Patrick Bade
Singers Who Changed How We Listen: Enrico Caruso

Patrick Bade | Singers Who Changed How We Listen: Enrico Caruso

- Well, a few weeks ago I met up with Wendy and she said to me that she would like me to talk over the summer about people who had really brought about change. And I immediately thought of two singers, Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas, who are probably the most influential opera singers of the 20th century. And they certainly changed everything. When you listen to tenors from the first half of the 20th century or sopranos from the second half the 20th century, you always know whether they’ve been listening to Caruso or Callas. Caruso was the very first singer to make an international reputation by means of recordings. And he made an enormous number of recordings. He made enough to fill 12 CDs. You can buy the complete recordings of Caruso on 12 CDs. And he had a very, I think you can say very phonogenic voice. I think you can assert that he never made a bad recording. All his recordings are worth listening to. And I’m going to start by playing you the, if I had to choose just one record of Caruso to take to my desert island, it would be this one. It’s of the so-called “Handel’s Largo,” “Ombra mai fu” from the “Opera Xerxes.” And this is one record from one of Caruso’s very, very last recording sessions at the end of 1920 just before he fell ill and died. And to me it shows his most remarkable qualities. First of all, the sheer quality of the voice. It was a big voice. Even though this is a primitive recording, I think you can tell that it’s a very voluminous voice. It’s very rich, it’s smooth, it’s dark. There’s touch of baritone about it. It’s really a kind of hot chocolate voice, I would say. And as well as the sheer beauty of the voice, there is the beauty of the phrasing.

To me, he phrases, it’s like the bowing of a cello. He uses quite a lot of portamento, more than I think any modern singer would do. And that is really sliding from one note to the next, rather than going exactly from one note to the next. And in the middle of this piece, there is a rather surprising feature, which is a short but absolutely perfectly turned trill. You would not really expect that these days. Very few modern tenors can trill like this. Anyone I can think of offhand who does a really good trill is Michael Spyres. And even that is not quite as perfect as this one, as you will hear.

• Now, with both tenors and sopranos, one can talk about BC and AC. So it’s before Caruso, after Caruso, or it’s before Callas and after Callas. So now I’m going to play you a BC tenor. This is Fernando De Lucia. Very elegant and dapper, as you can see. He’s only 13 years older than Caruso, but he seems to belong to an earlier epoch. His training is very much a bel canto training. Remember, of course, Caruso is contemporary with verismo, a different type of opera altogether. He had a world career. These days, he’s particularly cherished by record collectors for his spectacular virtuosity in the bel canto repertoire. Particularly, he made a complete recording of the “Barber Seville” of Rossini, which sets a kind of benchmark in these matters. The time, oddly enough, he’s singing in Mozart and Rossini was not appreciated outside of Italy. It wasn’t appreciated in London. George Bernard Shaw didn’t like him at all. Nor was it appreciated in New York. He was actually better liked, oddly enough, in the verismo repertoire in which Caruso would shortly overtake him. But I’m going to play you the same aria sung by both singers. First of all, we’re going to hear a Fernando De Lucia, see the tenor aria from “Les Pecheurs des perles of Bizet.” And so first of all, with De Lucia, it’s sung in a very kind of dreamy way to very, very slow pace indeed, but with enormous amounts of rubato. Rubato is a robbed time, so it doesn’t have an even beat at all. But if he feels like hanging onto a note and doing an endless diminuendo, he will. So the conductor must have had a hard time really following him in this. And I would describe him as a perfumed singer. It’s exquisite, full of the most delicate, delicate shadings. This was actually one of the things that George Bernard Shaw didn’t like about him. I think by the 1890s, early 1900s, this kind of singing was already becoming slightly old fashioned.

• Now at that speed, you think, well, would the audience ever get home? I find it very, very beautiful. You may find it rather effeminate compared with Caruso. Caruso produces a much more masculine, a much more macho sound. He also sings the aria faster and at a much more regular beat. But the whole thing is shown of all those exquisite shadings and graces that we’ve just heard.

