Caruso - Aria collections

Enrico Caruso with various artists

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‘Complete Recordings, Vol 5: 1908-10’ 
Franchetti Germania – Studenti udite; Non, non chiuder gli occhi vaghi Geehl For you alone Gounod Faust – O merveille!; Seigneur Dieu, que vois–je!; Eh! quoi! toujours seule?; Il se fait tard!; O nuit d’amour; Mon coeur est pénétré d’épouvante!; Attends! Voici la rue; Que voulez–vous, messieurs?; Alerte! alerte! Leoncavallo Pagliacci – No, Pagliaccio non son Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana – O Lola ch’ai di latti fior di spino Ponchielli La Gioconda – Cielo e mar! Puccini Madama Butterfly – Amore o grillo; Non ve l’avevo detto? Tosti Addio Verdi Il trovatore – Mal reggendo; Se m’ami ancor. Aida – Già i sacerdoti; Misero appien mi festi
Naxos Historical 8 110720 (79’ · AAD)
Recorded 1910

‘Caruso in Opera, Vol 2’
Arias – L’Africaine, Andrea Chenier, La bohème (Leoncavallo and Puccini), Carmen, Cavalleria rusticana, Don Pasquale, Eugene Onegin, La favorita, Les Huguenots, Macbeth, Martha, Nero, La reine de Saba, Rigoletto, Tosca & Il trovatore
Nimbus Prima Voce NI7866 (79’ · ADD)
Recorded 1905–20

The 1906 recording of ‘M’apparì’ from Martha comes first, and it introduces an aspect of Caruso’s singing that rarely finds a place in the critical commentaries: his subtlety. Partly, it’s rhythmic. The move-on and pull-back seems such an instinctive process that we hardly notice it (though no doubt a modern conductor would – and check it immediately). It makes all the difference to the emotional life of the piece, the feeling of involvement and spontaneous development. Then there’s the phrasing, marvellously achieved at the melody’s reprise. The play of louder and softer tones, too, has every delicacy of fine graduation; and just as masterly is the more technical covering and (rare) opening of notes at the passaggio. An edition of the score which brought out all these features of Caruso’s singing would be a densely annotated document. It would, even so, be a simplification, for accompanying all this is the dramatic and musical feeling, which defies analysis – and, of course, the voice. 

That voice! You may feel you know all these records and hardly need to play them, yet there’s scarcely an occasion when the beauty of it doesn’t thrill with a sensation both old and new (the first ‘Ah!’ is one of recognition, the second of fresh wonder). So it is with the items here: excepting the Eugene Onegin aria, which remains external, and the late L’Africaine recording, with its saddening evidence of deterioration. The transfers are excellent.