Sharing a Facebook post a couple of days ago on a remastered recording of Enrico Caruso singing Holy Night prompted me to revisit a blog I made some time ago of another extraordinary recording of the renowned tenor. It was Che gelida manina, from Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme, made in 1906.
The story is that Puccini was reluctant to have Caruso audition for the lead role of Rodolfo in the opera. The singer was not prepossessing: “short and tubby, with an undistinguished moustache and an undesirable Neapolitan accent,†according to one report. But so remarkable was his voice, tha t immediately after hearing him Puccini gave him the part, saying: “Who has sent you to me? God?†You can listen to a digitally remastered version by clicking here. Hearing that voice more than a hundred years later, you can see what Puccini meant.
In the same blog last spring, I also included a link to a marvellous contemporary voice, Kiri Te Kanawa, singing Puccini’s O mio babbino caro. The link also has a built-in romantic ‘Ahh’ factor (perhaps to the point of soppiness, but indulge yourself, it’s Christmas) as it is accompanied by scenes from A Room with a View, as Lucy Honeychurch falls in love. Just click here.