CARUSO HIMSELF, FIVE YEARS AFTER DEATH

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17835, 1 May 1926, Page 17 (Supplement)

CARUSO HIMSELF, FIVE YEARS AFTER DEATH

6i A If, Signor, you wish to sec the mortal clay of the greatest singer the world has ever known. A little moment and you shall have your wish.” xt was an aged Italian whose shock of grey hair and sagging step added much to the sepulchral voice and tomblike atmosphere of the rainy morning in the great cemetery where the rich of Naples are buried, writes Wilbur Forrest in a New York newspaper. The “guardian of the dead" fished under his cape and produced a key. He shuffled up a small flight of stone steps which led to a magnificent house-like tomb of marble and granite, unlocked a heavy grill of bronze, slid back a heavy door and entered. We followed. My companions were a young surgeon and his uncle, a merchant. Before us 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 tis was Enrico Caruso. Dead five and a half years, the great tenor lay there seemingly asleep. The same face seen a thousand times by tens of thousands in the opera houses of the world had not changed even a trifle from the day he 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 broad-winged collar, bow tie 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 yesterday.

The remains of Caruso are enclosed in a hermetically sealed glass case which rests within the large marble receptacle, holding the centre of the spacious tomb. Around the walls are the 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 great tenor’s body represents today one of the wonders of the embalmer’s art. From the scientific side, one is told in Naples,, there is no reason why time should efface the life-like appearance of a body so preserved. The process is said to be Italian, though it was not this which was used in the case of Lenine, who is exposed at the Moscow Kremlin.

That Caruso’s remains may be viewed, however, is not generally known. When the singer returned to Italy in Jiily, 1921, he engaged a suite in a hotel at Corrento, 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. He appeared to be recovering and spent his time drawing sketches, w.hich he presented to guests and employees of the hostelry. It was one of the" latter who had been promised a sketch by the great tenor who disclosed that his remains might be viewed today by all in the Naples cemetery. “ When he talked to me and promised me a sketch,” said the employee,

“he .complained that he was not feeling well. He went to. his suite, and four days later he was dead.” “ He was a great singer and loved "by all,” I said, by way of conversation.

“ Signor, you must see him,” hastened the employee. ‘‘How is that possible?” I inquired.

“ Take a taxi-cab and in twenty minutes you are at the tomb of the great singer,” he replied. “ There will be someone there to show you.”

The surgeon, the merchant and I called a taxi. In twenty minutes we arrived in the city of tombs, which is on the outskirts of Naples. A few minutes more and we were gazing upon the clay of the man who had thrilled the world of music lovers and whose voice 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.