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opera-ghosts · 8 months ago

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The One, The Only, The Great Caruso By Rosa Ponselle, The New York Times; Feb. 25, 1973

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Enrico Caruso, widely regarded as the greatest tenor in operatic history. Here, a celebrated soprano recalls Caruso and the years in which she sang with him.

HE stepped into the room jauntily, looking every bit as dapper as he did in all his photographs. He was wearing a light‐colored fedora, tipped to one side and creased in the middle. He had one of those high, stiff collars, gloves, and a long cigaret holder, and he carried a cane, always a cane. He was such a lovely, cleanlooking, beautifully groomed man. He was of good, medium height, with a broad chest, very wide shoulders, and was narrow in the hips. His bone structure was very square — square jaw, wide, strong chin, and a prominent, noble nose.

It was the first time I had ever met Enrico Caruso. The place was a studio in the West Seventies, the time was April, 1918. I was then a young vaudeville singer of 21; he was then 45, at the very height of his career with the Metropolitan Opera. The occasion of our meeting? He had heard, via the grapevine, that my older sister, Carmela, and I had potential operatic voices, and he had come with several other Metropolitan singers to hear us.

I had already heard him sing twice at the Met, with the sublime Geraldine Farrar in “Madama Butterfly,” and the divine, beautiful Claudia Muzio in “The Love of Three Kings.” The first time I heard him, in “Butterfly,” I was 17, and it was my first trip to New York. My sister and I sat up in the gallery, and we were the last ones to leave that night. I can honestly say there wasn't a dry eye in the house. I myself was numb, and couldn't stop weeping. I had never heard such sounds, and it took me a long time to control myself.

How can I describe his voice? “Molten gold” probably comes closest to anything I could say. It's something that is predestined, I guess. Before he was even put on this earth, he was going to be the great Caruso. It's something that remains unexplainable, why someone has a beautiful voice and someone else not so beautiful. Perhaps there have been voices as big, or bigger, but his was unique. It could caress you and soothe you. It loved you, and it excited you; every emotion you could possibly feel he gave you, he was so imbued with feeling. He wasn't the most romantic figure on the stage, but when he sang you saw a handsome man up there. His soul was so handsome, the sound was so handsome, that he became beautiful. And you could see, by his face that he was loving it, enjoying it, and he it to everybody.

When he came into the studio that day in April, 1918, he crossed the room looking my sister and me over. Then he said to me in his Neapolitan dialect, “Hey, urchin! You know you look like me?” (He must have known that I was of Neapolitan descent, though American‐born.) I think I was more excited than nervous at the time, and perhaps I thought I was pretty smart. For I answered, “I wouldn't mind looking like you if I could only sing like you.” His eyes narrowed and he nodded a few times. All he said was, “We'll see, we'll see,” but I'm sure he was thinking, “What nerve! What ambition! She must have what it takes.”

My sister and I ran through our repertoire, mostly Verdi, singing all the big, technically difficult arias from “Trovatore,” “Gioconda,” “Aida,” and others. It was a very ambitious program considering that I had never had any voice training, and my sister very little. I remember that, as I sang, he studied me carefully, his eyes squinting shrewdly as he sized me up. I didn't know it then, of course, but he was already thinking of me as Leonora, his leading lady for “La Forza del Destino.” Because of the war, there was a shortage of sopranos suitable for this dramatic role, and Caruso had been wanting to do the opera for a long time.

When my sister and I had finished, Caruso and his friends — Rosa Raisa, Giacomo Rimini, Adamo Didur and the others — applauded. Then Caruso congratulated us, and we got all sorts of words of encouragement from these great artists. As we were getting ready to leave, Caruso walked over to me and said, “You're going to sing with me yet. I don't know when, maybe a year, maybe two, but you will.”

Of course, I was absolutely paralyzed when I heard that. I had never had any serious aspirations as an opera singer, and here was Caruso telling me that I would soon be singing with him!

Then he put his hand on his throat and said, “You've got it here,” meaning the voice. He moved his hand to his heart and said, “You've got it here,” meaning the emotions. Then he pointed to his head and said, “The rest depends on what you've got up here” — the brains, the ability to memorize — “but I think you've got it.”

The very next day, or two at the most, our representative, William Thorner, got a call from Gatti‐Casazza, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. “I hear you have two very fine voices,” Gatti said “How soon can I hear them?” Shortly afterward, we both auditioned for Gatti, Otto Kahn and all the other directors at the Met. Word had gotten around like wildfire —they all wanted to hear Caruso's “find.”

