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Origins and childhood
Enrico Caruso was born in Naples on February 25, 1873, in the San Carlo all'Arena district, on via Santi Giovanni e Paolo. His parents were originally from Piedimonte d'Alife, today known as Piedimonte Matese. His father, Marcellino, was a metalworker, while his mother, Anna Baldini, worked as a cleaning lady. The family lived in modest conditions, and the future tenor's childhood was marked by economic hardships.
After attending elementary school, at just ten years old, he began working with his father in the foundry. Despite the fatigue of manual labor, his mother insisted that he continue studying and enrolled him in night school. There, the young Caruso demonstrated a natural aptitude for drawing and began designing decorations and fountains for the workshop where he worked. Meanwhile, his passion for music was also growing.
First contacts with music
Enrico's voice began to be noticed very early on. He sang in the church choir and received his first singing lessons from masters Schirardi and De Lutio, who taught him the basics of vocal art. However, his youth was marked by deep sorrow: in 1888, his mother died of tuberculosis, leaving a void in the boy that would stay with him throughout his life. Shortly thereafter, his father remarried Maria Castaldi.
Despite the difficulties, Caruso continued to sing and participate in small theatrical performances. His voice was rapidly strengthening, and the modest settings of local productions were beginning to feel too small for him.
The meeting with Maestro Vergine
The turning point came almost by chance. One day, the baritone Eduardo Missiano heard him singing a mass by Saverio Mercadante during a funeral at the church of Sant'Anna alle Paludi. Struck by the power and beauty of the voice, he introduced him to Maestro Guglielmo Vergine, who agreed to take him as a pupil. The master, however, imposed a very strict condition: for five years, he would receive twenty-five percent of the young singer's earnings.
Under Vergine's guidance, Caruso worked intensely to perfect his technique and prepare for his theatrical debut. In 1894, he was called for military service, but after just over a month, he was discharged thanks to the intervention of a music-loving superior who preferred to allow him to continue his singing studies.
The theatrical debut
After years of study, Caruso felt ready to face the stage. He unsuccessfully attempted an audition for Ambroise Thomas's opera Mignon, but he was not discouraged. The debut finally took place on March 15, 1895, in the opera L'amico Francesco by Mario Morelli. For four performances, he received a total compensation of eighty lire, which was later reduced to two nights due to low public turnout.
It was not a triumph, but the debut nonetheless attracted the attention of the press and marked the beginning of the young tenor's career. In the same year, he interpreted Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana at the Teatro Cimarosa in Aversa, alongside soprano Enrichetta Ferrara Moscati in the role of Santuzza. It was the first step on a journey that would lead him to become one of the most famous singers in the history of opera.
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During a summer season in Livorno, Enrico Caruso met soprano Ada Botti Giachetti. The singer was already married and a mother of one, but a relationship destined to last over a decade was born between the two. From their relationship, two sons were born, Rodolfo and Enrico Junior, and for many years, Ada was a constant presence in the tenor's life just as his career was beginning to take off in European theaters.
However, the story had a sensational conclusion. After eleven years, Giachetti suddenly abandoned Caruso, fleeing with Cesare Romati, the family driver. The affair turned into a public scandal and reached the courts, where an attempted extortion against the singer also emerged. The trial concluded with the woman's conviction to three months' imprisonment and a fine. For Caruso, it was one of the most bitter episodes of his private life, experienced precisely during the years when his name was becoming famous in theaters across Europe.
The first great successes
During these same years, the tenor's career moved forward with momentum. In 1897, he debuted at the Teatro Lirico in Milan in the role of Federico in Francesco Cilea's opera L'Arlesiana. The famous Lamento di Federico earned him immediate success with audiences and critics. Other important roles followed, including Loris in Fedora by Umberto Giordano. Caruso then embarked on numerous international tours that took him to Russia, Lisbon, Rome, Monte Carlo, and Covent Garden in London, where he performed Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto. Shortly after, he also performed in Buenos Aires, consolidating his fame outside of Italy.
In July 1899, he played Rodolfo in the London premiere of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. A few months later, in November of the same year, he sang at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, interpreting Osaka in the revival of Pietro Mascagni's Iris, Enzo in Ponchielli's La Gioconda, and Faust in Boito's Mefistofele.
La Scala and the disappointment of Naples
In December 1900, Caruso returned to La Scala for the revival of La Bohème, during the opening night of the opera season conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The following year, he was engaged at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples with a compensation of three thousand lire per performance, a sign of the growing importance he had achieved in the European opera landscape.