• So the top note there, sung very full out from the chest, it’s a much, as I said, a much more masculine sound. Now ironically, Fernando De Lucia had the rather melancholy task of singing at Caruso’s funeral in Naples in 1921. So his career, although he was considerably older, his career actually outlasted that of Caruso. Caruso’s career, got off to actually quite a bumpy start with a number of setbacks and checks. And his early performances were not always well received either by the public or the critics. His great breakthrough came in the year 1901. He’s already 27 years old. And he was seen in a season at La Scala in Milan. And in that season, there was a premiere of a new opera by Mascagni called “Le Maschere.” Mascagni had, of course made his own breakthrough in 1890 with “Cavalleria rusticana.” And he was never able to quite repeat the tremendous success of “Cav.” And there a whole series of operas that were either just or they were out and out failures. And to really try and get past this in 1901, they set up simultaneous premiers for “Le Maschere” in six different Italian cities. Sadly, for Mascagni, it was a total failure in five of the six. Any city where the public liked it was Rome. And in Milan, it was such a disaster, it had to be taken off immediately. So they had a gap that they had to fill. And Toscanini, who was the chief conductor at the time, and Gatti-Casazza, who was the head of the opera house, they had a brilliant idea. They thought that they would revive an opera by Donizetti, “L'elisir d'amore,” which had completely fallen out of the repertory for many decades. That might surprise you ‘cause it’s now one of the most commonly performed of all operas. I lost count the number of times I’ve seen it when I’ve been taking groups around Europe. And it’s an opera that the public love and tenors love, 'cause it’s a great vehicle for a tenor.

So Caruso was cast in this. And he had a tremendous breakthrough success. He was the man of the moment. And of course, it brought back “L'elisir d'amore” into the central repertoire. Now, Caruso, like everybody, I suppose, who’s really succeeds in life, Caruso was lucky in his timing. So this great success happened. And the following year, 1902, there was a recently set up record company called Gramophone & Typewriter, later became HMV. And the Gramophone was really a kind of toy at this time. People didn’t really take it very seriously. And the Gramophone & Typewriter Company wanted to promote this as a serious medium for recording great singers. So they sent off their representative, a man called Fred Gaisberg to Milan to find talent, to record, to show off what their machines could do. And when he got to Milan, everybody was talking about Enrico Caruso and how wonderful he was. So he contacted Caruso and said, “How much do you want?” Caruso said, “I want a hundred pounds to record 10 titles.” And Gaisberg telegraphed back to London, and they said, “No way, that’s outrageous.” But luckily he went ahead and did it anyway. And so the 10 recordings were made in one session in this building, Grand Hotel, in April 1902, just over a year after Giuseppe Verdi had actually died in the same hotel. So is still there, Grand Hotel. Next time I go, I think I must go and have at least a drink in the bar, 'cause of these, you know, two very important events in the history of opera, the death of Verdi. And these recordings were the first successful serious recordings of an operatic artist. They were a sensation. They sold around the world.

They spread Caruso’s reputation. And because they were so successful, other great singers of the period like Nellie Melba, and Adelina Patti and so on, and Macalvey, they all wanted to get in on the act. And they all started making records. So very important in the history of opera. Here is, Caruso was a very gifted caricaturist. And this is a drawing he made for himself making a recording by this acoustic process. Must have been a quite an uncomfortable and difficult way with a singer singing into this horn and the musicians behind him. Here, I’m going to play you one of these recordings made at this various first session. And let’s him in “L'ielisir d'more” seeing that this is the first of several recordings he made of this aria. No doubt he wanted to re-record it later, partly 'cause this only has a piano accompaniment. But also because he makes quite a bad mistake. He comes in early at the beginning of the second verse. And it says something about the improvisatory circumstances in which these records were made that they didn’t rerecord it on the spot, and it was issued with the Caruso’s mistake.

