A new museum honoring legendary Italian opera tenor Enrico Caruso has just opened in his home town, Naples. Located in a portion of the city's Palazzo Reale, it features not only his life but also access to many of his recordings.
Caruso, born in 1873 rose to the heights of the opera world just as recording technology made it possible to preserve performances, and Caruso embraced the possibility, making over 250 recordings in a career that stretched into the 1920s. The collection includes recordings, film footage, programs and photos.
His career began at La Scala in Milan, and he toured the world in performance, but his professional home for most of his career was at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The museum's curator, Laura Valente, points out that he also brought change to opera in his time: "He was the greatest tenor ever known to the world. Because beyond his great talent and extraordinary voice, he forged a new way of singing and expressing himself on stage, in this sense like Maria Callas."
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