71 Facts About Enrico Caruso

Enrico Caruso was an Italian operatic first lyric tenor then dramatic tenor.

Enrico Caruso sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.

One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made 247 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.

Enrico Caruso came from a poor but not destitute background.

Enrico Caruso was the third of seven children and one of only three to survive infancy.

Enrico Caruso learned to write in a handsome script and studied technical draftsmanship.

Enrico Caruso was encouraged in his early musical ambitions by his mother, who died in 1888.

Enrico Caruso completed this in 1894, resuming his voice lessons upon discharge from the army.

On 15 March 1895 at the age of 22, Enrico Caruso made his professional stage debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples in the now-forgotten opera, L'Amico Francesco, by the amateur composer Mario Morelli.

The first major operatic role that Enrico Caruso created was Federico in Francesco Cilea's L'arlesiana ; then he was Loris in Umberto Giordano's Fedora at the Teatro Lirico, Milan.

Enrico Caruso appeared in the role later that year and Puccini stated that Enrico Caruso sang the part better.

Enrico Caruso took part in a grand concert at La Scala in February 1901 that Toscanini organised to mark the recent death of Giuseppe Verdi.

In December 1901, Enrico Caruso made his debut at the San Carlo Opera House in Naples in L'Elisir d'Amore to a lukewarm reception; two weeks later he appeared as Des Grieux in Massenet's Manon which was even more coolly received.

Enrico Caruso later said: "I will never again come to Naples to sing; it will only be to eat a plate of spaghetti".

Enrico Caruso embarked on his last series of La Scala performances in March 1902, creating the principal tenor part of Federico Loewe in Germania by Alberto Franchetti.

In 1903, Enrico Caruso made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Enrico Caruso's contract had been negotiated by his agent, the banker and impresario Pasquale Simonelli.

Enrico Caruso's debut was in a new production of Rigoletto on 23 November 1903.

Enrico Caruso made his first American records on 1 February 1904, having signed a lucrative financial deal with Victor.

Medal that Enrico Caruso gave to Pasquale Simonelli, his New York City impresario.

Enrico Caruso purchased the Villa Bellosguardo, a palatial country house near Florence, in 1904.

Enrico Caruso's preferred address in New York City was a suite at Manhattan's Knickerbocker Hotel.

Enrico Caruso presented the medal in gratitude to Simonelli as a souvenir of his many well-remunerated performances at the Met.

Enrico Caruso found himself in the middle of the San Francisco earthquake, which led to a series of fires that destroyed most of the city.

Enrico Caruso made an ultimately successful effort to flee the city, first by boat and then by train.

Enrico Caruso vowed never to return to San Francisco and kept his word.

In November 1906, Enrico Caruso was charged with an indecent act allegedly committed in the monkey house of New York's Central Park Zoo.

Enrico Caruso initially paid their extortion fee of $2,000 expecting the matter to be settled, but his willingness to pay made them more brazen.

Enrico Caruso's timbre darkened as he aged and, from 1916 onwards, he began adding heroic parts such as Samson, John of Leyden, and Eleazar to his repertoire.

Enrico Caruso toured the South American nations of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil in 1917, and two years later performed in Mexico City.

Enrico Caruso did extensive charity work during the conflict, raising money for war-related patriotic causes by giving concerts and participating enthusiastically in Liberty Bond drives.

Enrico Caruso put a sizable proportion of his earnings from record royalties and singing fees into a range of investments.

Information provided in Scott's biography of Enrico Caruso suggests that she was his vocal coach as well as his lover.

Towards the end of the war, Enrico Caruso met and courted a 25-year-old socialite, Dorothy Park Benjamin.

Enrico Caruso was the daughter of a wealthy New York patent lawyer.

Dorothy wrote two biographies of Enrico Caruso, published in 1928 and 1945.

Enrico Caruso was superstitious and habitually carried several good-luck charms with him when he sang.

Enrico Caruso played cards for relaxation and sketched friends, other singers and musicians.

Enrico Caruso amassed valuable collections of rare postage stamps, coins, watches and antique snuffboxes.

