'IO PARTO, ADIO. TORNA A SURRIENTO, FAMME CAMPÀ...'

Musings of The Grandma...

There are places you visit because they are beautiful. And then there are places that somehow make you want to return before you have even left. Surriento belongs to the second category. 

Perched dramatically above the Bay of Napoli, on a coastline carved into cliffs and terraces, Surriento seems to have been designed specifically to make human beings stop walking, look at the sea and say: Wow. 

And then, almost inevitably, someone starts singing. Torna a Surriento…

Because in Surriento, it is almost impossible not to think of that famous Neapolitan song. But Sorrento is much more than a beautiful view. It is history, music, villas, gardens, cliffs, citrus trees, grand hotels, narrow roads and the Mediterranean in almost every direction. And, in my case, it is also the memory of being hit by a wave of dirty rainwater thrown at us by a luxury car. But let me start at the beginning.

Surriento occupies a spectacular position on the Surriento Peninsula, overlooking the Bay of Napoli. The geography is responsible for much of its character. The town sits on a high plateau above steep cliffs, while the coastline below drops dramatically towards the Tyrrhenian Sea. Roads wind down towards the water, often through slopes and bends that seem to have been designed to test both drivers and passengers. The reward is extraordinary.

From Surriento, the panorama opens towards the Bay of Napoli, Mount Vesuvius and the islands scattered across the horizon. It is one of those landscapes where the sea does not simply form the background. You see it between buildings, beneath terraces, beyond gardens and at the end of streets. And then there are the villas.

Some of Surriento's historic residences and hotels reveal just how long this coastline has attracted wealthy travellers, aristocrats and people looking for somewhere extraordinarily beautiful to live or spend their holidays. Surriento became an important destination during the era of the Grand Tour, when European aristocrats, artists and intellectuals travelled through Italy in search of classical culture, landscapes and inspiration. It is not difficult to understand why they stopped here.

Even today, you can look at the view and understand immediately. And then there are the lemons. Huge Surriento lemons. They seem almost ridiculously large compared with the lemons you normally find elsewhere. Citrus cultivation has been deeply connected with the landscape and economy of the Sorrento Peninsula for centuries, and the local lemon has become one of the symbols of the area. You find lemons in gardens, markets, restaurants, desserts, drinks and, of course, limoncello. Sorrento doesn't merely grow lemons. It has turned the lemon into part of its identity. And somehow, against that blue Mediterranean background, everything tastes even more intensely Mediterranean.

Among Surriento's historic hotels, the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria occupies a particularly fascinating place. The hotel was founded in 1834 and has remained in the hands of the Fiorentino family for five generations. Over its long history, it welcomed an extraordinary list of guests, including artists, politicians, royalty and musicians. One of them was Errico Caruso. The great Italian tenor stayed at the hotel, and his connection with Sorrento became part of the hotel's history. Today, the hotel even has a suite bearing his name. And this is where Surriento and music become almost inseparable. Because once you are surrounded by that landscape, it is very difficult not to understand why someone would write a song asking Surriento to come back.

Torna a Surriento means 'Come back to Sorrento'. The song was written by the brothers Ernesto and Giambattista De Curtis, and became one of the most famous songs of the Neapolitan tradition. It was subsequently performed by some of the greatest voices of the twentieth century, including Enrico Caruso.

There is a fascinating story surrounding its creation and the visit of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Zanardelli to Sorrento in 1902. The song became associated with the hope that the politician would help improve the town's infrastructure and return to enjoy its beauty. The precise history of the song's composition is more complicated than the popular legend suggests, but its connection with Surriento became permanent.

And honestly? You don't need to know any of that to understand the song. You only have to stand in Surriento. Look at the cliffs. Look at the sea. Look at Vesuvius in the distance. Listen to the voices around you. And suddenly the title makes perfect sense. Come back to Surriento. The funny thing is that Surriento doesn't really need to ask. You are already thinking about coming back.

