Jacki O, Lady Mary, and Ariadne

Jackie: America's Ariadne

What's that you say? Stop mumbling and speak up. You say you aren't very interested in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos because the title makes it sound dry and academic?

Oh, I see. I get it. Greek mythology is a big yawn, right? You barely remember your high school unit on the subject. You cobbled together a paper using Cliff's Notes, crammed for the final exam the night before and promptly forgot whatever you managed to learn soon after.

Greek mythology: a bunch of stories about some war that may or may not have happened thousands of years ago and a bunch of lame gods and goddesses. Snore-time. Who cares?

Actually, those who dive head-first into the lore of mythology quickly learn that it's pretty juicy stuff: blood-lust, vengeance, sex, gory battle scenes -

But for Americans hooked on Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones and other examples of contemporary epic storytelling, Ariadne probably isn't a very alluring figure. Let me see if I can kindle your interest and tempt you to get to know this lady.

But the truth is - you already know her. You may even be her.

There's a reason that Ariadne has been the subject of hundreds of art works, including multiple operas, ballets, paintings, and so on. As the curtain rises on Strauss's depiction, Ariadne has been abandoned by her lover Theseus. She is unable to recover from her grief, spending all her days weeping and praying for death. But upon the arrival of Bacchus, the god of revelry, she finds herself reborn with new love.

There are two fundamental aspects of Ariadne's story that connect her to every living person.

1) She is the embodiment of grief and lost love; the overwhelming grief that can paralyze us and render us unable to get on with our lives. And

2) She experiences the transformative experience of being rescued from her paralysis by a new love; of becoming a new creature..

Bacchus, a.k.a. Aristotle Onassis

Librettist Hugo von Hofsmannsthal used the term "allomatic transformation" to describe Ariadne's encounter with the god Bacchus. Now there's a term you don't hear every day. I recommend that you work it into
a conversation at your next swanky cocktail party or staff meeting; it'll make you sound WAY erudite. Never mind that "allomatic" sounds like some handy kitchen device

The gist of an allomatic transformation is that it does not arise from anything you do yourself; you remain passive, being transformed by another party. For example, say you lose 60 pounds by cutting out sweets and running four miles a day: well, you did that yourself. Not allomatic. But if Jenny Craig herself shows up at your front door, throws away your stash of chocolate bars and chains you to a treadmill, NOW we're talking allomatic. Plus a lawsuit, probably; there are laws against chaining people to things.

But you'll be surprised by how many Ariadnes you've seen in literature and film, as well as examples from real life you'll also find familiar. Really, we all know this character. Here are two examples that make pretty good modern versions:

• Lady Mary from Downton Abbey. To the dismay of many fans, Mary's husband Matthew was killed off at the end of Season Three. As you know if you're a regular viewer, Season Four began with Mary floating around the family mansion like the walking dead (oops - wrong TV show...). Wallowing in grief to the point of detaching from life itself, it took a verbal slap in the face from Carson the butler to force her to wake up and think of the future again. But from recent history, there's an even better example:
• Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Jackie almost makes a better Ariadne than Ariadne herself. JFK is cast in the role of the Theseus who abandoned her. With television news cameras rolling, the entire world bore witness as she became the most famous grieving widow in history. The remarkable, almost mythological development was her allomatic transformation into the glamorous jet-set trophy wife of billionaire Aristotle Onassis. Her own private Greek God! Why in the world has no one ever made an opera out of Jackie's life?!

Here are a few other examples of fictional Ariadnes, including one who does NOT fit the bill, lest you mistakenly assume to the contrary:

• George Bailey, grieving over his percieved failures, is transformed by Clarence the Angel in It's a Wonderful Life.
• Mr. Banks is transformed into a loving father by Mary Poppins.
• Eliza Doolittle is transformed from the paralysis of poverty into an elegant lady by Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
• The Beast is transformed from a paralyzing curse by the love of Beauty.
• Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are each transformed from living corpses (Hello, Lady Mary!) by kisses from their respective handsome princes.
• In the wonderful film Driving Miss Daisy, the title heroine is transformed by her friendship with Hoke.
• Susan Walker, the little girl played by Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street is transformed from an affectless little robot into a happy child by Kris Kringle.
• And for one more example from real life, consider Helen Keller's transformation from the paralysis of her physical limitations into an educated, functioning woman by Annie Sullivan.
• And who is the "UN-Ariadne"? That would be Cio-Cio-san of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Yes, she is abandoned by Lt. Pinkerton, but she does not grieve for him. She obstinately believes he'll return despite all evidence to the contrary. And unlike Ariadne, she really does find death rather than transformational love.

