Caruso’s Big Audition

The twenty-four-year old tenor was determined to have the part of Rodolfo La Boheme. To get it, he went to see the composer, Giacomo Puccini.

He had volunteered to play the part for living expenses, a mere fifteen lire a day instead of the thousand being offered established singers. But the theater manager had hedged, thinking that a better-known singer might bring the production more success. So the tenor boarded a train and headed for the rolling hills of Toscany and Puccini’s villa.

“Who is he?” the composer demanded when his handyman reported a stubborn visitor at the door. “Who is this Caruso?”

“He speaks like a Neapolitan and calls himself a singer,” the handyman said gruffly. “A sawed-off little person with a petite mustache. Wears his hat cocked to one side.”

“Another urchin from Naples,” Puccini scoffed. He turned his attention back to a table piled high with musical scores and notebooks. “Tell him I’m busy.”

The handyman replied that the singer was refusing to go away.

Puccini went to the door of his studio and barked, “Who are you?”

Caruso replied nervously with Rodolfo’s lines from La Boheme. “Who am I? I am a poet.”

Puccini laughed heartily and ushered Caruso into the studio. He sat down at an upright piano and asked him to sing “Che gelida manina” from the opera. When Caruso obliged, Puccini swung around and asked, “Who has sent you to me—God?” He offered to recommend Caruso for the part.

Caruso confessed that he still had trouble with the high C at the end of the aria.

Puccini shrugged. “You don’t need it. Too many singers make a mess of the aria in order to save themselves for that high C. It’s better to take it half a note lower than to wreck the song.”

When opening night came, Enrico Caruso gave a spectacular performance as Rodolfo—including the high C.