Talk:Enrico Caruso

message: Caruso received the highest ever paid opera fee of 15.000 $ for a single performance in Mexico-City in 1919, which would match with roundabout 195.000 $ of today!!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.184.125.61 (talk) 14:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Enrico Caruso is probably born on February 25 and not 27, as given in many reference books (See: allmusic.com) - Puck 13:08, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Enrico Caruso, originally Errico, was born Febr. 25th 1873 and baptazied the following day Febr. 26th in the church next to his birthplace.
Franco Bastiano
Voice agent  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.184.97.92 (talk) 10:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The officials of Naples confirm that Enrico Caruso was born on february 25th 1873 an baptized the following day. The ENRICO CARUSO MUSEUM OF AMERICA in Brooklyn is in possession of a copy of Carusos parochial record. There clearly can be seen that he was baptized on february 26th 1873. So it is impossible that he was born february 27th.  Get in touch with Cavaliere Ufficiale Aldo Mancusi --- Pres. Founder and Curator of the Enrico Caruso Museum of America.    Franco Bastiano  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.184.59.125 (talk) 19:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This no longer in dispute. Look at the article. It states the facts as you have indicated. Markhh (talk) 02:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Birthdate

message: I am starting an improvement drive for this article. I will nominate it for collaboration of the week.
Capitalistroadster 10:38, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To that end, let me add 2 things: he opened at the Met 17 times, a record only broken by Domingo, & he was the first recording artist (on wax, no less!).  Trekphiler 19:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Seeing as how his career started in 1894, some seven years after commercial recording began, it's unlikely that he could possibly be "the first recording artist". In fact, he first recorded in 1902, which much postdates all sorts of artists. Is there a Billy Murray article?24.22.172.60 06:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, Billy Murray (singer). -- Infrogmation 16:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement

message: These 2 quotes were recently added - anyoen have a source?
*He was initially reluctant to become a professional singer. When asked why he replied that he knew many tenors and they were all starving.
:I have read numerous books and articles on Caruso and never heard this even as a legend or rumor. --Bluejay Young (talk) 07:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Pure nonsense. Caruso did not want to be anything else but an operasinger from that moment at sixteen when he took lessons with Guglielmo Vergine renowned neapolitan teacher. --87.184.45.21 (talk) 06:08 14 May 2010
*He was a collegue and friend of the Irish tenor John McCormack. One day when they met by chance in a shop he asked McCormack "How is the greatest tenor in the world today?" McCormack replied that he must be referring to himself.
-AKeen 20:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Or "Since when did you become a baritone?" --Bluejay Young (talk) 07:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced quotes 

message: http://www.ghouli.com/GHOSTSTORY/HauntedOklahoma.htm
Enrico Caruso is said to haunt the Brady Theater in Tulsa, OK
* * * * * *
the page linked above has disappeared, and defaults to another page related to ghosts, but not to Caruso.
our local legend is that Caruso performed at the Tulsa Municipal Auditorium (still standing, known as the Brady Theater, or, more fondly, the Old Lady on Brady).  Afterwards, J. Paul Getty asked Caruso if he had ever seen an oil well.  apparently, the weather was quite bitter, and Caruso caught cold, leading to the illness that sent him home to his deathbed. the link above may have referred to some people's belief that the ghost of Caruso may haunt the old theater.
63.165.44.53 (talk) 15:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Haunting in Oklahoma

message: Certain recordings of his were predominantly used in Woody Allen's Match Point, an Academy Award-nominated thriller starring Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
I think this footnote to the main article belongs more properly in Trivia. Orbicle 09:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Trivia

message: I consider it impossible that "Caruso must have had problems with very high notes"!
- The high C ("do di petto") is the trademark of every single opera piece, usually the highest dramatic moment in the developement of the story. Not a "very high note", therefore, but simply what a tenor is expected to achieve.
- Caruso has been the most famous tenor in history...the supposedly incapability of yielding a good high C would have no doubt condemned him to eternal oblivion. 
- Instead: he had an incredibly versatile voice, powerful and flexible, and I have personally heard many of his recordings with a full, powerful "do di petto" that did not show any incertaincy.
- I think the distortion to B might have been because of other constraints, or for technical reasons. And the choice of doing one falsetto (in an opera that I don't know, so I'm guessing) could be an artistical decision.
:According to this source [] it seems he may have had trouble with high notes early in his career, but that he resolved them around the time he gained fame. --Chapuisat 21:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  high notes?? 

message: Nothing about the time the Teatro Nacional in Cuba was bombed during Caruso's performance? Murderbike (talk) 22:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow!  

message: The statement that Jussi Björling's voice was "less robust and golden-toned than Caruso's" seems very POV to me. Could somebody explain this to me? Jussi's recording sure sound pretty robust and golden-toned to me...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.151.192.10 (talk) 13:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jussi Björling less robust and golden-toned than Caruso? 