See? You're an EXPERT on the subject of Ariadne, and you didn't even know it.

And perhaps... just perhaps... you yourself have suffered loss, be it the loss of a friend or a lover or spouse or family member or career; anything that left you unable to function. By a certain age, most of us have dealt with our losses. And most of us found our way out, as the gods intend for us. More power to us if we find the strength within ourselves to manufacture our own personal transformations. Greek gods? They're like taxi cabs - you can't always find one when you need one.

A tourist's guide to Naxos, Strauss-style

There was a time in my life when I was an opera-lover, as opposed to an opera professional. My experience in the opera world had been limited to singing in the chorus for the Indiana University Opera Theater in my college days, moonlighting from the piano studies that were my major.

Know what that red thing is? Yep: Naxos

My tastes ran to the Italian repertoire. Like many casual operaphiles, I was lukewarm towards Wagner; I pretty much fell in line with Rossini's famous bon mot about beautiful moments and awful quarter-hours. Richard Strauss? I knew the Dance of the Seven Veils, but otherwise only knew tone poems and assorted lieder.

My current employer, Virginia Opera, last staged Ariadne auf Naxos in 1990. I was teaching music courses at Norfolk's Old Dominion University at that time. My wife and I took in a performance; it was my first experience with the piece.

Here's what I remember:

1. Blythe Walker, the artist portraying Zerbinetta, did a cartwheel across the stage while singing. Whoa! 
2. The second half of the show, the Ariadne opera section, went on and on and on and on.....

My fear is that those of you about to make your first acquaintance with this opera will leave the theater similarly inclined to think that Zerbinetta is a hoot, and the Ariadne part is boring.

IT'S NOT! Oh, Cherished Readers, how I wish I could go back in time, knowing then what I know now. I learned the key to appreciating the entirety of Ariadne and, if you're new to the work, I will now share it with you.

You see, the problem is that the Prologue, a witty and sardonic portrait of backstage opera politics, with deadly caricatures of dumb-as-mud tenors, temperamental prima donnas, foppish choreographers, paranoid and disrespected composers, and (above all) ignorant-yet-condescending unmusical "arts patrons" is wonderfully theatrical. It would work just fine as a spoken play with no music at all. 

But the second half - the "performance" of the "opera seria" created by the young "Composer", is as theatrically static as the Prologue is manic. 

Not much happens.

For real: a drippy dame named Ariadne mopes around, sighing and weeping, weeping and sighing. Some nymphs watch her and go "tsk". The comedians comment about her like a vaudevillian Greek chorus and caper about. A tenor comes and he and Ariadne sing at each other for several minutes. Curtain.

Static, static, static. So: nothing to look forward to, right?

NO! NO, NO, NO!! Lots to look forward to; to savor; to relish; to enjoy; to love.  What you need is to love this part for what it is and not hate it for what it isn't. Here's the secret:

Don't think of it as theater; think of it as a concert; a concert consisting of one dreamy, luscious, soaring, majestic, heart-breakingly beautiful musical moment after another. No kidding! The Ariadne section of Ariadne is a banquet of magnificent musical highlights.

The thing is, NOT ONE of these highlights has attained iconic status; the type of familiarity with average music-lovers we associate with "Nessun dorma" "Celeste Aida", "Musetta's waltz"; "The Ride of the Valkyries"; "The Toreador Song", and a thousand others.

Why is that? I have no idea. And it's a definite problem. Opera audiences famously like what they already know and have mortal fear of the unfamiliar. I get it; an hour's worth of "new" music can cause the human brain to flip the off-switch.

But YOU, Cherished Reader; you CAN become familiar with Ariadne's second-half music. All you need is a road-map; a train of thought through the scene; a sense of what cool music is coming up next. And here it is, courtesy of your operatic mapmaker, me.

