Enrico Caruso

An Italian tenor whose recordings did much to establish the gramophone as a medium for opera. Born poor in Naples, he studied with Guglielmo Vergine and then Vincenzo Lombardi, and made his debut there in 1895. Milan, Buenos Aires and Rome established him. He first sang at Covent Garden in 1902 and at the Metropolitan Opera a year later, where he stayed for eighteen seasons and created Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West. He made some 250 recordings between 1902 and 1920. He sang for the last time in December 1920 and died in Naples eight months later.