Enrico Caruso - Ah, la paterna mano (from Verdi's Macbeth) 1916

Описание: There are moments here, as in certain other Caruso recordings when, some years before electrical reproduction, the still all-acoustic process sounds very close, almost eerily intimate. This wonderful recording confirms that Caruso's voice was well suited to the otherwise primitive system.

In the Great War, Macduff's "Ah, la paterna mano" from Macbeth by Verdi... Macduff is determined to avenge the deaths of his wife and children at the hands of the tyrant.
Dir Walter B. Rogers, recorded 23-02-1916 in a boxy studio nearby Camden, New Jersey, USA.

Italy entered World War One in 1915, America in 1917, sending troops to Europe. Caruso did charity work during the conflict, raising money for war-related patriotic causes by giving concerts (in Germany my video is "blocked": VERBOTEN...)

Caruso's timbre here was darkening, but not as dark as it became a few years later. The illusion of unbroken, cello-like legato is still there, due to the impeccable floating of the voice on the breath and the masterly use of upward and downward portamento, creating an effect of warmth and grandeur.

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MACDUFF

................................................each new morn
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out
Like syllable of dolour...

Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

...........................................But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

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Verdi's Macbeth was largely forgotten until the 1940s, but both Caruso and Battistini recorded excerpts: Pietà, rispetto, amore (Macbeth) - Mattia Battistini 1912:
   • Mattia Battistini as Macbeth - Pietà, risp...