Enrico Caruso "The Coat Song" sings Bass "Voices That Live" 1949 original mailer

$

55

Special recording of Caruso's 1916 performance as a Bass (instead of tenor) in October 1949

Label reads

RCA Victor

issued exclusivey for "Voices That Live" with Wally Butterworth

Boheme-Vecchia Zimarra (The Coat Song) - (Puccini)

Enrico Caruso

The word Tenor is "X'd" out and BASS is added

with Orchestra in Italian

comes with the original mailing jacket (with cancelled postage stamps - imagine 12 cents to mail)

The "B" side is an interview with Frances Alda "Why Caruso recorded the Coat Song"

Excellent condition.  I haven't played it, but it is flat (not warped), has been kept in its mailer.  No visible scratches. Mailer has some wear on edges.  From an estate of some one I've known for years.  She was a collector and took excellent care of her treasures.

Thanks for looking.

California buyers will be responsible for state sales tax which will be calculated at checkout.

From Time Magazine US Oct 3, 1949:  Music: A Night at the Opera

"One wintry January afternoon in 1916, the Metropolitan Opera's Enrico Caruso, Frances Alda, Antonio Scotti and Andres de Segurola bundled into a train for one of their weekly performances in Philadelphia. For the top performers in the Met's golden age it was a routine trip, but one they always made the most of. This time, the party sipped champagne.

When the curtain went up on LaBohème that night in Philadelphia's Academy of Music, Tenor Caruso & Co. found that wintry weather had cut their audience to fewer than 200. So they decided to do La Bohème up a little differently.

All four—even Soprano Alda—aped Basso Segurola by wearing monocles.When Segurola put on his top hat, he was showered with white dust: Caruso had thoughtfully poured flour into it. Baritone Scotti squirted seltzer water in Alda's face. Instead of nibbling at stage fare in the cafe scene of Act II, they sat down with relish to a chicken dinner—and more champagne —ordered in from an Italian restaurant.

But the most memorable moment was one that few listeners were aware of. In the last act, with Mimi a-dying, Segurola (known mainly to a later generation as Deanna Durbin's teacher) suddenly turned to Caruso and whispered hoarsely that he could not manage his final aria, the "Coat Song." Grated the basso: "I've lost my voice."

As Madame Alda (now 66) recalls it, Caruso said, "Non fa niènte. You just stand still and move your lips and I'll sing it for you." With his back to the audience, he did just that. Says Alda: "I felt like sitting up in my bed and joining in the applause."

This week, on CBS's We the People program, U.S. music-lovers were to hear for the first time how the great tenor sounded as a great basso. For, pleased with his prank, Caruso had made a recording a few weeks later. Only six prints had been run off and Caruso had ordered the master copy destroyed. Said he: "I don't want to spoil the bass business." But one of the prints had been preserved by Dr. Mario Marafioti, onetime Met physician and friend of Caruso, and Narrator Wally (Voices That Live) Butterworth had persuaded him to let a new master be cut from his copy. He also persuaded Madame Alda to tell her story on the other side.

After its unveiling on the air, those who doubted their ears could buy the record themselves (from Butterworth, for $3) and listen again."

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