Word: caruso
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...number of years. Also we have heard a great deal of petty gossip about them; back when Amato was greeted with favor, tongues were no kinder than they are today. Jean de Reszké had his enemies! So we are most interested to hear what you say about Caruso's "large paid claque." (TIME, Apr. 6.) Who, we ask, ever accused Caruso of a claque? We agree that, in his youth, Caruso loved Bronx Park, he was no moral stickler, he was fond of his spaghetti, his jokes may have been coarse, his "abdomen large." But Caruso...
TIME did not say that Caruso had a paid claque, but reported a rumor from reputable musical quarters to that effect. If the alleged fact be true, it is neither extraordinary nor particularly reprehensible. Many, if not most, Italian singers have paid claques, regardless of how successful they may be. A claque is a sort of musical insurance against an occasional unresponsive audience. Not infrequently it is more a parasite upon an artist than his tool. If there had been Pond's Cold Cream on sale in Troy or Nuxated Iron on Olympus, what is more likely than that...
...They needed a songbird in Heaven, so God took Caruso away" -so runs the catch line of a onetime popular song-a ditty which was scratched from every phonograph, mewed through the sinus cavities of every cabaret tenor who could boast a nose, caroled by housewives at their tubs and business men at their shaving. Before the echoes of the blatant dirge had been quite relegated to that mortuary of all songs - the monkey-organ - certain tenors were beginning to thud their chests in the press. To compare many with Caruso is, of course, absurd. But there are, in Manhattan...
...into the footlights (TIME, Feb. 9)-an unfortunate accident which did not help his popularity. He makes his chief successes in the old, melodious, florid type of Italian opera. When all has been said, cultured Martinelli, Singer Gigli are both able, both popular, both have, it is said, like Caruso,- large paid claques. There is another tenor at the Metropolitan, Edward Johnson, Canadian, who sings well, has a good figure, acts excellently. His prestige is rapidly growing, but he has not yet attained the popularity of Gigli, of Martinelli. Who is the leading tenor of the Metropolitan...
...said that Caruso paid hundreds of dollars annually to a band of "enthusiastic" supporters, who distributed themselves about the opera house, yelled noisy approbation at certain well-defined places in the opera...