On 16 September 1920, Enrico Caruso concluded three days of recording sessions at Victor's Trinity Church studio in Camden, New Jersey.

Enrico Caruso recorded several discs, including the Domine Deus and Crucifixus from the Petite messe solennelle by Rossini.

Dorothy Enrico Caruso noted that her husband's health began to decline in late 1920 after he returned from a lengthy North American concert tour.

Enrico Caruso's health deteriorated further during the new year, lapsing into a coma and nearly dying of heart failure at one point.

Enrico Caruso slowly began to improve and he returned to Naples in May 1921 to recuperate from the most serious of the operations, during which part of a rib had been removed.

Enrico Caruso was on his way to Rome to see them but, while staying overnight in the Vesuvio Hotel in Naples, his condition deteriorated and he was given morphine to help him sleep.

Enrico Caruso's embalmed body was preserved in a glass sarcophagus at Del Pianto Cemetery in Naples for mourners to view.

In 1929, Dorothy Enrico Caruso had his remains sealed permanently in an ornate stone tomb.

Thanks largely to his tremendously popular phonograph records, Enrico Caruso was one of the most famous entertainment personalities of his day, and his fame has continued to endure to the present.

Enrico Caruso was one of the first examples of a global media celebrity.

Beyond records, Enrico Caruso's name became familiar to millions throughout the world via newspapers, books, magazines, and the new media technology of the 20th century: cinema, the telephone, and telegraph.

Enrico Caruso toured widely both with the Metropolitan Opera touring company and on his own, giving hundreds of performances throughout Europe, and North and South America.

Enrico Caruso was a client of the noted promoter Edward Bernays, during the latter's tenure as a press agent in the United States.

The popularity that Enrico Caruso enjoyed without any of this technological assistance is astonishing.

Many opera singers of Enrico Caruso's time rejected the phonograph owing to the low fidelity of early discs.

Enrico Caruso made more than 260 extant recordings in America for the Victor Talking Machine Company from 1904 to 1920, and he and his heirs earned millions of dollars in royalties from the retail sales of these records.

Enrico Caruso was heard live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in 1910, when he participated in the first public radio broadcast to be transmitted in the United States.

Brief candid glimpses of Enrico Caruso offstage have been preserved in contemporary newsreel footage.

Enrico Caruso's voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he grew older.

Enrico Caruso sang a broad spectrum of roles, ranging from lyric, to spinto, to dramatic parts, in the Italian and French repertoires.

In 1960, for his contribution to the recording industry, Enrico Caruso received a star located at 6625 Hollywood Boulevard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Enrico Caruso was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.

Enrico Caruso was voted into Gramophones Hall of Fame in 2012.

Enrico Caruso performed two German operas, Wagner's Lohengrin and Goldmark's Die Konigin von Saba, singing in Italian, early in his career.

Enrico Caruso became one of the first major classical vocalists to make numerous recordings.

Many of Enrico Caruso's recordings have remained continuously available since their original issue over a century ago, and all of his surviving recordings have been remastered and reissued several times over the years.

On 1 February 1904, Enrico Caruso made his first recordings in America for the Victor Talking Machine Company and thereafter recorded exclusively for Victor.

Enrico Caruso's final recording session took place at Victor's Trinity Church studio in Camden on 16 September 1920, with the tenor singing the "Domine Deus" and "Crucifixus" from Rossini's Petite messe solennelle.

Enrico Caruso recorded with several sopranos including Nellie Melba, Geraldine Farrar, Amelita Galli-Curci, Frances Alda, Emmy Destinn, Alma Gluck, Frieda Hempel, Luisa Tetrazzini, Johanna Gadski, Marcella Sembrich, and Bessie Abott.

Since the expiration of their original copyrights, Enrico Caruso's records are now in the public domain in the United States and have been reissued by several different record labels with varying degrees of sound quality.

Enrico Caruso's best-selling downloads at iTunes have been the popular Italian folk songs "Santa Lucia" and "'O sole mio".

Enrico Caruso died before the introduction of high fidelity, electrical recording technology in 1925.