te all the resonance
cavities.

The great thing to avoid is stiffness or discomfort of any kind in the
pose. At the same time one must have a gracious air, and while feeling
perfectly solidly poised on the feet, must make the impression of a
certain lightness and freedom from all bodily restraint.

I have not meant in these short articles to give you anything but a very
general idea of the salient points of the art of singing. After all,
each one must do the real work herself.

The road is full of discouragements and hardships, but there is always
something new and interesting to learn, and to achieve success, whether
for the public or merely for the home circle, is worth all the trouble
one can take. And so I wish you all success.

THE ART OF SINGING

By Enrico Caruso

[Illustration: ENRICO CARUSO]

The Career of Enrico Caruso

HOW A NEAPOLITAN MECHANIC'S SON BECAME THE WORLD'S GREATEST TENOR

Enrico Caruso enjoys the reputation of being the greatest tenor since
Italo Campanini. The latter was the legitimate successor of Brignoli, an
artist whose wonderful singing made his uncouth stage presence a matter
of little moment. Caruso's voice at its best recalls Brignoli to the
veteran opera habitue. It possesses something of the dead tenor's
sweetness and clarity in the upper register, but it lacks the delicacy
and artistic finish of Campanini's supreme effort, although it is vastly
more magnetic and thrill inspiring.

That Caruso is regarded as the foremost living tenor is made good by the
fact that he is the highest priced male artist in the world. Whenever
and wherever he sings multitudes flock to hear him, and no one goes away
unsatisfied. He is constantly the recipient of ovations which
demonstrate the power of his minstrelsy, and his lack of especial
physical attractiveness is no bar to the witchery of his voice.

Caruso is a Neapolitan and is now thirty-five years of age. Unlike so
many great Italian tenors, he is not of peasant parentage. His father
was a skilled mechanic who had been put in charge of the warehouses of a
large banking and importing concern. As a lad Enrico used to frequent
the docks in the vicinity of these warehouses and became an expert
swimmer at a very early age. In those halcyon days his burning ambition
was to be a sailor, and he had a profound distaste for his father's plan
to have him learn a trade.

At the age of ten he was still a care free and fun loving boy,