I have visited Surriento twice. The first time, the region was experiencing a heatwave. Not the pleasant Mediterranean kind of warmth. The other kind. The kind that makes you feel as though the air itself has forgotten how to move. It was suffocating. The second time, I returned with Claire Fontaine, a friend who accompanies The Grandma on many of her travels. And Surriento had apparently decided that one weather extreme was not enough. We were hit by one of those extraordinary August thunderstorms that arrive suddenly and make you feel as if the sky is collapsing on top of you. One minute everything was fine. The next minute, the heavens opened. We had absolutely nothing to protect ourselves from the rain. No umbrellas. No raincoats. Nothing. We were walking down one of those winding roads that descend towards the sea, trying to avoid puddles and, more importantly, trying not to fall. And then we saw it. A shelter. Four metres away. We were almost saved. Almost. At precisely that moment, a high-end car came down the road. It skidded right in front of us. And the tyres sent an enormous wave of water -more than a metre high, or at least that is how it felt- straight over us. We were completely soaked. And dirty. The car stopped. For one glorious second, I thought the driver might actually apologise. Instead, he reversed. He looked at us. He laughed. And drove away. I have never forgotten that face. Or that car. Or the feeling of standing there, drenched from head to toe, looking at each other and wondering whether to laugh or commit a crime. So now, whenever I hear Torna a Surriento, there is a small part of my brain that remembers the magnificent cliffs, the Mediterranean, the lemons, the villas and the beautiful Surriento...

...and another part that remembers that idiot in the expensive car.

Perhaps this is what travelling really is. Beautiful landscapes mixed with completely ridiculous memories. And yet, I would go back tomorrow. That is the strange thing about Surriento. Even after the heatwave. Even after the thunderstorm. Even after being hit by a metre-high wall of dirty water. I would return. Tomorrow. Without hesitation. Because Surriento has something that photographs cannot quite capture. It is not only the cliffs. It is not only the villas. It is not only the gardens or the lemons. It is the feeling of being somewhere suspended between land and sea, between history and the present, between the enormous landscape of the Bay of Napoli and the tiny details of everyday Mediterranean life. It is the sound of a song that has been asking people to return for more than a century. It is the smell of citrus. The colour of the sea. The impossible roads. The gardens hanging above the cliffs. The memory of Caruso. The sound of Neapolitan voices. And, sometimes, an August storm that arrives without warning. Surriento is not perfect. Perhaps that is precisely why I love it. Because the places we remember most vividly are rarely the ones where everything went according to plan.

They are the places where something happened. Something unexpected. Something ridiculous. Something beautiful. Something that stays with you. And Surriento stayed with me. I haven't even finished writing this, and I already want to go back. Torna a Surriento. Come back to Surriento. I think I will.

More information: Errico Caruso, Neapolitan Language in Opera

Ma num mme lassà
Non darme sto tormiento
Torna a Surriento
Famme campà.

But do not leave me,
Do not cause me this torment;
Return to Sorrento,
Let me live.

 Ernesto and Giambattista De Curtis

ERRICO CARUSO, NEAPOLITAN LANGUAGE IN OPERA

Errico Caruso

Today, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Chapter 37). 

It's summer and there are some opera festivals near the beaches. The Grandma has decided to listen to some operas to remember that on a day like today, in 1921 Enrico Caruso, the greatest tenor who ever lived, died in Naples, the capital of the Campania.  

The Grandma loves opera and Errico Caruso is her favourite tenor. When she is in Naples, she likes staying at Excelsior Vittoria Hotel in Sorrento, the latest place where Errico Caruso was, in front of the Mediterranean Sea with some incredible seesights.

More information: Adjectives and Adverbs

Errico Caruso (25 February 1873-2 August 1921) was an Neapolitan operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.

Errico Caruso came from a poor but not destitute background. Born in Naples in the Via San Giovannello agli Ottocalli 7 on 25 February 1873, he was baptised the next day in the adjacent Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. Called Errico in accordance with the Neapolitan language, he would later adopt the formal Italian version of his given name, Enrico 

Errico Caruso

Caruso was the third of seven children and one of only three to survive infancy. 

Caruso's father, Marcellino, was a mechanic and foundry worker. Initially, Marcellino thought his son should adopt the same trade, and at the age of 11, the boy was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer who constructed public water fountains.

Whenever visiting Naples in future years, Caruso liked to point out a fountain that he had helped to install. Caruso later worked alongside his father at the Meuricoffre factory in Naples. 

At his mother's insistence, he also attended school for a time, receiving a basic education under the tutelage of a local priest. He learned to write in a handsome script and studied technical draftsmanship. During this period he sang in his church choir, and his voice showed enough promise for him to contemplate a possible career in music.

More information: Museo Enrico Caruso

Caruso was encouraged in his early musical ambitions by his mother, who died in 1888. To raise cash for his family, he found work as a street singer in Naples and performed at cafes and soirees. Aged 18, he used the fees he had earned by singing at an Italian resort to buy his first pair of new shoes. His progress as a paid entertainer was interrupted, however, by 45 days of compulsory military service. He completed this in 1894, resuming his voice lessons upon discharge from the army.

