The Great Caruso
Encyclopedia
The Great Caruso is a 1951 biographical film
made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
. It was directed by Richard Thorpe
and produced by Joe Pasternak
with Jesse L. Lasky
as associate producer from a screenplay
by Sonya Levien
and William Ludwig
. The original music was by Johnny Green
and the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg
. Costume design was by Helen Rose
and Gile Steele
.
The film is a highly fictionalized biography of the life of tenor
Enrico Caruso and stars Mario Lanza
as Caruso and Ann Blyth
as his wife Dorothy, with Richard Hageman
, Carl Benton Reid
, Eduard Franz
, Ludwig Donath
and Nestor Paiva
. It also features a large number of Metropolitan Opera
stars, notably sopranos Dorothy Kirsten
, Teresa Celli, Lucine Amara
, Marina Koshetz and Jarmila Novotná
, mezzo-soprano Blanche Thebom
, baritone Giuseppe Valdengo
and bass Nicola Moscona
. A couple of the duets Lanza sang for the film's soundtrack were recorded with soprano Elaine Malbin
.
wrote that, "Lanza brings to the role not only a fine, natural and remarkably powerful voice, but a physique and personal mannerisms reminiscent of the immortal Caruso."
A tie-in record album, also called "The Great Caruso" was issued by RCA Victor on the 45, 78 RPM and LP formats. It featured several opera arias sung by Lanza in the film and sold millions of copies. It remained available for decades after its original 1951 release and was reissued by RCA Victor on compact disc
in 1989.
The film has also been cited by tenors Plácido Domingo
and José Carreras
as having been an inspiration for them when they were growing up.
Nearly 40 years later, Caruso's own son, Enrico Jr. reminisced that, "Vocally and musically The Great Caruso is a thrilling motion picture, and it has helped many young people discover opera and even become singers themselves." He added that, "I can think of no other tenor, before or since Mario Lanza, who could have risen with comparable success to the challenge of playing Caruso in a screen biography."
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
. It was directed by Richard Thorpe
Richard Thorpe
Richard Thorpe was an American film director.Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred...
and produced by Joe Pasternak
Joe Pasternak
thumb|right|250px|Pasterrnak receiving his star on [[Hollywood Boulevard]] from [[Johnny Grant |Johnny Grant]] with [[Gene Kelly]] on the left on July 29, 1991....
with Jesse L. Lasky
Jesse L. Lasky
Jesse Louis Lasky, Sr. was a pioneer Hollywood film producer. He was a key founder of Paramount Pictures with Adolph Zukor, and father of screenwriter Jesse L...
as associate producer from a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Sonya Levien
Sonya Levien
Sonya Levien was a Russian screenwriter. She wrote for 72 films between 1921 and 1962. She won the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay in 1955 for the film Interrupted Melody....
and William Ludwig
William Ludwig
William Ludwig was a screenwriter. He won, with Sonya Levien, an Oscar for "Best Writing, Story and Screenplay" in 1956 for Interrupted Melody. Other notable works include the screenplay for the 1955 production of Oklahoma!.-External links:...
. The original music was by Johnny Green
Johnny Green
Johnny Green was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, and conductor. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger. His most famous song was one of his earliest, "Body and Soul"...
and the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg
Joseph Ruttenberg
Joseph Ruttenberg, A.S.C. was a photojournalist and cinematographer.Ruttenberg was accomplished winning accolades. At MGM, Ruttenberg was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography ten times, winning four. In addition, he won the 1954 Golden Globe Award for his camera work on the...
. Costume design was by Helen Rose
Helen Rose
Helen Rose was an American costume designer and clothing designer who spent the bulk of her career with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-Career:...
and Gile Steele
Gile Steele
Gile Steele, born in Ohio on 24 September 1908 and died in Culver City, California 16 January 1952, was a Hollywood costume designer. His career began at MGM in 1938 with one of his first assignments being the Norma Shearer film Marie Antoinette...
.
The film is a highly fictionalized biography of the life of tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Enrico Caruso and stars Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....
as Caruso and Ann Blyth
Ann Blyth
Ann Marie Blyth is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Life and career:Blyth was born in Mount Kisco,...
as his wife Dorothy, with Richard Hageman
Richard Hageman
Richard Hageman was a Dutch-born American conductor, pianist, composer, and actor.- Biography :...
, Carl Benton Reid
Carl Benton Reid
Carl Benton Reid was an American actor. He achieved fame on the Broadway stage in 1939 as Oscar Hubbard, one of Regina Giddens's greedy, devious brothers in the play The Little Foxes, and made his film debut reprising his role opposite Bette Davis in the 1941 film version...
, Eduard Franz
Eduard Franz
Eduard Franz , born Eduard Franz Schmidt, was an American actor of theater, film, and television. Franz portrayed King Ahab in the 1953 biblical low-budget film Sins of Jezebel, Jethro in Cecil B...