• So I just played the point where he came in too early. Mystery though, because we’ve heard already that he could do a very good trill. So why didn’t he do one there? It’s written in the score. And I think it’s because people, it worked with change of fashion that all those exquisite races of bel canto doing those endless diminuendo, doing little ornaments, doing trills and so on, critics like George Bernard Shaw were sniffy about it. They thought it was effeminate and they didn’t like it. And singers wanting something and the public, something more direct and more masculine. And Caruso certainly provided. I mean, how masculine can you be? Look at this photograph. This is Caruso in Donizetti’s “L'elisir d'amore.” And this was probably, I think, the earliest opera, which figured largely in his repertoire. So here there’s a big difference between Caruso and Callas. Callas was never singing contemporary works. I mean, she was singing operas from the bel canto repertoire, I mean up to Pacini, but nothing really after that. So she was singing operas written long before she was born. Caruso was largely singing the work of his contemporaries or people immediately before him. “L'elisir d'amore” was 1835. As I said, he’s born 1873. But his repertoire was dominated by Verdi, who died the year before Caruso had his big breakthrough, and later by Pacini and the Veristi. So here he is in as the Duke of Mantua in “Rigoletto.” It was one of the opera he before most often. It was the opera in which he made his New York debut at the Metropolitan in 1903. And you can see him here, he was refusing to take off his handlebar moustache. His very Edwardian handlebar moustache, even though of course it’s rather anachronistic in a 16th century character. But here he is as the Duke of Mantua in “Rigoletto.”

• Now, that’s quite a recording made quite early in his career, piano accompanied. Later he would rerecord all these arias with orchestra. At this stage he still has a certain likeness. He can bring a certain likeness to a certain agility, although I think the end was a bit hefty. But as his career developed, the voice grew in size and it darkened. And he was better suited really to the middle period operas of Verdi like “La forza del destino” and “Aida,” which require more heft in the voice. So here he is as Radames in “Aida.” And I’m going to play you the opening aria. Of course, this is a terrifying aria for tenors 'cause they have to come on stage cold right at the beginning and seeing this aria, which starts very softly and builds up to a great climax. And it’s particularly at the last high note, which is, you know, a graveyard for tenors, really. And they’re so cruel in Italy. You may have read about Paul Roberto Alagna, he cracked on that final note at La Scala and got booed off the stage. Verdi actually wrote it to be sung pianos, to be sung softly. And even Caruso, very few singers have managed to do it. Kaufmann could do it actually. John Vickers did it. But usually that last note turns into something of a bellow. It’s not exactly soft here with Caruso, but he does manage to vary the volume on the note to bring some expression to it.

• So Caruso was singing a lot of contemporary opera. And he actually sang in a number of world premieres. In 1898 he sang in the premier of Umberto Giordano’s opera, “Fedora” with the great singing actress, Gemma Bellincioni. And just before he went to New York, he made the recording that I’m going to play you now of the famous aria, “Amor ti vieta” from “Fedora.” Accompanied on the piano by Giordano himself. And in his autobiography, Giordano said he went through long training sessions with Caruso, polishing what he said was a kind of the rough diamond of his talent. And he takes credit for really preparing Caruso for his great success in New York. So here is that aria with the composer accompanying Caruso.

• Another opera that he sang in the premier of was “Adriana Lecouvreur” in 1905, by Francesco Cilea, who you see top left. And so I’m going to play you now a recording made at the time of, it’s not really an aria, it’s a fragment of a duet in the last act as Adriana lies dying. Very lovely, lovely melody. And exquisitely praised really by Caruso. I can hardly think of another tenor who comes near this. And once again, it’s the composer who is accompanying him and who no doubt coached him. Later Cilea, his favourite soprano and my favourite soprano, Magda Olivero, she describes how meticulously he coached her in phrasing. So this is particularly interesting because again, we have enormous amounts of rubato that would never be allowed on stage today. But this has the, you know, the permission, not only the permission, you’ve got the composer actually accompanying the singer. So this is definitely what the composer wants. The other curious thing about this record is how badly Cilea plays the piano. Magda Olivero, saw her a few times later in her life and came to know her quite well. And she always said that Cilea was a wonderful piano player, but you’d never guess it from this. And he hardly seems to even know his own music. And at the end, he kind of wanders off into nothingness, not seeming to know where the music is going.

