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Article: Caruso set highest standards for tenors
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- August 7, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright (null) Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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In the history of opera in this century, there are two singers,
one tenor, one soprano, who truly are the stuff of which myths are
made. The soprano is Maria Callas; the tenor is Enrico Caruso.
Both had relatively short careers, and both died in middle age.
Caruso was 30 when his career took flight, 47 when he sang his last
performance. He was dead eight months later from a massive infection
that today might be cured with antibiotics.
Callas was 23 when she made her Italian debut, the real start of
her career, and 42 when she sang her final operatic performances, but
they were a sort of epilogue. She died at 53 in 1977.
When Caruso went, he was still, in our terminology, a superstar, ...