“NOT A VOICE—A MIRACLE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18323, 13 August 1921, Page 2

“NOT A VOICE—A MIRACLE”

IMPRESSIONS OF CARUSO. The death of Enrico Caruso recalls an impression of the great _ Italian tenor in “La Boheme” at the Italian opera, Covent Garden. It occurs in “Nights in Town,” by Thomas Burke, author of that book ol thrilling short stories entitled “Limehouse Nights.” In the chapter on “A Musical Night” Mr Burke writes: “It was in ‘La Boheme’ that I heard both Caruso and grand opera for the first time, and whenever I now hear ‘One genda manina,’ even badly sung, I always want to sit down and have a good cry. It re minds me of a pale office boy of 15, who had to hoard his pence for a fortnight and wait weary hours at the gallery door of Covont Garden to hear Caruso, Sootti, Melba, and Journet .as the Bohemians. What nights! I remember very clearly that first visit. I had heard other singers, English singers, the best of Wihom_ are seldom better than the third-rate Italians; but Caruso. . . . What is he? He is not a singer. He is not a voice. He is a miracle. There will not be another Caruso for two or three hundred years; perhaps not then.

“Campanini taps. His baton rises, . . . and suddenly the hand mumbles those few swift bars that send the curtain rushing up on the garret scene. . . . The orchestra (Shudders with a few chords. The man at the window turns _ He is a dumpy liHle man in black, wearing a golden wig. What a figure it is! What a make-up! What a tousled-haired, down-at-heels, out-at-elbows C'erkenwell exile! The yellow wig, the whited-out moustache, the broken collar. . . .

“But a few more brusque bars are tossed from Oampanini’s baton, and the funny little man throws off, cursorily, over hi? shoulder a short passage explaining how cold he is. The house .thrills. That short passage, throbbing with tears and laughter. has rushed, ’ike a stream of molten gold, to the utmost reaches of the auditorium, and not an car that has not jumped for joy at it. For he is Rudolfo the poet; in private life Enrico Caruso, Kqight of the Order of San Giovanni, Member of the Victorian Order, Cavaliere of the Order of Santa Maria, and many other things. . . . “As the opera proceeds, so does the marvel grow. You think ho can have nothing more to give than he has given; the next moment ho deceives you. Towards the end of the first act Melba enters. You hear her voice, fragile and firm as fluted china, before she enters. Then comes the wonderful love duet—Che gelida manina’ for Caruso and ‘ Mi ohiamano Mimi ’ for Melba. Gold swathed in velvet is his voice. Like all true geniuses, ho is prodigal of his powers; he flings his lyrical fury over the nouse. He gives all. yet somehow conveys that thrilling suggestion of great things in reserve. Again and again he < recaptures his first fine careless rapture. He seems to f£y. t 0 his voice: ‘Go —do what you will!' And it dances forth like a little girl on a sunlit road, wayward, captivating, never fatigued, leaping where others stumble, tripping many miles, with fresh laughter and bright, quick blood. There never were such warmth and profusion and display. Not only is it a voice of incomparable magnificence; it has that intangible quality that smites you with its own mood; just something that marks the difference between an artist and a genius. . . . True art, like love, asks nothing and gives everything. The simplest people can understand and enjoy Puccini and Caruso and Melba because the simplest peepi- ar” artists. • •. • iruso speaks to us of the little things we know, b ... speaks with a lyric ecstasy. Ecstasy is a horrible word; it sounds like something to do with algebra ; but it is the ope word for this voice. The passion of him has, at times, almost frightened me. I remember hen' him at the first performance of 1 Mammae Butterfly, and he hurt us. . . . horribly. Ho worked up the love duet with Butterfly at the close of the first act in such fashion that our hands were wrung, we were perspiring, and I at least was near to fainting. Such fury, such volume of liquid sound cork! not go on, we felt. But, it did. He carried a terrific crocendo passage as lightly as a schoolgirl singing l a lullaby, and ended < on a tremendous note which he sustained for sixty seconds. As the curtain fell we dropped back in our seats, limp, dishevelled, and. pale. It was wo who were exhausted. Caruso trotted on, bright, alert, smiling, and not the slightest trace of fatigue did he show. “ It seems to have been a superb stroke of fortune for us tlwt Caruso should have come along contemporaneously with Puccini. . . . When Puccini and Caruso join forces, they can shake the soul out of the most rabid of musical purists. What they do to commonplace people like myself is untellable. I have tried to hint at. it in these few remarks, but really I have told you nothing .... nothing.” In “Bedouins” the late J. G. Huneker has n chapter headed " Caruso On Wheels,” in which he describes a trip from New York to Pliiladelphia on the Metropolitan Opera House special which during the season leaves New York every Tuesday afternoon at 2.54 p.m., returning some time after 2 o’clock the next morning. Huneker wrote;— Caruso does not look like the typical tenor of Italian opera, nor does he behave like one. There he was, happy as a boy out on a lark, the dingy December day not depressing him. . . . Tenors always bundle up to the eyebrows; they do not speak, much less vocalise, and usually are os cross as the proverbial bear. Caruso, who has defied doctors and vocal hygiene since he opened his magical mouth, is a false beacon to other singers. IIi? care-free behaviour should be shunned by lesser men who attempt to bend the bow of this groat singing Ulysses, But Caruso is careful about tobacco. He does not enter the compartment, where others smoke. _ He prefers the odour of his own choice cigarettes. I never saw him without one. either in mouth or fingers. The despair ho is of any throat specialist. . . . Caruso is irresistible. Ho recalls the far away days when he sang two operas every Sunday in the Teatro Mercadante at

Naples or the good old summer house at Salerno, when, during entr actes, he would drop a string from his dressing room windoy and draw up the fond prize—sardine and cream-cheese sandwiches. He was thin in those youthful days. ’ and then boys always have hollow, legs that must be filled. Prosjierity has not spoiled Caruso. He is human _ apd tolerant with a big heart and devoid of professional megalomania. In common with oldsters I have railed betimes at altered musical tastes and often declared that in the days of my youth there were better singers. ' I still abide by this belief. There w>ere vocal giants in those days; but there was not Enrico Caruso. Since my dear old friend Italo Campanini there has been no one to match Caruso. . . I have heard tenors _ from Brignoli to Gavarre from Campamni to Tamagno. Masini. and Nicolini —yet _no one possessed a tithe of the vocal rich* ness of Camerado Enrico. Some have outpointed him in finesse, Bonoi; Tamagno could have «outroared him; Jean do Beszke had more personal charm and artistic subtilitv; nevertheless, Caruso has a marvellous natural voice, paved w : th lyric magic. It is positively torrential ip its outnourin" and with the vea.rs it irrows as mellow as a Fijench horn. Whv. there are men in this vast wor’d of ours who would rather be Caruso then the President of the United States of Europe. Can you blame them? In his eolden prime. hnnpilv mated, fml of verve, paigtv—and healthy—well, his presence, apart from his art. consoles na for manv a "ray day on this ocky little orb we inhabit.