• Dear me, that is pretty terrible piano playing. Another role which was very strongly associated with him and he sang a lot was Canio, in Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci.” So I couldn’t possibly do this talk without playing something from that opera with Caruso.

• Now it was a role that he obviously identified with very strongly. And there was a terrible incident in his life that was straight out of this opera. He lived for several years with a soprano called Ada Giachetti. And she gave birth to a child. And clearly he regarded her as his wife even though they weren’t legally married. And she betrayed him. She ran off with the chauffeur. And in fact, a document has just come to life recently. It was bought on the open market, in which Caruso tells the whole story in the most heartbreaking terms, I mean with a very, very raw emotion. You really feel that this is Canio speaking directly to you. And that document, if anybody’s interested, has very recently been published in the magazine, the “Record Collector,” I think it was the last but one edition of the “Record Collector” in which that piece was published. So another opera in which he was indelibly associated was of course “La Boheme.” And it was particularly his partnership with Nellie Melba That must have made a hell of a lot of money for Puccini that they sang it around the world, and of course, every season, Covent Garden. Pacini had somewhat ambivalent attitude to both singers. Well, actually not to Melba, he just didn’t like Melba. He thought she was too old to sing a part. He thought she completely lacked the allure or femininity for the role of Mimi. And she was not really a very sympathetic woman. And I don’t think that Caruso really liked her very much either. There are stories of dreadful practical jokes he would play on her. On one occasion at Covent Garden as he launched into your tiny hand is frozen. He had a hot, greasy sausage hid in his sleeve that he thrust into her not so tiny or frozen hand. Here he is singing that aria.

• When Puccini first her heard Caruso, he was absolutely overwhelmed by the power and the beauty of his voice. And he exclaimed, “Who sent you to me? God!” He regretted very much not having chosen Caruso to sing the world premier of “Tosca.” But of course he sang it a lot later on. Here he is again keeping his handlebar moustache in the role of Cavaradossi. And here is a self portrait of Puccini as Pinkerton in “Madam Butterfly.” Now, he did not sing in the world premier of “Madam Butterfly” 'cause he was based in New York and that premier was at Milan. But he did sing the New York Premier of “Madam Butterfly.” And Puccini went over to New York for that and this time was less pleased. He didn’t really, he didn’t think that Caruso was serious as an artist. He thought he was too pleased with himself. I’m not sure if that’s true. I think he took his, I think he took his vocation very, very seriously indeed, as I shall explain in a minute. And he was the inevitable choice for the world premier of “La fanciulla del West” in New York in 1911. Sadly, he didn’t make any recordings of excerpts from that opera. Now, it was a career cut short. He died prematurely in 1921. And he was really, I would say in his prime, in his peak. As I’ve suggested, his voice developed, it darkened, it grew in power. And he paced himself very carefully. I think his premature death robbed us of two roles in which he would’ve been wonderful. He was going to sing “Andrea Chenier” the following season, and he was certainly limbing up for “Otello,” which is of course the heaviest of all roles in the Italian repertoire.

But he never got to sing either of those. The last role that he prepared and that he performed was Eleazar in the opera “La Juive” by Halevy. Now, I showed this photo or a similar one in a lecture a few months ago, and somebody objected to the fact that he was wearing a prayer shawl in an operatic role on stage, thinking that it was disrespectful. But I would, well, first of all, I can’t quite identify with that kind of attitude, but he was extremely respectful of Jews and Judaism. And he had in fact a very, there was a relationship of enormous mutual and affection and respect between Caruso and the Jewish community in New York. And again, I’d like to refute the idea that he wasn’t serious about preparing his roles. He was immensely serious about. He really, he studied the Jewish religion, he attended synagogue and he applied for help to all his Jewish friends in New York to help him prepare this role. And it was in fact the last role that he would ever sing on stage in November, 1920. And here is Eleazar’s big aria.