message: He first sang in this opera in 1906.  How often did he appear in it afterwards?  I'm asking because we say in the Martha article that it was popular till around the turn of the 20th century.  That would fit if Caruso and others didn't sing it much past 1906.  But Caruso didn't die till 1921.  --  JackofOz (talk) 23:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That info is or should be in Pierre Key's book. If I remember right, he did quite a few Marthas. (And woops, that was me, sometime in May 09 -- --Bluejay Young (talk) 19:52, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Thanks.  I don't know Key's book, but if anyone has access to it, they might advise the details.  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Caruso sang Martha throughout his career at the Met. 41 performances from 1906 to 1920. Martha continued to be performed at the Met through the 1920s. See the Met Opera Database for details. A 1906 review in the database suggests that the 1906 revival constituted a return to favor for the opera which had previously fallen out of the repertoire. Markhh (talk) 22:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Belated thanks.  --  Jack of Oz (Speak!) 12:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

text: And here's Pierre Key's entire book online for future reference. Enrico Caruso, A Biography by Pierre Key --Bluejay Young (talk) 19:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Martha by Flotow

message: He doesn't appear to have recorded any of it, but I'd be interested to know if he ever sang in it.  --  JackofOz (talk) 11:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent, thanks.  Can you tell me where you got that info from - because I couldn't find it anywhere. --  JackofOz (talk) 05:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See yahoo music which has a sample part of complete caruso:
The Complete Caruso: Including The Original Victor Talking Machine Co. Master Recordings
...   http://music.yahoo.com/track/29836451
/s/ Lil Caruso, "and he sings to the people" , EF 76.194.81.120 (talk) 12:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you.  I must get a copy of it.  --  JackofOz (talk) 05:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Did he ever sing Verdi's Requiem?

message: Suggest that this vague catchall category be deleted and the information moved into the main article where appropriate.  Markhh (talk) 04:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incidental information 

message: This article needs some good housekeeping when it comes to non-verifiable, subjective statements. Phrases like "tremendous international renown", "extraordinary voice", and "unequaled richness" do not belong in an encyclopedia. Toscaesque (talk) 21:29, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm removing the tag, which has now been there four months.  The claim is not an NPOV issue anyway.  Few would disagree on the substance of the claims or say they are an effort to bias the encyclopedia.  Rather it is a matter of encyclopedic language and tone. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:05, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: No mention of the threats to his life (or voice by poisoning him with lye)? --MartinezMD (talk) 01:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing mentioned in 7 years? I added a section with references. MartinezMD (talk) 17:04, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black Hand 

message: Enrico Caruso at archive.org
Dorothy Caruso's biography used to be on archive.org also, but apparently someone renewed the copyright. I have PDFs from when it was free, if anyone is interested. --Bluejay Young (talk) 19:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Online sources

message: I have removed the unreferenced and false statement that Caruso made an experimental sound film for Edison. The Lucia sextette film it referred to was made in 1908 in France by Georges Mendel and features actors miming to a playback of the commercial Victor record, a copy of which was played synchronously when the finished film was projected. A clip from the film, and in some cases all of it, has been included in various documentaries and video compilations and it has become a common source of confusion, especially as the "Caruso" bears a very passable resemblance to the tenor in his mustachioed years. See this Silent Era site item   for confirmation.
Caruso and Edison would certainly not have gotten together. In addition to being very much opposed to the star system and employing expensive "name" talent, Edison had a pathological aversion to any vibrato in voices or instruments. He had violinists who recorded for him play with a straight tone and searched far and wide for singers without the "terrible tremolo" that made Caruso, Ruffo and all the other "awful" singers he believed a gullible public had been hyped into praising anathema to him.
There is a plausible story about Caruso almost making an experimental sound film for another inventor in or around 1911, which apparently in the telling and retelling has become confused not only with the Mendel film but also with Edison's early experimental Kinetophone tests of similar date. I can't recall the name of the inventor or of his system offhand. My principal source is a respectable thick hardcover book published in the 1970s, but it is now in my mental reference library only and must also remain nameless here for the present. The upshot of the affair was that Caruso soon realized the sound recording involved would violate his exclusive contract with Victor and therefore nixed the plan, so no such film was ever made.
The nearest thing to a non-CGI Caruso "talkie" that we are ever going to see was created by matching up silent footage of him singing Vesti la giubba in My Cousin with one of his recordings of the aria. I haven't seen them myself, but I am given to understand that at least two attempts at this challenging editing task have been made, one with very rough results, the other more successful. Possibly available somewhere in Youtubeland. AVarchaeologist (talk) 05:16, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound film myth 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I am removing the name since there is no source for it that I can see. Errico and Enrico are two completely diferent names. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:41, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: provide a link to a reliable source. That's how Wikipedia works. You can read WP:RS. MartinezMD (talk) 09:47, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: If Errico (Italian for Eric) in Neapolitan Italian dialect is the same name as Enrico (Italian for Henry) that also needs a source. So 2 sources are needed, one about that and another about Caruso having one name at birth and changing it later. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:24, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Errico?

message: I just moved the more citations needed tag (originally added by you in May 2021) from before Enrico_Caruso#Early_career to the top of the article, per MOS:LAYOUT. However, as you gave no details regarding why you felt this tag was necessary, I'd like to make sure that this is what you intended. If you feel that the tag should refer only to the Early career section, we can replace it with  and move it back down. Renerpho (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Placement of ''more citations needed'' tag 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
* 
Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:23, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: I know we already have a lot of his self-caricatures, but I just came across one I really like and that I think shows a somewhat different artistic style (shown here). Maybe replace something currently in the article? - Jmabel | Talk 04:24, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-caricatures 

message: In the recordings section the following is mentioned "He made one final recording for the Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd in April 1904. On 1 February 1904, Caruso made his first recordings in America for the Victor Talking Machine Company and thereafter recorded exclusively for Victor."
However while preparing to sale several recordings i found a Victor Talking Machine Co recording dated September 22, 1903 !
Since i have no knowledge of this matter i didn't want to edit the article, this is just something i stumbled upon while doing research for the sale.
Obviously i am willing to provide photographic evidence. Wimpie1962 (talk) 18:23, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Victor Talking Machine CO.