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When Caruso sang in La Juive in December 1920, no one knew he was giving his farewell performance. He became fatally ill with pleurisy immediately afterward and Scotti nursed him. leaving him only when he had to sing at the Opera House, returning to him often with his make-up still on. When he sails for Naples Scotti will carry by hand Caruso's photograph and the little bronze head. In Naples, where Caruso is buried. Scotti will pass the rest of his life, simply, now that the stockmarket crash has taken most of his earnings. But he will not write his memoirs. Above all, he will not teach. "I have heard too many great singers." he said last week. "I would be too critical."
Tenor's Tonsillectomy
Singing at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House leaves many a tenor with a swollen head but Tenor Tito Schipa who lately finished his first season there was left with swollen tonsils. He sped to Los Angeles where last week Surgeon Edward Russell Kellogg proceeded to remove them, to adjust, as he said. Tenor Schipa's "epiglottal space." Six weeks will pass before the operation's results will be known but then Dr. Kellogg hopes that Schipa will find the range of his voice higher by two or four notes.
Torchsinger Libby Holman's tonsillectomy had opposite results. Her voice became lower, huskier, made her Broadway's overnight rage. Tampering with singers' throats is always dangerous. If Tito Schipa's voice should drop like Torch-singer Holman's, he might have to renounce his romantic tenor roles, become a villainous baritone.
*One of the many women whose names have been linked with Scotti's. Others were Sopranos Lillian Nordica, Emma Eames. Geraldine Farrar, Anna Fitziu. Actress Charlotte Ives and Mary Leavy, New York heiress who married a Spanish erandee. Undomestic Scotti was not the marrying kind.