It was in Naples, however, that an episode occurred that deeply affected the singer. During a performance of L'elisir d'amore, it was said that emotion and insecurity led him to a less brilliant execution than expected. The chronicles of the time, in reality, describe an evening greeted by applause and encore requests. It was rather a harsh review by the critic Saverio Procida that deeply irritated the tenor, who reproached him for choosing a repertoire not suited to his abilities.
Offended and embittered, Caruso made the decision never to sing in Naples again and, in effect, not in other Italian theaters either. From that moment on, his career became increasingly oriented toward foreign countries, especially the United States and South America, where worldwide success awaited him.
Caruso and the records
On April 11, 1902, Enrico Caruso participated in an experiment that would change the history of music forever. In Milan, he recorded ten discs of opera arias for the English record company Gramophone & Typewriter Company. At the time, many opera singers viewed the new recording technology with suspicion, considering it unsuitable for capturing the quality of a theatrical voice. Caruso, however, immediately sensed the potential of the medium and agreed to test himself in front of the acoustic horn of the first phonographs.
The result was extraordinary. The recordings had enormous commercial success and helped spread his voice far beyond the opera houses. In the following years, Caruso continued to record for the Victor label in the United States, becoming the first singer in history to sell over a million copies of a record with the aria Vesti la giubba from the opera Pagliacci, recorded in 1904 and again in 1907. The single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame many years later (1975), a testament to the lasting impact of those first recordings. Thanks to records, Caruso's fame transcended the boundaries of opera and made him one of the first global artists of the modern era.
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One of the most surprising aspects of Enrico Caruso's career was the enormous amount of music he managed to bring into his repertoire. Over the course of his life, he performed hundreds of operas and songs, eventually possessing a repertoire of about five hundred and twenty pieces. This included not only opera arias but also art songs, Neapolitan songs, and concert pieces that he performed on international tours and in disc recordings.
An important part of this musical heritage was captured on records, which helped spread his voice throughout the world. Many of these pieces had to be adapted to the technical requirements of early recordings: phonographic media at the time could not exceed four and a half minutes in length, and arias were often shortened or modified to be recorded. Despite these technical limits, Caruso's recordings managed to convey the intensity of his interpretation with surprising effectiveness, so much so that they are still considered extraordinary vocal documents today.
Triumph at the Metropolitan
In November 1903, Caruso traveled to the United States, where his career would reach its peak. Through the mediation of banker Pasquale Simonelli, he secured a contract with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, the most prestigious theater in the country. His debut took place on November 23 in the role of the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto. The audience welcomed the tenor with enthusiasm and forced him to encore the aria La donna è mobile, marking the beginning of a relationship with the New York theater that lasted nearly twenty years.
After some initial hesitation, subsequent performances established him as the idol of American music lovers. In the same season at the Metropolitan, he interpreted fundamental roles of the tenor repertoire: Radamès in Aida, Cavaradossi in Tosca (with an encore of E lucevan le stelle), Rodolfo in La Bohème, Canio in Pagliacci, and Alfredo in La Traviata. In January 1904, he added two more famous roles: Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor and Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore.
The success was such that Caruso himself had a gold medal with his profile made by Tiffany & Co., intended to be given as a souvenir of his performances at the Metropolitan. In those years, the tenor earned very high fees, but he was also known for the generosity with which he performed for free at charitable events or to cheer up Italian immigrant communities.
Selected video insights from the ItalianOpera channel:
The years of worldwide fame
Between 1904 and 1908, Caruso's presence in major international theaters became constant. He continued to sing at the Metropolitan in a vast repertoire: Enzo in La Gioconda, Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia, Raoul in Les Huguenots, Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera, Fernando in La Favorita, and Elvino in La Sonnambula. There were also appearances in European theaters, such as Monte Carlo and Paris, where he also performed alongside the famous soprano Lina Cavalieri.
In 1906, he took on new important roles at the Metropolitan, including Faust, Lionel in Martha – with the famous encore of the aria M'appari – and Don José in Carmen. The following year, he interpreted Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut, and Vasco da Gama in L'Africaine. In 1908, he added Manrico in Il Trovatore and Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana to his repertoire, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
In parallel, he continued to record discs that circulated worldwide. One of the most famous recordings was that of Celeste Aida, made in 1908, which many years later would also be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (1993). Thanks to these recordings, Caruso's voice reached an audience immensely larger than that of the theaters, helping to transform him into the first great international star of recorded music.
