CARUSO AFTER DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 19274, 12 June 1926, Page 15

CARUSO AFTER DEATH

“ Ah, Signor, you wish to see the mortal clay of the greatest singer the world has ever known! A little moment, and you shall have your wish. ]t was au aged Italian, whose shock ol grey hair and sagging step added, much to the sepulchral voice and tomb-like atmosphere ot the rainy morning_ in the great cemetery whore the rich of Naples are buried (writes Wilbur Forrest, in the New York ‘Herald Tribune’). Jhe “ guardian of the dead ” fished undoi his cape, and produced a key. He .shut* fled up,a small flight of stone steps which led to a magnificent house-like tomb of marble and granite, unlocked a heavy grille of bronze, slid bark a heavy door, and entered. Wo followed. My companions were a young New York surgeon and his uncle, a New York merchant. Before ns was a _beautiful marble sarcophagus covered with heavy blankets. The guardian threw back these blankets as one would fold back the covers of a bed. “Behold!” he said. Before us was Enrico Caruso. Dead five and a-lialf years, the groat tenor lay there seemingly asleep. The same face, seen a thousand times by tons of thousands in the Metropolitan Opera-house, had not changed even a trifle from the day lie breathed his last in a Naples hotel on August 2, 1921. The same hands which had made the accompanying gestures to the notes in operatic roles lay peacefully at each side of the body, perfectly preserved. The hroad-winged collar, bow tic. and expanse of shirt front, in linen and silk, were faultlessly white; and the dress suit which clothed the body might have been neatly pressed only yesterdav.

The remains of Caruso arc enclosed in a, hermetically-sealed glass case, which rests within the large marble receptacle, holding the centre ol the. spacious tomb. Around the walls are tae spaces which will some day hold the remains of the dead opera, singer's closest relatives. Their names are already chiselled in the polished marble. The groat tenor’s body represents today ono of the wonders of the embaimer’s art. Erom the scientific side, one is told in Naples, there is no_ reason why time should efface the lilolike, appearance of a body so preserved. The process is said to he Italian, though it was not this which was used in the. case of Lenin, who is exposed at the Moscow Kremlin. That Caruso’s remains may he viewed, however, is not generally known. When the singer returned to Italy in July, 1921, lie engaged a suite in an hotel at Corrcnto, a charming spot in the Bay of Naples. Growing ill, he hurried to Naples, where he stopped at the Vesuvius Hotel, and called in specialists. Ho appeared to be recovering, and spent Ids time drawing sketches, which he presented to guests and employees of the hostelry. It was one of the latter who had been promised a. sketch by that great tenor who disclosed that ids remains might bo viewed to-day by all in the Naples cemetery.” When he talked to me, and promised me a sketch,” said the employee, “ ho complained that ho was not. fooling well. Ho wont to his suite, and four days Inter ho was dead.” “He was a great singer, and loved by all Americans.” I said, by way of conversation. “Signor, you must, see him,” hastened the employee. “How is that possible?” I queried. “Take a taxi rah, ami in twenly minutes you nro at the tomb of the great singer,” he replied. “ There will be someone there to show you.” The surgeon, the merchant, and T called a taxi. In twenty minutes we arrived at the city of tombs, which is on the outskirts of Naples. A few minutes more, and we wore gazing upon the clay of the man who had thrilled the world of musiclovers, and whose voico is still alive, “Maestro di musical” murmured the old tomb attendant, as he folded back the thick layer of blankets over the glass-enclosed bier, and prepared to lock the tomb.