ENRICO CARUSO & SURRIENTO, ‘TE VOGLIO BENE ASSAI’

Today is the 153rd birthday of Enrico Caruso, one of the best operatic tenors and one of the most universal Neapolitans. The Grandma spent two fantastic years living and studying in Napoli, an incredibly beautiful city that holds a huge place in her heart and that she visits very often.

Campania is a wonderful land, with unforgettable people who make you enjoy and value what is truly important in life: life itself.

It's not just Napoli, it's Pompeii, Ercolano, Procida, Paestum, Ischia, Capri, Mount Vesuvius, Baia, Campi Flegrei... it's opera, the weight of history, Neapolitan resilience, cuisine, football, tarantellas, San Gennaro, the Neapolitan language... and this Mediterranean Sea that united us politically centuries ago and that continues to unite us culturally nowadays.

Therefore, listening to Enrico Caruso is like closing your eyes and transporting yourself to that fighting and humane Napoli, where the motto is Vive e lassa campà (Live and let live), that is, life is short (tempus fugit), enjoy it (carpe diem) and don't bother others or judge their lives.

In 1986, Lucio Dalla wrote Caruso, a tribute to Enrico Caruso, a song and lyrics that express Neapolitan culture in all its extension.

Caruso is a song written by Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla in 1986. It is dedicated to Enrico Caruso, the Neapolitan tenor. Following Lucio Dalla's death, the song entered the Italian Singles Chart, peaking at number two for two consecutive weeks. The single was also certified platinum by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry.

The song simply tells about the pain and longings of a man who is about to die while he is looking into the eyes of a girl who was very dear to him. The lyrics contain various subtle references to people and places in Caruso's life.

Lucio Dalla told the origin and the meaning of the song in an interview to one of the main Italian newspapers, the Corriere della Sera. He stopped by the coastal town of Surriento and stayed in the Excelsior Vittoria Hotel, coincidentally in the very same room where many years earlier the tenor Enrico Caruso spent some time shortly before dying. Dalla was inspired to write the song after the owners told him about the last days of Caruso and in particular the latter's passion for one of his young female students.

Caruso was an acclaimed Italian operatic singer who was one of the greatest and most sought-after singers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unfortunately he lived a very difficult and rather unhappy life, having had many challenges and problems with Italian opera houses, but gained more fame and success in the United States.

Caruso was born to a poor family in Napoli. He was often involved with women, and had several love affairs with prominent married women in the performing arts, which often ended badly. His longest and most passionate love affair was with the married Ada Giachetti, with whom he had two sons. It ended when she left him for their chauffeur. A few years before he died, he met and wed a woman 20 years his junior, Dorothy Park Benjamin, whom Lucio Dalla describes in this song Caruso. With her he had a daughter named Gloria.

Guardò negli occhi la ragazza
Quegli occhi verdi come il mare
Poi all'improvviso uscì una lacrima
E lui credette di affogare

Sorrento is referred to as Surriento, which is the name in the Neapolitan language. It refers to Caruso's frequent visits to the seaside town and its Excelsior Vittoria Hotel.

Te voglio bene assaai
Ma tanto, tanto bene, sai
È una catena ormai
Che scioglie il sangue dint'ê vene, sai
Te voglio bene assai
Ma tanto, tanto bene, sai
È una catena ormai
Che scioglie il sangue dint'ê vene, sai

Here the "chain" is a translation, but what is meant is a chain reaction -such love melts the blood and so forth. The music and words of the above refrain, written in a mixture of standard Italian and Neapolitan, are based on a Neapolitan song, titled Dicitencello vuje, published in 1930 by Rodolfo Falvo (music) and Enzo Fusco (text) written according to the best tradition of Neapolitan romances with a style reminiscent of opera.

Lucio Dalla's official video of the song was filmed in the Caruso Suite at the Excelsior Vittoria Hotel where Caruso spent most of the final weeks of his life, though Caruso died at the Vesuvio Hotel in Napoli.

In 2015, on the occasion of the third anniversary of Dalla's passing, GoldenGate Edizioni published the biographical novel by Raffaele Lauro, Caruso The Song-Lucio Dalla and Sorrento", which through unpublished testimonies reconstructs the almost fifty-year-long bond (from 1964 to 2012) of the great artist with Surriento (Surriento is the true corner of my soul), and the authentic inspiration for his masterpiece, Caruso. The documentary film by the same author, Lucio Dalla and Sorrento-Places of the Soul, was presented in the national première in 2015 at the Social World Film Festival 2015 in Vico Equense.

Andrea Bocelli, Il Divo, HAUSER, Maynard Ferguson, Lara Fabian, Florent Pagny, Nana Mouskouri, Mireille Mathieu, Johnny Hallyday, Josh Groban, Milva, Fiorella Mannoia, Ornella Vanoni, André Hazes, Luca Minnelli, Neal Schon or Céline Dion have covered 'Caruso', but The Grandma stays with Luciano Pavarotti, although today we must pay tribute to Enrico Caruso, but also Lucio Dalla.

More information: Daily Italian Words

The fact that I could secure an opera engagement 
made me realize I had within me the making of an artist, 
if I would really labour for such an end. 
When I became thoroughly convinced of this, 

I was transformed from an amateur 

into a professional in a single day.

Enrico Caruso