, Ludwig Donath
Ludwig Donath
Ludwig Donath , was an Austrian actor who appeared in many American films.-Life:Donath graduated from Vienna's Academy of Dramatic Art and became a prominent actor on the stage in Berlin. When Hitler came to power in 1933, he returned to Vienna and was active there in theater and film and until the...
and Nestor Paiva
Nestor Paiva
Nestor Paiva was an American actor of Portuguese descent who portrayed the innkeeper on Walt Disney's live-action television series Zorro by ABC and its feature film The Sign of Zorro which was shot in Burbank's Walt Disney Studios.-Career:Nestor appeared in motion pictures and television shows...
. It also features a large number of Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
stars, notably sopranos Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten was an American operatic soprano.-Biography:...
, Teresa Celli, Lucine Amara
Lucine Amara
Lucine Amara is an American soprano who was largely based at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.-Biography:Amara was born Lucine Armaganian in Hartford, Connecticut, of Armenian heritage, before moving to San Francisco where she was raised.She studied at the San Francisco's Community Music School...
, Marina Koshetz and Jarmila Novotná
Jarmila Novotná
Jarmila Novotná was a celebrated Czech soprano and actress and, from 1940 to 1956, a star of the Metropolitan Opera.-Early career:...
, mezzo-soprano Blanche Thebom
Blanche Thebom
Blanche Thebom was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. She was part of the first wave of American opera singers that had highly successful international careers. In her own country she had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City which...
, baritone Giuseppe Valdengo
Giuseppe Valdengo
Giuseppe Valdengo was an Italian operatic baritone. Opera News said that, "Although his timbre lacked the innate beauty of some of his baritone contemporaries, Valdengo's performances were invariably satisfying — bold and assured in attack but scrupulously musical."-Biography:Valdengo first...
and bass Nicola Moscona
Nicola Moscona
Nicolai Moscona was a Greek operatic bass. Born in Athens, he made his stage debut in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Greek National Opera in 1931 and went on to sing leading basso cantante roles both in Europe and United States...
. A couple of the duets Lanza sang for the film's soundtrack were recorded with soprano Elaine Malbin
Elaine Malbin
Elaine Malbin is an American soprano who had a prolific international career singing in operas, musicals, and concerts from 1949 through 1967. She appeared in a number of Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s...
.
Factual discrepancies
The film, while following the basic facts of Caruso's life, was largely fictional. The Caruso family successfully sued MGM for damages because of this. Here are a few of the many factual discrepancies:- Early in the film, Caruso is shown singing the minor role of Spoletta in Puccini's opera ToscaToscaTosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
. When Tosca premiered in 1900, Caruso was already a rising opera star and was considered by Puccini himself for the starring tenor role of Cavaradossi, though the part was given to Emilio De Marchi. Caruso, however, did sing the role shortly after the premiere and Puccini stated that he had never heard the part better sung.
- In real life, Caruso met Dorothy Park Benjamin, his future wife in 1917. In the film, he meets her at the time of his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1903.
- In the film Caruso seems to die after a throat hemorrhage onstage during a Metropolitan Opera performance of MarthaMartha (opera)Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond is a 'romantic comic' opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow, set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges....
. Caruso did suffer from a throat ailment and suffered a hemorrhage during a Metropolitan performance of L'elisir d'amoreL'elisir d'amoreL'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
in Brooklyn on December 11, 1920, causing the performance to be cancelled. His last performance was in La JuiveLa JuiveLa Juive is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on February 23, 1835.-Composition history:...
at the Met on December 24, 1920. He died on August 2, 1921 in Naples of peritonitis following months of illness and several surgical procedures.
Reaction
The Great Caruso was an enormous commercial success, largely on the strength of Mario Lanza's performance. NewsweekNewsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote that, "Lanza brings to the role not only a fine, natural and remarkably powerful voice, but a physique and personal mannerisms reminiscent of the immortal Caruso."
A tie-in record album, also called "The Great Caruso" was issued by RCA Victor on the 45, 78 RPM and LP formats. It featured several opera arias sung by Lanza in the film and sold millions of copies. It remained available for decades after its original 1951 release and was reissued by RCA Victor on compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
in 1989.
The film has also been cited by tenors Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
and José Carreras
José Carreras
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...
as having been an inspiration for them when they were growing up.
Nearly 40 years later, Caruso's own son, Enrico Jr. reminisced that, "Vocally and musically The Great Caruso is a thrilling motion picture, and it has helped many young people discover opera and even become singers themselves." He added that, "I can think of no other tenor, before or since Mario Lanza, who could have risen with comparable success to the challenge of playing Caruso in a screen biography."
Awards
The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning for Best Sound.- Costume Design (Color)
- Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture)
- Sound Recording (Douglas ShearerDouglas ShearerDouglas G. Shearer was a Canadian-born pioneer sound designer and recording director who played a key role in the advancement of sound technology for motion pictures.-Early life and career:...
)
External links
- The Great Caruso. By Loew's, Inc. - US Copyright renewal record