ENRICO CARVSO – Una Furtiva Lacrima (1911)

“Una furtiva lacrima” had been the only really beautiful thing in Macabea’s life. Wiping away her own tears she tried to sing what she heard. But her voice was as crude and out of tune as she was. When she heard it she started to cry. It was the first time she’d ever cried, she didn’t know she had so much water in her eyes. She cried, blew her nose no longer knowing what she was crying about. She wasn’t crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she’d accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul. She knew that there were a lot of things she didn’t know how to understand. Did “aristocracy” mean an answered prayer? Probably. If that’s the way things are, that’s how they should be. The plunge into the vastness of the musical world that didn’t need to be understood. Her heart shot.

Clarie Lispector, The Hour Of The Star. Transl. by Benjamin Moser. New York: New Directions, 2011.

Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) was an Italian operatic first lyric tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made 247 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an internationally popular entertainment star.

Una furtiva lagrima Negli occhi suoi spunto’ Quelle festose giovani Invidiar sembro Che piu cercando io vo M’ama lo vedo Un solo istante i palpiti Del suo bel cor sentir Co suoi sospir confondere Per poco i miei sospir Cielo si puo’ morir Di piu’ non chiedo