Created as part of a project to promote the important Caruso discography collection of the ICBSA (Central Institute for Sound and Audiovisual Heritage), this anthology, taking advantage of the celebrations of the great Neapolitan tenor (2021: centenary of his death; 2023: 150th anniversary of his birth), not only pays tribute to Caruso by adding to the already copious and authoritative existing literature, but also captures his figure within the context in which he operated and in which he left an indelible mark.<\/p>\n
Through the three sections into which the volume is divided, leading experts and scholars offer a new interpretation of the character, not only and not so much as an extraordinary exponent of a new model of tenor voice and approach to dramatic gesture, but, and perhaps primarily, as a pioneer of a new and powerful relationship between voice and new technologies, between classical and popular musical traditions, and, more generally, between late 19th-century models of spectacle and the complexities (and unknowns) offered by the contemporary world, making him an interpreter and exponent of \u201cmodernity\u201d.<\/p>\n