Caruso and his unkown talent that made divas be terrified!

Enrico Carusso (1873-1921) owes his worldwide fame to his voice. Thanks to it, he has managed to cross the borders of time and, even today, almost a hundred years after his death , he is still considered one of the best tenor in the history of lyrical music. Despiste his early death, at 48 years old, he had time to achieve a relevant landmarks.

This article doesn´t aims to deepen into his lyrical figure, but into another talent that, due to the greatness of the first, has been hidden from general public:

Enrico Carusso was a great cartoonist!

With an agile drawing and his well-known sense of humor, “Carusso, the cartoonist” began by portraying himself in his daily life and algo in different roles. No much time later he spread this hobby for his immediate surroundings.

No one could escape his pen: conductors, composers, the orchestra, producers, singers… While most of his male peers wanted to be portrayed by Carusso as a symbol artistic recognition, the female ones (the great divas) run away as soon as they saw him narrow his eyes and take out his notebook.

Due to his début as Rigoletto at Metropolitan (New York) in 1903 (November, 23rd), Marziales Sisca, head of the newspaper La Follia, asked him to send them a picture for the chronicle next day. However, instead of sending a picture, the tenor sent a sketched self-portrait.

This fact was the beginning of a collaboration between the tenor and this newspaper which lasted almost ten years. The impact of his contribution made the editorial increase its community (moreover the italian) so Joseph Pullitzer (head of World Newspaper) made a large offer to the tenor to join his publishing house. Carusso did not hesitate to reject this offer and continued his  non-profit collaboration with his “favorite magazine”. 

In addition to caricatures and scenes, Carusso liked to explore th capacity of drawing by playing faces through numbers and graphic transformation games. He was able to transform a “C” into his own figure or a simply ear into the conductor Arturo Toscanini.

Let´s celebrate Carusso as the greatest singer, but also as the magnificent cartoonist he was.

Bravo, Carusso!