Word: caruso
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Forever Yours (Grand National). When Beniamino Gigli (pronounced zhee-lyee) was a choirboy in Recanati, Italy 40 years ago, he was called "Il Passero Solitario" (the solitary sparrow). When Enrico Caruso died in 1921 and Gigli inherited his roles at the Metropolitan Opera, he was called "the world's greatest tenor." Eleven years later when Gigli refused to take a 10% salary cut to help the staggering Metropolitan keep going, he was called names far less flattering, which so ''diminished" his "dignity as a man and as an artist'' that he went back to Europe...
With the background provided by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the recorded voice of Enrico Caruso, Masquerade in Vienna" proves to be a pleasant enough bromide for thesis-writer headaches. Its advertised "delicate dallying" is mostly delicate, but an ingenious plot and capable acting compensate is any disappointment that might be felt of that account...
There were snags in that courtship. Ever since Caruso died and Farrar quit the Met, its Italian and French wings needed new blood. Witherspoon had planned to go abroad after fresh talent, dropped dead on the eve of his sailing. Johnson's sailing was delayed six weeks. By that time many a top-notch singer had been engaged, and last year's French and Italian performances had to string along with as little life as ever...
...University of Western Ontario, he skipped out before the spring examinations, got a job soloing in Manhattan's Brick Presbyterian Church, later earned $700 a week singing Lieut. Niki in Oscar Straus's A Waltz Dream. Money saved therefrom took him to Italy where he studied under Caruso's old teacher Vincenzo Lombardi. Cynical old Lombardi said he would make better progress with an Italian name. Translated into Eduardo di Giovanni, he cut a wide singing swath through Europe, kept the name until he returned to the U. S. in 1919 to sing with the Chicago Opera...
Musical history is slyly footnoted by the mishaps that befall famed artists. Metropolitan Opera veterans still chuckle over the horse that ate Hagen's beard years ago in Gotterdammerung, the slap Geraldine Farrar gave Caruso in Carmen, the hot potato he mischievously pressed into Nordica's hand. Playing Tosca in Vienna before the War, Jeritza fell on her face, coolly sang the tender aria Vissi d'arte prone. Margaret Anglin once stalked out onto the Carnegie Hall stage to declaim Electra's grief, was appalled to find a cat peering out of her flowing Greek gown...