to pass on lessons
in breath control and vocal extension.
The tenor’s burgeoning career led to
his Milan debut in 1897. The following
year his international career began
with debuts first in St. Petersburg
(tr. 15) followed in 1899 in South America.
Caruso’s debut at ‘La Scala’ in ‘L’elisir
d’amore’ was widely acclaimed and is
illustrated by the famous aria ‘Una
furtive lagrima’ (tr. 20) from a recording
made in 1911 and featured in Volume
6 of the Naxos series. It is a criticism
that although the recording dates are
given in the narrative, the information
is not given in the track listing which
also, erroneously, gives the singer’s
debut at ‘La Scala’ as 1990.
CD 2 starts with the
so-called Naples disaster when Caruso
returned to his hometown’s major theatre.
He refused to pay the local ‘claque’
and his performance in ‘L’elisir’, acclaimed
at ‘La Scala’, was booed. Caruso swore
he would only visit the town in future
to visit his family and never sang in
Naples again (tr. 1). Track 3 has interesting
details of Caruso’s famous first recordings
for Fred Gaisberg in April 1902, (again
the track listing of 1900 is in error
whilst the narrative is correct). The
disc continues with his 1902 debut at
‘Covent Garden’ with Nellie Melba, including
insights into his propensity for practical
jokes (tr. 3), the ‘Met’ (tr. 7) where
he was to make over 600 appearances
in nearly 40 operas, and his other international
touring (tr. 11). There are asides on
his ‘amours’, his survival of the San
Francisco earthquake and the notorious
‘Monkey House’ scandal when Caruso was
accused of harassment of a young woman
during a visit to Central Park Zoo.
The vocal selections again relate to
the singer’s contemporary performances.
CD 3 is much concerned
with Caruso’s health when over-singing
and an excessive workload necessitated
operations to remove nodules from his
vocal chords. There were major concerns
about his vocal health in the performances
that followed the first operation, although
these were soon overcome. However, Caruso’s
well-being was not helped by the desertion
of Ada, his partner of 12 years and
mother of his sons, who ran off with
their chauffeur (tr. 3). Back to normal
health and at the ‘Met’ for the 1909-1910
seasons tracks. 6 and 10 give interesting
insights to his popularity and workload
at that theatre alone. This perhaps
contributed to more nodules; he had
to cancel appearances after February.
It was 7 months before he could return
to the stage when he was beset by more
health problems in the shape of severe
headaches (tr. 10). Despite these setbacks
Caruso was back at the ‘Met’ for the
1912-1913 season singing 10 roles and
returning to Covent Garden for the first
time for many years (tr. 11), a visit
he repeated in 1914, his last at that
theatre (tr. 13) influenced by the onset
of World War 1. Caruso’s activities
during the war period, including visits
to South America and fund-raising for
the troops, are covered (trs. 15 and
17).
The final disc starts
with an extensive narrative of Caruso’s
strict daily routine, including his
superstitions, smoking and stamp collecting
(trs. 1 and 2), before expounding on
his unexpected betrothal and marriage
to Dorothy Park Benjamin, twenty years
his junior, and from a very different
social background. His return to Italy,
with Dorothy, at the end of the war
and the family milieu of ‘pensioners’
that he subsidised there perhaps accounted
for the trip to Cuba for the then enormous
fee of 15000 US Dollars for each performance
(tr. 9). But the end of the good times
was in sight with an injury to his chest,
from falling scenery, following a bad
cold lead to severe pleurisy. Misdiagnosis
and his refusal to cancel allowed Caruso
to continue for several more performances
but his 607th performance
at the ‘Met’, on December 24th
1920, was his last on any stage. After
operations for the pleurisy he returned
to Naples on May 28th supposedly
to convalesce. In reality it was to
more illness and death on August 2nd
1920 at the age of 48 (tr. 13).
This is a very human-oriented
biography and on that basis is informative
and enjoyable without being excessively
sycophantic, although when dealing with
one of the greatest singers of all time
it is difficult to avoid superlatives,
nor is there excessive salaciousness
in respect of Caruso’s philandering.
There is also much information that
I have not mentioned about fees, repertoire
and colleagues. I would have preferred
more detailed analysis, with chronological
examples from his recordings, of the
changes in his vocal timbre following
the ‘crisis’ of 1908-1909, and his greater
interpretive and expressive powers that
were evident, and mentioned in the narrative,
in the ‘Met’ seasons during World War
1. The booklet gives the details of
the volumes from the Naxos series from
which the vocal extracts are taken,
so well remastered by Ward Marston,
but not, as I have mentioned, the recording
dates; a serious omission. This issue
is an ideal complement, or even sampler,
to the Naxos complete recordings, but
is also a worthy issue in its own right
and so much more enjoyable than a dry
as dust written biography.
Robert J Farr