1. IT'S A NYMPH-FEST! About 10 minutes in or so, counting the orchestral prelude, the three Nymphs sing a beguiling trio in which they agree that they've become so used to Ariadne's weeping they scarcely hear it any more. The words don't matter; they could be singing the white pages of the Norfolk phone book; what matters is the h.e.a.v.e.n.l.y manner in which their voices intertwine in blissful arabesques. God, it's gorgeous. Musical Nirvana. Next, you'll hear
2. ARIADNE'S FIRST BIG SOLO, known as "Ein Schönes war", it is the aria in which she laments the loss of her lover Theseus. She comes close to inventing modern couple names like "Bennifer" for Ben and Jennifer, singing of the "beautiful thing Theseus-Ariadne". Another minute and she'd have though of "Theriadne", heh heh. But again, the music is the thing. This is noble and aristocratic music of regret and nostalgia, with the word "Schönes" spun out luxuriously over several glorious bars. The aria calls for an effortless high range, with the kind of pianissimo high notes that will give you pleasurable chills.
   
   When she's done, listen for 
3. A TUNEFUL SERENADE from Harlequin. Strauss is notorious for writing for tenors in a way that turns them into red-faced shrieking maniacs, but he was kind to lower-voiced men like Harlequin. There's not much "operatic" about this light-hearted attempt to cheer up Ariadne; it's closer to cabaret than Clytemnestra. It just might stick in your ear, and you just might be humming it on the way home.
   
   Close on his heels comes
4. AN EVEN MORE GORGEOUS ARIA FOR ARIADNE! Do we think it's a coincidence that her name starts with "Aria"? We do not. Here we are treated to "Es gibt ein Reich", in which she sings about her approaching death as though it was two weeks in Las Vegas. Boy, is she excited! Okay, I sound snarky, but the concluding section of this solo will lift you out of your seat. Passion is passion, folks, whether aimed at Leonardo Di Caprio or at Death's Messenger, and Ariadne sings with such mounting ecstasy that it's actually thrilling.
   
   But before you can even catch your breath comes:
5. A FANTASTICAL VAUDEVILLE NUMBER from the comedians. I've changed my mind: THIS is the tune you'll be humming on the way home. It's toe-tapping. It's catchy. It's clever. It's kind of intoxicating. What's happening as the quintet sings? Nothing, really - they're just fooling around. No big deal. You are permitted to close your eyes and just let the good tunes roll. By the way, is it totally impossible that Richard Rogers was thinking of this number when he came up with the tune for "Surry with the fringe on top"? Probably - but they are similar for sure.
   
   Uh-oh, hold on to your hats, here comes:
6. A LOLLIPALOOZA OF A COLORATURA SHOW-PIECE. This would be Zerbinetta's “Grossmächtige Prinzessin”. a ridiculously entertaining monologue, with or without cartwheels. Strauss intended this aria to out-do every other coloratura solo ever written, including Lucia di Lammermoor's Mad Scene, the Queen of the Night arias by Mozart, and every other damn thing. And he did it - in spades. Now flirty, now mock-dramatic, now spewing scales and high E's like a Fourth of July fireworks show, Zerbinetta takes the prize, amen, halleluia, world without end. The melody starting the Rondo of the aria, shown below, is a dead-ringer for Donizetti's melodic style:
   
   But there's ;more! Do you like a good waltz? I hope so, because now comes
7. A REALLY GOOD WALTZ. Although he's no relation to Johann Strauss Jr., Richard Strauss showed in Der Rosenkaalier that he could compete for a spot in the Waltz Hall of Fame. At this point in Ariadne, the comedians have a dramatically pointless but delicious quintet in which the four dudes try to hook up with Zerbinetta. Ignore that. Just wallow in the utter Viennese glory of the fabulous waltz-tune Strauss serves up. It's Rosenkavalier all over again, if you just close your eyes. Now it's time for the hero Bacchus to show up, but first sit back and enjoy
8. ANOTHER INSANELY BEAUTIFUL NYMPH TRIO. I read the other day that Queen Elizabeth, bless her, dislikes dissonant music. In this regard she resembles pretty much 94.9 per cent of all opera-goers. If you fit that description, pay particular attention to this trio. It's as harmonically unadventurous as it is sublimely beautiful. I'm thinking of adapting it into an anthem for my church choir - no fooling.
   