• So a lot has been written about Caruso’s final illness and death. One theory is that it was triggered by an onstage accident when a piece of scenery fell on him and injured him. I think the diagnosis of the final illness and illness that killed him, I don’t really know what this is, but I’m sure there are plenty of doctors out there who do, was a purulent pleurisy. But it was quite as slow and quite an agonising death. He went back, and apparently medical malpractice also played a part in it. And he died in his native city of Naples. And immediately there was a rather unseemly struggle for his crown, who was going to take over as the world’s greatest tenor or the world’s greatest Italian tenor. I mean, it was a very, very richly endowed generation of wonderful tenors. Here are the four leading contenders, Gigli, Lauri-Volpi, Giovanni Martinelli and Aureliano Pertile. None of them could really claim to be his successor in the full range of his roles. Gigli was of course a much more lyrical tenor than Caruso.

Martinelli sort of took over the heavier roles. And he actually took on the premier of “Andrea Chenier” in New York after Caruso died. All wonderful tenors, all terrific. I mean, I love the records of all four of them. And probably Pertile would be my own particular favourite and the tenor I might want to have on my desert island. And then of course the following generation, the post-war generation, Di Stefano, Del Monaco, Corelli, they were all trying to step into the shoes of Caruso. Now, one thing I want to stress actually in both these lectures is that, yes, these two singers brought about change and some of those changes were certainly good but not all. I think there were losses as well as gain from the changes in techniques and style of singing brought by both these two singers. And actually I think for certain singers who tried to imitate Caruso and Callas, the result was absolutely fatal. Particularly, I’ll talk more about that with Callas. The singers who tried to out Callas, they really shortened their careers. And then of course move on to more recently the three tenors. The one who sounded most like Caruso of the three was undoubtedly Domingo, 'cause he had the biggest voice of the three and the warmest and the darkest with a slight baritonal tinge to it. And so that’s it. Let’s see your questions, comments.

Q&A and Comments:

Thank you, Claire. “A pure beauty.” I take it you are talking about that wonderful record I started with of the “Handel’s Largo.”

And Nanette. And yes, enormous feeling. I don’t know if I’ve emphasised that enough, that I think that is one thing. It’s not just the voice, it’s not just the technique, it’s the immense feeling and the sincerity of his singing which makes him so great.

And this is Ellie. “I think I remember my great aunt with a remarkable corovatore voice saw and heard Caruso at a performance of 'Aida’ featuring live elephants.” I’m glad she liked him, despite the elephants. This is where something, there have been many attempts over the years to improve the recordings.

And I think that, Hannah, I think that’s very, I presume that AI could do that. That would be certainly a wonderful thing if that were the case.

But Rita, so far I have to say all attempts to improve those recordings have been disastrous. So I understand what Rita is saying. But maybe it would be different this time around.

Sandy Lessner. “Right now I’m with my grandmother in her parlour with her,” oh God, it’s jumped. Where have you… We’ve lost that now. Where is it? Oh dear, well, there seem to be an awful lot of these things. Oh, right. Here. Same records. Lovely. Thank you. Thank you. Sandy.

Q: “Which of the available Caruso CDs would you particularly recommend?”

A: Well, you want to be very carefully choose the Naxos, I think do very, very good transfers. So go for anything of Caruso on the label of Naxos.

Marston, is probably the best company in the world for transfers. But I can’t remember if there’s much Caruso on Marston. “Woody Allen’s lavish use of Caruso’s pre World War I, age scratchy recordings in his spensular ‘Match Point.’” I’ve not seen that. I must look out for that. “The dynamic tension of the great early 20th century voice greatly heightened the dramatic effect of 21st century film made in England.” I will look out for that film. Sounds very interesting. And thank you, Alice. Shelly, I so agree with you that there’s something very special. I mean, the interesting thing is, of course that Caruso never sang either Mozart or Handel on stage. Mozart was not much performed, Handel not at all during his lifetime. So arias like that were sung individually in concert as aria antique. I don’t know the Bryn Terfel version of it. Yes, it’s very true, of course. I mean that is a plague, isn’t it? For me as a record collector for for all my life, you’ve always got other voices in the back of your mind and it can make it hard to appreciate a new recording.