Later I sang for Gatti again, and this time I almost fainted with excitement. My sister had to give me smelling salts to revive me. When it was over, Gatti asked me to come into his office. “Here, sign this,” he said. “Sign what?” I asked. “Your contract to make your debut with Caruso in ‘La Forza del Destino.’ Do you think you could be ready by November?” And that's how it all started.

I remember the rehearsals very well. Gatti was walking around beaming, he was so proud and happy with his cast. Caruso would sit there and listen to me singing, always assuring me and reassuring me, and suggesting ways of improving my performance. He was al‐. ways like this at rehearsals, not at all temperamental. I never saw him have a tantrum, or become angry with anyone. He was just as humble and helpful to a singer as he could be. He would say to a singer who was having a problem, “Try it this way, or that way.” He was very solicitous; all can see is kindness in that face. And he was generous to a fault. He couldn't say “No” to anyone who needed money. He'd indulge them in everything. Once he said to me, “I never knew I had so many relatives until I became a celebrity!”

I made my debut with Caruso on the night of Nov. 15, 1918, just a few days after the armistice ending the war. We were all overjoyed, and for me it was like having two occasions to celebrate. That night, I was struck by the fact that Caruso did not come to my dressing room to wish his protegee good luck. I was so numb from nervousness that I couldn't even put my make‐up on. It was only later that learned that he himself was always so nervous, almost petrified, before a performance that no one dared go near him. He used to say to me, “You must suffer to be a great artist!” And God knows he really suffered.

During the performance itself, I was so frightened, I was dying in my tracks. I sang a few bars bidding my “father” good night and then a few recitatives with the maid. I sang this very difficult aria alone on the stage. Then comes Don Alvaro — Caruso — through the casement window and he catches me in his arms. I whispered to him between bars, “I am dying, I am dying,” several times. Caruso, seeing how terrified was, whispered to me, also between the bars, “Courage! Courage! I will sustain you.” And he did. From then on, I was all right.

After the performance, I did not see him either. Then he always had his entourage with him in his dressing room. He never made a move without them, or they would follow him anyway. It was a ritual with them to plan a big meal in some restaurant. Caruso loved Italian food. I won't say I blame him.

In the next two years, I sang with him 33 times in “La Forza del Destino” and “La Juive.” His voice had then reached full maturity, darkness and size. It was not as lyric a voice as had been when he started, I was told, but he could lighten it whenever he had to, as when he sang in “Martha” or “The Elixir of Love.” This remarkable agility was one of the things that made him such a great singer. His voice was actually at its very peak in those years. The saddest thing to me is that I never made a recording with Caruso. Unfortunately, I was under contract to Columbia at the time and he was with Victor Red Seal.

As for his acting, he did naturally and instinctively just the amount of acting that the piece required. He could act because he loved his roles, no matter what he did. No one can tell me he couldn't act. My God, that pantomime he did when he finished his aria, “Ridi, Pagliaccio,” was terrific! He would run up those stairs as he made his exit in a convulsion of rage and jealousy bordering on insanity. It was magnificent acting.

Strangely, the one time that I did not sing “La Juive” with him in this period was the evening of his very last performance, December 24, 1920. I had to rehearse at the time for an opera the next night, and my role was sung instead by Florence Easton, whose beautiful voice was ever ready. Twelve nights before, he had suffered a throat hemorrhage while singing “The Elixir of Love” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He hemorrhaged again on the 24th, and this time he was hospitalized. He was found to be suffering from empyema, I was told, an accumulation of pus on the lungs. The abscesses had to be drained or cut away.

In a few months, he was seemingly cured, I heard, but he was advised not to leave the country so he could remain under observation. The doctors here wanted to make sure he was cured once and for all. But he was fed up with it. He was quoted as saying, “I'm fine, I'm going home. If I'm go ing to die, then I want to die in my Naples.” He returned to Italy with his wife, Dorothy, and baby Gloria, in May, 1921, and in July, I understand, wrote to Gatti, “Feeling fine. Expect to be over the top soon. I have a voice that will last 20 years. Whatever I want to do, I do with great vigor.” The next day, according to the accounts, he collapsed in pain. By August 2, he was dead. I was at a party in New York when I heard the news. It was devastating. He was so young, and had given so much to the world. I remembered some thing he had told me when his wife was expecting. “You know,” he said, “I hope it's a girl. I'd like a girl so that when I retire, I'll have my little girl to be my companion and consort. I'm just looking forward to living for my wife and daughter.” And I said, “Well, I hope it's a girl, too.” And he got a girl, and he said, “Wonderful!” and he named her Gloria.

That poor dear man, that poor dear man. If ever anyone deserved a long life, it was he. To me, his untimely death will always be one of the greatest tragedies of all time.

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