   Give in to utter sweetness of sonority, then get ready for
9. ARIACCHUS. See what I did there? Combined "Ariadne" and "Bacchus" to make a new celebrity couple mash-up. I'm good at this! Bacchus enters to music that, in its testosterone-infused, utterly macho swagger, is like a slap in the face, musically. There follows a love duet. This love duet is not a typical specimen of the genre, in that while Bacchus is ready to "get down to bidness" with Ariadne, her attraction to him is anything but erotic. She's all "I await transformation to the next world" and he's all "Golly you're pretty. I'd tap that." Regardless, while falling short of Wagner's "Liebesnacht" (as all subsequent love duets were doomed to do), this duet reaches a suitably ecstatic and blissful climax, leading to 
10. A REPRISE OF THE INSANELY BEAUTIFUL NYMPH TRIO while the two lovers either ascend into the heavens or disappear into Ariadne's cave, depending on how you interpret the story.

Any of these numbers could and should be as famous as the highlights we all know from, say, Turandot. Commit this list of 10 highlights to memory if you'll be seeing Ariadne for the first time. Really focus on the sumptuous, richly-orchestrated feast of inspired music, replete with Strauss's famous expertise in writing for the soprano voice as few other composers ever did. 

NOT BORING! NOT BORING! I PROMISE!!!

Ariadne auf Naxos and Turandot: kissin' cousins

With this post I begin a series of essays about Ariadne auf Naxos, the next opera to be staged in Virgina Opera's current season.

Signor Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss's idiosyncratic German comedy Ariadne auf Naxos, in the heavily-revised version that has become standard (and the the version Virginia Opera will be staging next month), premiered in 1916. A decade later, Giacomo Puccini's final opera Turandot saw the light of day in a performance respectfully ended by conductor Arturo Toscanini at the point where Puccini's work was cut short by death.

The one is an intellectual take on Greek mythology, with no chorus and a chamber orchestra. The prologue offers a cynical depiction of backstage hysteria at the opera house, with poison-pen caricatures of brainless tenors, foppish choreographers, paranoid composers and tempermental prima donnas. The tenor role is ungrateful, with no appealing solos. The suppporting soprano role of Zerbinetta is a dazzling coloratura. In its overall tone, the opera is extremely Teutonic.

The other is a highly romantic fairy tale with a giant orchestra, a huge chorus and one of Puccini's plummiest tenor roles, highlighted with the most iconic of all arias, "Nessun dorma". The supporting soprano role of Liu is a typical Puccian lyric spinto. In its overall tone, the opera couldn't be more Italianate, Chinese folk-tunes notwithstanding.

But guess what? The similarities between Ariadne and Turandot are so striking that I'm guessing Signor Puccini, a composer with great breadth of knowledge of the music of his times, made a particular study of Strauss's work. Now, I acknowledge that Wagner and Debussy were more obvious influences on Puccini; in her book The Romantic World of Puccini, Iris J. Arnenson describes at length how Wagner's Parsifal in particular casts a long shadow on some of Puccini's operas. But here I play the time-honored "It is what it is" card and draw your attention to these observations:

Herr Giacomo Puccini

• Both operas are tales of love, loyalty unto death, and transformation. Yes, these themes play out quite differently but they're there to be seen. Ariadne has a love so deeply loyal to Theseus that she longs for death once he's left her. She can't imagine being with anyone else. But with the arrival of Bacchus, she is transformed into a new creature, perhaps achieving divinity (depending on which commentary you read). In Turandot, on the other hand, the example of love and loyalty embracing death is in the figure of Liu, whereas the princess herself is transformed by Calaf's kiss. In her case, rather than transformed into something divine and eternal, Turandot is transformed from her icy, powerful, goddess persona into something more warmly human: a woman in love.
• The insertion of comic figures into a dramatic story. The entire premise of Ariadne is the intrusion of the Commedia dell'Arte characters Harlequin, Brighella, Scaramuccio and Truffaldino with, of course, Zerbinetta, into what the young Composer intended to be a spiritual and ultra-serious drama. Puccini himself had the idea (which he claimed to be borrowing from Shakespeare) of the three comic ministers Ping Pang and Pong, who clown around just at the moment when Calaf is trying to throw his hat into the ring as a suitor of Turandot.
• The comedians in both operas have a similar message and function. In the Bill Murray comedy Stripes, Murray's character encountered an overly gung-ho recruit during basic training named Francis. At one point Murray turns to him and says "Lighten up, Francis", with that typical Bill Murray smug deadpan that still makes me laugh. That's essentially what the comedians are telling the love-struck protagonists in both Ariadne and Turandot. In the former, Zerbinetta and her pals assure Ariadne not to obsess over her loss of Theseus by saying, basically, that there are lots of fish in the sea. Another lover will come along. Ping Pang and Pong, laughing at Calaf's obsession with Turandot, ask "What is Turandot? Just flesh".
• That whole obsession thing. Naturally, Calaf and Ariadne each ignore the Dear Abby-ish advice of their respective clowns because, you know, they're all obsessed and everything.
• Final transformation duets aiming for the stars Bacchus is going to rescue Ariadne from her prison of grief by compelling her to fall in love with him. The duet in which this happens provides the final scene of the opera with soaring voices uniting as one in blissful yada yada yada. Calaf is going to rescue Turandot from her prison of vengeful anger by compelling her to fall in love with him. The duet in which this happens provides the final -- ...okay technically the next-to last scene (picky picky) of the opera with soaring voices uniting as one in blissful blah blah blah.