Errico Caruso in Il Pagliacci

On 15 March 1895 at the age of 22, Caruso made his professional stage debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples in the now-forgotten opera, L'Amico Francesco, by the amateur composer Mario Morelli. 

A string of further engagements in provincial opera houses followed, and he received instruction from the conductor and voice teacher Vincenzo Lombardi that improved his high notes and polished his style.

Money continued to be in short supply for the young Caruso. One of his first publicity photographs, taken on a visit to Sicily in 1896, depicts him wearing a bedspread draped like a toga since his sole dress shirt was away being laundered. 

At a notorious early performance in Naples, he was booed by a section of the audience because he failed to pay a claque to cheer for him. This incident hurt Caruso's pride. He never appeared again on stage in his native city, stating later that he would return only to eat spaghetti.

More information: Enrico Caruso

During the final few years of the 19th century, Caruso performed at a succession of theaters throughout Italy until in 1900 he was rewarded with a contract to sing at La Scala. His La Scala debut occurred on 26 December of that year in the part of Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème with Arturo Toscanini conducting. 

Audiences in Monte Carlo, Warsaw and Buenos Aires also heard Caruso sing during this pivotal phase of his career and, in 1899-1900, he appeared before the tsar and the Russian aristocracy at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow as part of a touring company of first-class Italian singers.

Errico Caruso in London, England

The first major operatic role that Caruso was given the responsibility of creating was Loris in Umberto Giordano's Fedora at the Teatro Lirico, Milan, on 17 November 1898. At that same theater on 6 November 1902, he created the role of Maurizio in Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur.

Caruso took part in a grand concert at La Scala in February 1901 that Toscanini organised to mark the recent death of Giuseppe Verdi. He embarked on his last series of La Scala performances in March 1902, creating along the way the principal tenor part in Germania by Alberto Franchetti.

A month later, on 11 April, he was engaged by the Gramophone & Typewriter Company to make his first group of acoustic recordings in a Milan hotel room for a fee of 100 pounds sterling. These ten discs swiftly became best-sellers. 

Among other things, they helped spread 29-year-old Caruso's fame throughout the English-speaking world. The management of London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, signed him for a season of appearances in eight different operas ranging from Verdi's Aida to Mozart's Don Giovanni. His successful debut at Covent Garden occurred on 14 May 1902, as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto. Covent Garden's highest-paid diva, the Australian soprano Nellie Melba, partnered him as Gilda. They would sing together often during the early 1900s. 

In 1903, Caruso made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The gap between his London and New York engagements had been filled by a series of performances in Italy, Portugal and South America.

Caruso purchased the Villa Bellosguardo, a palatial country house near Florence, in 1904. The villa became his retreat away from the pressures of the operatic stage and the grind of travel. Caruso's preferred address in New York City was a suite at Manhattan's Knickerbocker Hotel.

Errico Caruso in Surriento, Napoli

In addition to his regular New York engagements, Caruso gave recitals and operatic performances in a large number of cities across the United States and sang in Canada. 

He also continued to sing widely in Europe, appearing again at Covent Garden in 1904–07 and 1913–14, and undertaking a UK tour in 1909. Audiences in France, Belgium, Monaco, Austria, Hungary and Germany also heard him before the outbreak of World War I.

On 16 September 1920, Caruso concluded three days of recording sessions at Victor's Trinity Church studio in Camden, New Jersey. He recorded several discs including the Domine Deus and Crucifixus from the Petite messe solennelle by Rossini. These recordings were to be his last.

Caruso's health deteriorated further during the new year. He experienced episodes of intense pain because of the infection and underwent seven surgical procedures to drain fluid from his chest and lungs. He returned to Naples to recuperate from the most serious of the operations, during which part of a rib had been removed. While staying overnight in the Vesuvio Hotel in Naples, he took an alarming turn for the worse and was given morphine to help him sleep.

Caruso died at the hotel shortly after 9:00 a.m. local time, on 2 August 1921. He was 48. The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, opened the Royal Basilica of the Church of San Francesco di Paola for Caruso's funeral, which was attended by thousands of people. His embalmed body was preserved in a glass sarcophagus at Del Pianto Cemetery in Naples for mourners to view. In 1929, Dorothy Caruso had his remains sealed permanently in an ornate stone tomb.

More information: The New York Times

I know that I am a singer and an actor, 

yet in order to give the public 

the impression that I am neither one nor the other, 

but the real man conceived by the author, 

I have to feel and to think as the man the author had in mind.

Enrico Caruso