Would You Like A Little O Suave Fanciulla With Your Coffee?

I love how Caruso doesn’t try to compete by belting out a high note at the end which so many tenors feel obliged to do today; he drops into a perfect harmony with a note by Melba that (as amazing as it sound on this crappy 106 year old recording on a wax cylinder) was described this way by someone who heard it in real life:

“The note came floating over the auditorium of Covent Garden; it left Melba’s throat, it left Melba’s body, it left everything and came over like a star and passed us in our box, and went out into the infinite. I have never heard anything like it in my life, not from any other singer ever. It just rolled over the hall of Covent Garden. My God, how beautiful it was! ….. That note was like a ball of light. It wasn’t attached to anything at all–it was out of everything.” — Mary Garden

“My God, how beautiful” is my reaction to it now, I can not imagine what it must have sounded like then.

One Response to “Would You Like A Little O Suave Fanciulla With Your Coffee?”

1. Fausta says:

   November 2, 2013 at 10:45 am

   Beautiful!