This, Anna, “My family company bought the Scarlet B Company for the first time in 1952 to South Africa with Tito Gobbi and Beniamino Gigli.” Yes, that’s a very famous occasion, isn’t it? They were very lucky to get those great singers. So many people were besotted with Caruso. Oh, I began to, I began to collect when my grandparents gave me their collection when I was five years old. Mario Lanza another, well, a great potential there. Certainly a superb voice. In a way, a tragic and misplaced career. Oh, there’s a Caruso museum in Naples. I haven’t been to it. I would be very interested in that. Hi Erica.

Another person’s, this is Sharon saying her father’s besotted with the voice of Caruso. And I’m glad it’s, he speaks to the heart, doesn’t he? He really does.

This is Herbert. “Grand Hotel in Milan will let you see Suite 205 where Verdi lived for 27 years.” Well, when he lived in Milan, when he came to Milan, of course, he had this wonderful villa Saint Agatha and he had a winter apartment in Genoa. When “Otello” premiered in 1887, the crowd applauded until Verdi appeared with the tenor Tamanu, who gave an encore. The club was delirious. You left your shoes at the door. Sacred ground. Right. That’s wonderful. Right. Dorothy, which I’m not sure. Somebody else will know that, I’m sure, whether his wife Dorothy was Jewish. It’s possible.

This is Ellie who was unfamiliar with “La Juive” until recently. Your husband’s great-grandfather was a printer in Vil and had lithographs print, which we had copies framed. ‘Cause it was not, it’s sad that it’s not… It’s a wonderful opera. I’d never seen it on stage. And I’m kicking myself to this day that I could have heard a concert performance with Richard Tucker, who was so good in the role, and I didn’t go for some reason. Thank you very much, Hannah and Rita. I always appreciate your kind comments. 1917, Caruso sang on the steps of New York Public Library in aid of the war bonds campaign together with a great Jewish cantor, Josef Rosenblatt. Yes, I mean, of course that was another thing of course that Caruso, a part of his relationship with the Jewish community. And that he certainly went to hear cantors when he was preparing the role of Eleazar. Thank you, Anita and Ray. “Has his hand spread in a way, a kohan priest when he blesses the people during synagogue?” You see, that is the kind of detail. That’s very interesting. Thank you, Shelly. It’s a sort of thing that he was studying to prepare for the role.

This is Katie. “Grew listening to Caruso in Chile,” with your father. Thank you, Katie. There are wonderful Jewish tenors and of course I have various CDs of the historic cantors, and there were very great tenors like Joseph Schmidt and Richard Tucker who had a cantorial training, which certainly contributed to their technique.

Thank you, Deanna. I hope you’re named, are you named after Deanna Dover? She was one of my childhood idols. Thank you, Thelma. “Purulent refers to pus-containing. Pleurisy refers to infection of the lining of the lung. It may have started as a pneumonia. Pneumonia is called the old man’s friend because it not as painful as cancer.” He wasn’t an old man. That’s the awful thing though. He was, you know, 47. We should have had another 10 years and we should have had electric recordings. Thank you, Estelle, and thank you, Lorna, very much. “A lady would sing tenor in a choir I attended.” Well, I would hope so. I haven’t mentioned Jussi Bjorling. That’s true. I didn’t.

And Dorothy said that that Jussi Bjorling was the tenor who sounded most like Caruso. I’ve never understood that at all because wonderful though they both are, to me, they don’t sound one little bit like one another. They sound totally different. You know, Caruso has a much darker, warmer voice and Jussi Bjorling has a much brighter, more silvery voice. “Caruso’s innocent American second wife lived in Baltimore after his death. And the Peabody houses many Caruso memorabilia. Yes, that’s true. It’s a book, famous book that she wrote about him. Thank you very much for all your very kind comments, Judith and Ellie.

And I feel so privileged to be able to talk to you. And I want to thank you all very much too. And we move on next week to the extremely controversial Maria Callas. I mean, you almost never hear anybody who says they don’t love Caruso, but you do meet people who really can’t stand Callas. She divides. She’s definitely a Marmite singer. But we’ll talk more about that next time. Thank you, all, very, very much indeed. Bye-Bye.