CARUSO'S DAUGHTER

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 26, 1 February 1933, Page 11

CARUSO'S DAUGHTER

THRILLED BY; HIS VOICE

A girl aged 13J /who cannot remember a thing about her father because lie died when she was only 18 months old, listens to his voice on the gramophone every night. She is attending a private school in Paris, and the voice to which she listens is that of Caruso, the great tenor, who died twelve years ago. . : ■

This was the statement made by Mme. Caruso a few weeks, ago:—"I have made the father of my daughter Gloria live again, through, his records. His voice meant nothing to me. I knew no v thing about music, and -was in love -with Enrico Caruso, the man, not the singer." ■ /..>

Mine.- Caruso had arrived from New Xork, and was visiting friends in London before going to Paris to see- her daughter Gloria.

"Gloria," said Mme. Caruso,. "has come to know her father through the gramophone. It sounds strange, but it is true. I have taught her to know her father by playing his records and by telling her of all the incidents that took place when each record was made. I have related, for instance, how a member of the orchestra coughed loudly in the middle of one of Enrico's songs and the record lad to be made again, '■'Gloria now has.a collection of records giving three hundred of' ■ her father's songs. I have.seen .her. go intoraptures when she listens to certain, of his songs. She feels he is in the room. When I listen I never experience the same thrill. I wish instead that Enrico had made some talking records. As it is, I feel merely that I am listening to a great artist, and not to the man who gave me three years of complete happiness.

'' I was jealous of his voice. It took part of him from me, and I had to share him with the world. When the world feared that illness would take his voice away, I hoped tliei world" was right. I felt that Enrico would then belong to me, and to nobody else.

"You think that selfish1! I am a woman, and I always thought Enrico had qualities that were far more precious than his singing. He was kind. He "was noble in everything he did. When he died Queen Alexandra, in a telegram, saia, 'The world, has lost ,a great artist, and I have lost a friend.' She expressed my own feelings so well."