Enrico Caruso in a costumeĬaruso made his debut at Covent Garden in the middle of May 1902 as the Duke of Mantua in the production of Rigoletto. As a result, the management of London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, signed Enrico for a season of appearances in eight operas, including Giuseppe Verdi's Aida and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni. Ten discs quickly became bestsellers and made the young singer famous in the English-speaking world. The contract with the theater was completed in 1902, and Caruso was hired to make acoustic recordings for a fee of 100 pounds sterling. Other participants of the performance were leading Italian tenors Francesco Tamagno and Giuseppe Borgatti. Then he took part in a grand concert on the stage of La Scala, dedicated to the memory of the composer Giuseppe Verdi. The first significant role of Enrico was Loris in the opera Fedora by Umberto Giordano, which he first performed at the Teatro Lirico, Milan, in 1898. Enrico Caruso as Rodolfo in the opera La bohème Caruso toured with the theater troupe across the capitals of Europe and America, sang for high-level officials, including the Russian Tsar, who came to listen to the Italians to the Mariinsky Theatre in St. He signed a contract with the famous Italian opera house, La Scala, and on December 26 made his debut as Rodolfo in La bohème by composer Giacomo Puccini. In 1900, Enrico made a breakthrough in his career. This incident hurt the singer’s pride, and he vowed never to appear on the stage in his native city again. At the early stage of his musical career, Caruso was booed during one of the concerts in Naples because he failed to pay a claque. He was still short of money, which can be proved by the publicity photograph of 1896 that depicts him wearing a bedspread draped like a toga since his sole dress shirt was away being laundered. It was followed by a string of further engagements in provincial opera houses, which he combined with singing lessons under the guidance of conductor Vincenzo Lombardi. In the spring of 1895, Caruso made his stage debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples in the amateur opera L'Amico Francesco, by the composer, Mario Morelli. He completed a compulsory military service, at which point he grew to believe that singing was the only thing he wanted to do. In his youth, the tenor gave concerts at the Italian resorts, which brought a good income. After her death in 1888, Caruso found a job as a street singer in Naples and began performing at local cafes and soirees to earn money to support his family. Enrico Caruso in his youthĮnrico’s mother encouraged the son’s creative aspiration. The boy's voice was so good that he and surrounding persons thought that he should give up design and construction and begin his musical career. He learned to write in a handsome script, studied technical draftsmanship, and began to sing in the church choir.
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At the age of 11, Enrico was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer who constructed public water fountains, and the boy helped to install them.Īt his mother’s insistence, Caruso attended school and received a basic education under the tutelage of a local priest. He believed that his son should follow in his footsteps. Enrico CarusoĬaruso’s father was a mechanic and foundry worker. The widow of the tenor and some of his friends told this legend, but subsequently, biographers and researchers refuted it. It says that his mother gave birth to 21 children, 20 boys and a girl. There was an interesting story in the memoirs devoted to the singer's life. He was the third son of seven children and survived infancy. Childhood and youthĮnrico Caruso was born on February 25, 1873, in Naples, Italy, in a low-income family. During his life, the singer released about 260 records from 1902 to 1920, which span most of his stage career and remain popular today. Enrico Caruso is an Italian opera tenor who successfully performed at the best opera houses in Europe and America, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the repertoires that ranged from lyric to the dramatic.