Tip-top Italian-style tenors have always been a scarce commodity, and for the past two decades they have been growing scarcer & scarcer. Opera impresarios count on the fingers of one hand (Gigli, Lauri-Volpi, Borgioli, Schipa . . .) the lusty high-voiced Latins still capable of raising even moderate-sized rafters on either side of the Atlantic. Since the death of Enrico Caruso (1921), tenor departments of U. S. opera-houses have shown a steady decline. Today their audiences count it a privilege to hear their "Ridi Pagliaccios" and "La donna e mobiles" sung by anything...
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