CARUSO TELLS HIS LIFE STORY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 6 December 1906, Page 4

CARUSO TELLS HIS LIFE STORY.

Signor Caruso had a magnificent reception at the Opera House, Berlin, where he made his first appearance '"'l October gth, in "Rigoleit..." The house was packed wit.i the cite of tie capital. l ,vho had paid ecorm»u<

prices—in some cafes over £lO0 —t j hear the great tenor. The prformance was a peifect triumph for tne artist.

Signor Caru»o was good enough to tell the interesting story of hi- life lu his apartments at the Hotel de Rome. "My father," he said "was a poor man employed as a working mechanic. He had uvo my»e.f and a younger bay. 1 was a lively, noisy youngster, and filed nitfather's house with the sound of my juvenile voice from morning rill night.

"My father di-liked my noisy, lively habits. He dteired to bring me p a - , an industrious, serious man., and he did not he-itate to chastise me 'n order to train me up in the way I should go. "When I was e'even years old, I already loved singing and had a clear, contralto voice. One day the organist of the Church of St Aiioa, Naples, heard me singing, and my voice pleased the o'd musician so much that he engaged me as a member of the choir, aud paid me iod eve"y Sunday. I "I was delighted to receive this princely wage, but when I was confirmed my father attempted to compe me to abandon singing altogether ia order to become an iron and steel worker. He wished me to become a mechanic, but I ',vould not hear of it.

"Then my father gave me the choice of learning to be a mechanic or starving, and I chose to starve. I quitted the parental home and earned a few shillings per week by singing in a choir —sometimes ji this chu"ch, sometimes at that. "I had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. Sometimes I varied my ocupation as singer by woiking a*« different periods at my fathers trade. Then I was summoned '0 perform my compulsory military ser vice.

"After quitting the Army, I secured my first subordinate position at the theatre of a 6mall provincial town in Italy. Another engagement at Naples fo'lowed, after which 1 went to the Opera House, Palermo, for a salary of £4B per month. 1 ' Ca*"u-o proceeded to relate very modestly how an impresario, discovered him at Paleimo, and took him on tour throughout the principal countries of the word. The mechanic's son now earns many thousands of pounds a year. His father, natural) dnjugh, soon became reconciled to his son's choice of profession.

Caruso's early struggles left him 'u somewhat weak health and a trifle delicate. Signor Caruso 'was the rage in Berlin.

His hotel was besieged from morning till night with enthusastic admirers, mostly of the fair sex, whose metht ds of paying homage were unpleasant y gushing. Over a hundred requests for autographs reached Caruso from admiring Belgians every mornirrg. Caruso has been much in evidence io America oi late on account of his alleged amorous propensities.