Enrico Caruso - Tosca Recondita armonia 1904

The vocals were recorded on February 1, 1904 in New York and the instrumentals were recorded in April, 2002 in Vienna.
With English subtitles. More Caruso info on my website: http://www.enricocaruso.dk
Hope someone from Italy will correct the subtitles if there are errors!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• puccini
• caruso
• tosca

[wiseroldfart]

People are questioning whether or not this is Caruso's voice? Who else can display such vocal and emotional complexity and finish an aria with such an amazing resonance?

Elvis is still being imitated by many. Some are spot on. It will probably be forever impossible for an accomplished tenor to imitate Caruso. The best we can hope for is a computer program capable of restoring most of what was lost in his recordings.

[tomfroekjaer]

@wiseroldfart: hear, hear ! But then of course I'm the Caruso fan who uploaded this aria....

For me the only other great tenor of the past century comparable in voice and empathy is Jussi Björling.

Actually there is another one, but he was a "Heldentenor" - Lauritz Melchior (Danish as myself). But I never like Wagner ....

[alber6161]

Imo this version is better than the latter one of 1906. thanks for posting!

[tomfroekjaer]

@alber6161; most welcome, Al. The 1904 version is more lyrical than the 1906 version and yes, of course Recondita armonia is best sung by a lyrical tenor. Caruso's voice changed gradually to spinto/dramatic. Thanks for your observation/comment.

Tom

[jnuci]

i have an original 78 hard thick vinyl recording of this song. It has a lovely nymph on a large seashell on the label and i right now cant recall the record company. I remember it has one very very large groove in the beginning that carried the needle across the record until the end. My grandfather taught me the beauty of opera when i was small and left me all these wonderful recordings. What memories, a voice like that, a man touched by God. Thank you !

[tomfroekjaer]

@jnuci: Sorry for not replying already 3 months ago... I get quite a lot of mails from YouTube and sometimes I just forget to respond.

I really like these personal stories/recollections like yours! Makes it all so much worthwhile for me to continue to upload the Caruso arias and songs.

Thank you, Tom.

[Aetion]

Who is then this if not Caruso? I think the voice is unmistakable.

[MrGer2295]

wow! Very Good performance!!!

[patriotted001]

Please, there is only one Great One, and this is him.

[MrArcaniel]

bosko

[31operafan]

I love the early Caruso recordings, because his voice sounded so youthful and nearly Gigli-like. (Once again, I know it should be the other way around.) Sometimes it's hard to tell the two voices apart!

[tamaz1955]

Bravo!

[wiseroldfart]

@tomfroekjaer: I heard about Melchior before and listened to a couple of his performances. Nice rich voice.

It's funny, but I was watching a few Roger Whitaker videos last night. I always liked his deep voice. He's entertaining on stage and can also whistle with the best of them. Quite a departure from opera, of course. And then there's Sissel on the female side of the coin. Her 'O Mio Babbino Caro' and 'Shenandoah' are among my favorite videos. Beautiful to watch and hear...

[wiseroldfart]

@alber6161: It doesn't matter to me whether or not Bjorling had a huge voice. Some say it was big enough. Like Caruso, he had a few benchmark recordings. If not huge, Bjorling had an amazingly resilient voice that seemed to easily handle demanding notes over a span of 30 years despite his battle with the bottle and heart disease. I get the impression that Caruso had a huge voice when he opened up.

[alber6161]

@wiseroldfart I again agree with you: Bjorling remains one of my favourite tenors, although some commenters wrote that his voice ''wasn't so huge''. True or not ? I don't know. What is strange is that most part of immortal ''monsters'', tenors, baritones and bassess including also the female singers, were concentrated in a period of time rather reduced, starting from the end of 1800 up to early 1900. After that very very few...