As a footnote, we can also discreetly suggest that there are critics who feel that neither of these duets, as familiar and beautiful as they undoubtedly are, exactly hit the bull's-eye in terms of measuring up to their composers' hopes. In Puccini's case, we'll never know exactly what he would have made of it as throat cancer left Turandot unfinished. The composer and music professor Franco Alfano did what he could, but at best the duet adds up to ersatz bliss no longer in Puccini's voice. We do know that Puccini was concerned about the duet; he expressed considerable angst about it to his colleagues and procrastinated getting around to it. 

As for Strauss, while there's nothing really wrong with the Ariadne-Bacchus warbling, the fact is that there have been very few love duets that have gone down as earth-shaking examples of ultimate eros. Once you've listed the duets in Tristan und Isolde and Madama Butterfly, the pickings are a bit slim. In Tosca, there's nothing transformational; the two characters have been hooking up for some time. Aida? Not Act 3, but the tomb scene comes close as it is somewhat transformational, preparing the two for death. But many of Verdi's love duets are interestingly unerotic, either playful or enthusiastic. I would also say that Strauss gave himself a tough act to follow in an opera with such sublime pieces as the Composer's aria, Ariadne's two arias and Zerbinetta's "Grossmaechtige Prinzessin".

To conclude: both Giacomo and Richard were probably doomed when they set about to write a lollapalooza transformational love duet after the music world already had Wagner's "Liebesnacht". I don't hold it against either of them, and I love both Turandot and its kissin' cousin Ariadne.

More observations and insights to come in the next several weeks!

Free Caruso!

No, I haven't turned political and the title of today's post is not demanding the immediate release of actor David Caruso from jail. (Though come to think of it, some might suggest that his years of godawful acting on CSI: Miami deserve a life sentence in Actor's Jail...) Nope, I refer to the iconic operatic tenor of all time, the legendary Enrico Caruso.

The great Caruso (1873-1921)

My mission is to tell you: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY BUYING RECORDINGS OF ENRICO CARUSO.  Did you know that his complete discography is available for download absolutely free? You can download every note he ever sang right onto your computer and burn, baby, burn as many CD's as you wish.

Gotta love the Internet...

Just go to Internet Archive and you will find "The Collected Works of Caruso, Part I". What awaits you there are one hundred MP3 files of 78 RPM and cylander recordings of Caruso in opera and song. "But wait!!", as they say on late-night infomercials, "That's. Not. All!!" If Part I wasn't enough tenorial splendor for you, click on the link for Part II and wallow in twenty-nine more recordings. Click on any MP3 track and gorge on a feast of immortal singing.

The best aspect of this site is that with a few mouse clicks, you can acquire your own digital set of the complete Caruso. Here's all you have to do:

1. Create a folder in which to store the audio files.
2. Once you click on a listed MP3, right-click anywhere on the screen as the track is playing.
3. On the resulting menu, click "Save as" and stash it in your folder.

It takes just minutes to load all 129 tracks onto your hard drive, and it costs you nary a cent.

Wrong Caruso... probably can't sing...

And as for the tracks... it's the mother-lode for us opera addicts.  Some of my readers will already have heard many of these recordings, but for others the name Caruso is a just a name from distant history. He belongs in the archives of yesteryear along with the race horse Man O' War or baseball stars like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth and, as such, may seem irrelevant to much of today's public, constantly obsessed with latching on to "The Next Big Thing".

