L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2021 L'Italo-Americano A c e n t u r y a g o this month, on t h e 2 n d o f A u g u s t 1 9 2 1 , l e g e n d a r y t e n o r E n r i c o C a r u s o died. Born and departed in Naples, his life was, how- ever, profoundly Ameri- can: performer at the Met- ropolitan Opera House – he went on stage 607 times t h e r e - - w i t n e s s o f t h e tragic San Francisco earth- quake of 1906, married to a N e w Y o r k s o c i a l i t e , Dorothy Park Benjamin, it w a s A m e r i c a t h a t m a d e him a legend. While we have had, until now, plenty of recordings to get to know better this artist, his technique and his talent, we never quite knew how it was to see and listen to him perform. Thanks to the Cineteca di Bologna, however, we c a n f i n a l l y d o i t . T h e famous Italian institution, i n c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h MoMa – The Museum of Modern Art of New York, B F I ( B r i t i s h F i l m I n s t i t u t e ) N a t i o n a l A r c h i v e a n d Gosfil'mofond (Russia's s t a t e f i l m a r c h i v e ) , restored the only surviving movie – of the two he had s h o t i n h i s c a r e e r - - o f C a r u s o ' s , M y C o u s i n (1918). The project, carried out at the Immagine Ritrovata studios, developed thanks to the analysis, digitaliza- t i o n a n d c o m p a r i s o n o f five elements from MoMA, B F I N a t i o n a l A r c h i v e , Gosfil'mofond and E Y E F i l m m u s e u m (Amsterdam), which were a p p l i e d t o a n e g a t i v e d u p l i c a t e o f t h e m o v i e from MoMA, created from a n o r i g i n a l n i t r a t e c o p y k e p t a t t h e S v e n s k a Filminstitutet (Sweden). I t s t i t l e c a r d s w e r e i n S w e d i s h , b u t o n e o f t h e five reels still came with the original English ones: from them, interestingly, it emerged My Cousin relied broadly on the Italian- American slang of the time. Produced in 1918, in My Cousin Caruso plays the d o u b l e r o l e o f a n o p e r a s t a r ( C a r o l i ) a n d o f a n Italian cousin of his, who migrated to the US, poor artist Tommasso Longo. Tommasso is in love with R o s a ( p l a y e d b y B o s t o n born actress and soprano C a r o l i n a W h i t e ) , w h o worked as a cashier in her father's restaurant. Rosa loves Longo, however, she also shows an interest in m o r e a f f l u e n t R o b e r t o Lombardi (Henry Leone), who derides Tommasso's claims of being related to f a m o u s C a r o l i . O n e evening, after performing at the Metropolitan Opera H o u s e , C a r o l i d i n e s a t V e n t u r a ' s r e s t a u r a n t , where she and Tommasso a r e a l s o h a v i n g d i n n e r : unfortunately, though, he fails to recognize Longo as a relative, which causes Rosa to dump him imme- diately, thinking he lied to her. As you'd expect in a traditional early 20 th cen- t u r y r o m a n c e , a f t e r a s e r i e s o f m i s a d v e n t u r e s Caroli eventually finds out about his family relation with Longo and befriends him; Rosa, realizing she hasn't been deceived by h e r b e l o v e d , r e t u r n s t o him. I t i s i n t h e s e q u e n c e where Caruso performs at t h e M e t - - h i s s e c o n d home in real life – giving a r e n d i t i o n o f V e s t i l a Giubba, better known as Ridi, Pagliaccio, from Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, that, thanks t o a n a c c u r a t e a n d p a i n s t a k i n g w o r k o f restoration and synchro- nization, Caruso can today be seen and heard singing, for the first time in a cen- tury. This restored version of M y C o u s i n d e b u t e d t h e p a s t 2 4 t h o f J u l y a t LunettArena, with a sec- ond soirée the following d a y , o n t h e 2 5 t h , a t t h e Teatro Arena del Sole in Bologna, with all other musical sequences of the m o v i e a c c o m p a n i e d b y D a n i e l e F u r l a t i ( p i a n o ) , François Laurent (man- d o l i n ) a n d G u i d o S o d o (voice and mandolin), all experts in silent movies' music. Originally, My Cousin was set to be released on the 20 th of October 1918, after an extensive adver- t i s e m e n t c a m p a i g n . H o w e v e r , r e l e a s e w a s d e l a y e d t o t h e 1 7 t h o f November because of the ongoing Spanish flu pan- demic: interesting to note how, one hundred years later, the same film was to witness, upon its release, another pandemic, that of Covid-19. As well explained on the Cineteca di Bologna's website (www.cinetecadi- bologna.it), which carried o u t r e s e a r c h o n c o e v a l s o u r c e s i n c l u d i n g p r e s s releases, newspaper arti- c l e s a n d p r o m o t i o n a l materials, the movie's gen- esis was complex, with a n u m b e r o f s c e n e s b e i n g d e l e t e d , a n d c h a r a c t e r s being added or removed f r o m t h e p l o t . I t a l s o a p p e a r s t h a t C a r u s o , i n spite of being immensely popular worldwide, did not participate to the movie's p r o m o t i o n a l c a m p a i g n , perhaps one of the reasons w h y M y C o u s i n d i d n o t e n j o y t h e s u c c e s s m o s t e x p e c t e d i t t o h a v e : i n truth, its distribution was very limited both in the US and abroad. It was an omen: shortly after, Caruso was on set a g a i n f o r T h e S p l e n d i d Romance, another film on c o n t r a c t f o r F a m o u s P l a y e r s - L a s k y Productions, but this, too, was a flop. Unfortunately, w e ' l l n e v e r k n o w w h a t Caruso sang and how he acted in his second – and last – cinematic effort, as no copy of it survives. I n t h e n e w l y r e s t o r e d My Cousin, the magic of Caruso is brought to us in an entirely new way, one that is at once the most natural and the most unex- pected, as we would have n e v e r i m a g i n e d t o , o n e day, see and listen to him perform, just like one hun- dred years never passed. GIULIA FRANCESCHINI A c e n t u r y o l d m o v i e b r i n g s Enrico Caruso back LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE Enrico Caruso in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci (Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons license. Author: Aimé Dupont Studio/US Library of Congress. License: Public Domain)

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