The final years
In the years preceding World War I, Enrico Caruso was by then a global celebrity. Between 1909 and 1911, he recorded a long series of Neapolitan songs, including the famous Core ’ngrato, composed by Salvatore Cardillo with lyrics by Riccardo Cordiferro. The song, inspired by his romantic troubles after the end of his relationship with Ada Giachetti, became one of the most popular pieces in his repertoire. The recording made by Caruso in 1911 features some variations compared to the text known today, sparking debate among scholars about the original form of the composition.
In 1909, the tenor also had to undergo surgery in Milan for hypertrophic laryngitis. However, the operation did not compromise his career: Caruso continued to perform in the world's leading theaters and also participated in numerous benefit concerts, especially during the war years.
The repertoire of these years was vast. In 1910, he interpreted Federico at the Metropolitan conducted by Arturo Toscanini and sang the third act of Verdi's Otello and Gounod's Faust in Paris. Also at the Metropolitan, he participated in the first performance of Gluck's Armide in the role of Rinaldo and, on December 10 of the same year, in the world premiere of Giacomo Puccini's La fanciulla del West, interpreting Dick Johnson.
In the following years, he continued to perform in the most important European theaters. At the Wiener Staatsoper, he sang in 1912 as Gustavo III in Un ballo in maschera and as Cavaradossi in Tosca; in 1913, he was Des Grieux in Manon; in 1914, he interpreted Julien in the namesake opera by Gustave Charpentier, and in 1915, Samson in Samson et Dalila. Meanwhile, he remained a central presence at the Metropolitan, where he interpreted numerous roles including Nadir in Les Pêcheurs de perles, Jean de Leyden in Le Prophète, Avito in L'amore dei tre re, and Don Alvaro in La Forza del destino, often alongside great performers such as Rosa Ponselle and Claudia Muzio.
On August 28, 1918, Caruso married Dorothy Benjamin, a young American woman from a good family. From the marriage, a daughter, Gloria, was born in 1919. In the same year, the Metropolitan celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his career with a special concert in his honor, during which the tenor also interpreted the role of Eléazar in La Juive.
Illness and death
In 1920, after a long tour in North America, the singer's health began to deteriorate. During a performance of Samson et Dalila at the Metropolitan, he was struck by a piece of scenery that suddenly collapsed, causing him severe pain in his side. The following day, before a performance of Pagliacci, he was seized by a violent coughing fit accompanied by intercostal pains.
On December 11, he suffered a severe hemorrhage from the throat, and the performance had to be interrupted after the first act. On December 24, 1920, he made his final appearance at the Metropolitan in the role of Eléazar in La Juive. In total, he had performed on the New York stage as many as 863 times.
Only on Christmas Day did doctors diagnose an infected pleurisy. On December 30, he underwent surgery on his left lung and subsequently moved to Italy for convalescence, staying in Sorrento. Here, however, a serious subphrenic abscess developed. When the famous doctor Antonio Cardarelli arrived from Rome, he deemed urgent surgery necessary, but the tenor's condition was by then too compromised. Even doctor Giuseppe Moscati, who visited him in his final days, declared that very little could be done.
Transported from Sorrento to Naples in an attempt to reach Rome for further treatment, Enrico Caruso died on August 2, 1921, at the age of forty-eight, surrounded by his wife Dorothy, his son Rodolfo, and his closest family members. He was buried in the Santa Maria del Pianto cemetery in Naples, in a private chapel.
The tenor left three children: Rodolfo and Enrico Junior, born from his relationship with Ada Giachetti, and Gloria, born from his marriage to Dorothy Benjamin. His figure remained one of the most legendary in the history of opera. Even many years after his death, he continued to inspire artists and musicians: in the 1980s, the singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla composed the famous song Caruso, inspired by the account of the tenor's final days in Sorrento.
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Contrary to what one might imagine for an opera legend, Caruso's vocal gifts did not appear exceptional immediately. In the early years of his career, his voice was judged not very powerful, sometimes uncertain in high notes, and relatively limited in range. Some even went as far as to claim that he was closer to the baritone tessitura than to that of a tenor.
Caruso reacted to these difficulties with tireless study. As a rigorous self-taught artist, he developed a personal technique based on the full use of breathing and chest resonance, which functioned like a real bellows capable of amplifying the sound. Through this work, he succeeded not only in correcting initial defects but in transforming his voice into a powerful and expressive instrument. This evolution arrived exactly at the moment when musical theater was changing, moving from the elegances of bel canto to the more violent passions of verismo: Caruso thus revealed himself to be the ideal interpreter for new dramatic roles, such as Canio in Pagliacci or Andrea Chénier, without renouncing the great characters of the traditional repertoire.
© Collezione Varrone & Romano (Tutti i diritti riservati).