Well, Enrico Caruso WAS the "Big Thing" a century ago, and even a cursory exploration of this collection demonstrates why his reputation dominates any discussion of great opera singers. He was blessed with a voice which managed to convey its basic timbre and character despite the primitive recording technology of the day, incapable of capturing all the overtones that account for the resonance in a trained voice. Dio mio! What would that voice sound like if we could hear him live and in person? It would be epic, I'm sure of that.

After all, it's still pretty astounding even in these recordings. One noteworthy aspect of this artist is his versatility. Hey, voice experts out there: how many living tenors currently before the public could shine in dramatic roles like Manrico, Radames and Samson, yet still manage the light, perfumy, delicate lines of Nadir's aria "Je croix entendre encore" from Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles? I can't think of any. Yet Caruso pulls it off.  In fact, throughout his repertoire, he boasts an effortless line in piano passages whenever the music calls for it - even in the dramatic fach.  Other famous tenors, say for instance Giovanni Martinelli, sang with more effort and far less dynamic contrast. Of all the celebrated tenors from the onset of the age of high fidelity, I think the artist most resembling Caruso in timbre, versatility and artistic personality is the Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling.

I find Caruso's strongest interpretations to be those roles in which the dignity of the character he's portraying matches the essential dignity I hear in the tenor's diction and vocalism.  I've often heard his voice described as having a "baritonal" sound, i.e. darker than one expects in the tenor range, but for me it's more a question of this dignified persona than any real resemblance to a baritone. I'm speaking of characters such as Radames (the sober and noble warrior), Andrea Chenier (the brooding poet), Samson (the godly champion) and especially Otello (the tortured governor of Cyprus). Fortunately, we get to hear quite a bit of his Radames, enough to suggest what a complete performance would amount to: the Aida tracks include "Celeste Aida", the duet with Amneris, and the complete Tomb Scene.  This is singing of such vocal and stylistic authority that we understand why Puccini regarded him as his preferred tenor of choice for his later operas.

The great spinto roles of Turiddu, Cavaradossi, Canio and Rodolfo also find him in his comfort zone. Again, we get a generous dose of scenes from La bohème, including "Che gelida manina", the "O soave fanciulla" duet, the quartet from Act 3 and the Marcello-Rodolfo duet from Act 4.

Another insight I've gleaned from sampling the collection: American popular song has come a long way, baby. A longgggggggg way...  A few of these tracks represent an early attempt at what became known as "crossover" recordings, with Caruso painfully taking his best shot at the English language in truly dreadful and schlocky "pop songs" with names like "Your eyes have told me what I did not know". That's the actual title of track #129 - word! I didn't make it up. Let's face it, "California Girls" works much better as a catchy title, hands down.  

Other similar crossover experiments: "For you alone" and "Dreams of long ago".  Let's just note that none of these has a beat you can dance to, and Enrico sounds like he's going to sprain something twisting his tongue around American English. Oh well, we want the complete Caruso, right? Darn straight we do. Oh, one oddity I have to mention: the tracks include Caruso singing a bass aria - the "Coat aria" from Bohème, thus re-creating an onstage moment from a live performance in which the bass playing Colline lost his voice and Caruso filled in, singing the solo with his back turned to the audience.

As with any mortal human being, not every track finds Caruso in his best vocal estate; I was disappointed with his "Donna non vidi mai" from Manon Lescaut; he sounds a bit droopy and not really as passionately ardent as we expect of the young des Grieux. And there are, I must observe, moments in which he is a bit tentative in approaching difficult passages, like someone driving 45 MPH in the right-hand lane of an interstate highway.  BUT - when he was at his best, the singing is beyond memorable and capable of making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, even now, a century later.

If you've not heard Caruso before, you might want to start with Enzo's aria "Cielo e mar" from La Gioconda, in which the tenor sings with ease, a thrilling top, and a sense of abandon. Good stuff. But whatever you do, keep listening! Click on his Verdi, his Puccini, his Donizetti, his Mascagni, his Leoncavallo, his Bizet, until you have a full portrait in your mind's ear of why Enrico Caruso really may have been the King of Tenors.

AND IT'S ALL FREE! FREE, FREE, FREE!!!!!  <pant pant> (Sorry - got a little over-excited there... what can I say? I like me some free opera...)