RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL, THE SHOWPLACE OF THE NATION

Today, The Grandma has been listening to the radio. She loves the power of it, and she has been reading about the birth of public radio broadcasting in New York City.

The birth of public radio broadcasting is credited to Lee de Forest who transmitted the world's first public broadcast in New York City on January 13, 1910.

This broadcast featured the voices of Enrico Caruso and other Metropolitan Opera stars. Members of the public and the press used earphones to listen to the broadcast in several locations throughout the city. This marked the beginning of what would become nearly universal wireless radio communication.

A 1907 advertisement placed by Lee de Forest's Radio Telephone Company stated: It will soon be possible to distribute grand opera music from transmitters placed on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House by a Radio Telephone station on the roof to almost any dwelling in Greater New York and vicinity ... The same applies to large cities. Church music and lectures can be spread abroad by the Radio Telephone.

Several years later, on January 13, 1910, the first public radio broadcast was an experimental transmission of a live Metropolitan Opera House performance by several famous opera singers. This transmission was arranged by de Forest. This event is regarded as the birth of public radio broadcasting.

The wireless radio broadcast consisted of performances of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. Riccardo Martin performed as Turridu, Emmy Destinn as Santuzza, and Enrico Caruso as Canio. The conductor was Egisto Tango.

More information: Smithsonian Magazine

The New York Times reported on January 14, 1910: Opera broadcast in part from the stage of the New York City Metropolitan Opera Company was heard on January 13, 1910, when Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn sang arias from Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci, which were "trapped and magnified by the dictograph directly from the stage and borne by wireless Hertzian waves over the turbulent waters of the sea to transcontinental and coastwise ships and over the mountainous peaks and undulating valleys of the country. The microphone was connected by telephone wire to the laboratory of Dr. Lee de Forest.

The few radio receivers able to pick up this first-ever outside broadcast were those at the De Forest Radio Laboratory, on board ships in New York Harbor, in large hotels on Times Square and at New York City locations where members of the press were stationed at receiving sets.

Public receivers with earphones had been set up in several well-advertised locations throughout New York City. There were members of the press stationed at various receiving sets throughout the city and the public was invited to listen to the broadcast.

The experiment was considered mostly unsuccessful. The microphones of the day were of poor quality and could not pick up most of the singing on stage. Only off-stage singers singing directly into a microphone could be heard clearly. The New York Times reported the next day that static and interference kept the homeless song waves from finding themselves.

De Forest's Radio Telephone Company manufactured and sold the first commercial radios in the demonstration room at the Metropolitan Life Tower in New York City for this public event. The wireless transmitter had 500 watts of power. It is reported that this broadcast was heard 20.1 km away on a ship at sea. The broadcast was also heard 97 km away in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

More information: National Today

The birth of public radio broadcasting had an immediate impact on radio broadcasting as it stimulated the idea of having additional musical programs. The next month on February 24th the Manhattan Opera Company's new opera singer Mariette Mazarin sang Love is a rebellious bird from Carmen over a transmitter located in DeForest's laboratory. This radio concert was heard by a group of scientists, diplomats, newspaper reporters and the public within 32 km.

The New Jersey Telephone Herald did evening musical shows after their regular daily newscasts starting on March 15, 1911. The various musical programs consisted of instrumental music from a regular orchestra in attendance, individual recitals, and group singers. In addition they had theatrical performances, opera and organ playing at their new location on the second floor of the Essex Building in Newark, New Jersey.

DeForest in 1912 put together an amplifying technology from his 1906 Audion vacuum tube invention. He figured out how to take a weak signal and increase it many times (amplification) through a feedback circuit.

He had learned through experimentation that his Audion would increase the strength of a weak signal to some degree if a small wire mesh was placed inside the vacuum tube between the heated electron emitting element at the bottom of the tube and the pick up plate on top that had a high voltage opposite charge. He took this electronic idea one step further by taking part of that amplified electrical signal and sending it back through the Audion again. That increased the signal strength even further. That idea was further developed by Edwin Armstrong and Alexander Meissner and the technology of the vacuum tube feedback oscillator was perfected in 1912 by them.

This continuous feedback loop idea became a source of continuous waves through repeated feedback and amplification over and over again. The continuous waves of a particular frequency could be altered to a small degree by another signal introduced into it. This is called amplitude modulation. This was further advanced to the idea of having very high frequency continuous waves tens-of-thousands of cycles-per-second (kHz) modulated (slightly altered) with another signal from a microphone. From that concept developed the amplitude modulated transmitter, which lead to AM radio broadcast entertainment.

More information: Current

TV gives everyone an image,

but radio gives birth to

a million images in a million brains.

Peggy Noonan

1910, THE BIRTH OF PUBLIC RADIO BROADCASTING IN NYC

Today, The Grandma has been listening to the radio. She loves the power of it, and she has been reading about the birth of public radio broadcasting in New York City, on a day like today in 1910.

The birth of public radio broadcasting is credited to Lee de Forest who transmitted the world's first public broadcast in New York City on January 13, 1910.

This broadcast featured the voices of Enrico Caruso and other Metropolitan Opera stars. Members of the public and the press used earphones to listen to the broadcast in several locations throughout the city. This marked the beginning of what would become nearly universal wireless radio communication.

A 1907 advertisement placed by Lee de Forest's Radio Telephone Company stated: It will soon be possible to distribute grand opera music from transmitters placed on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House by a Radio Telephone station on the roof to almost any dwelling in Greater New York and vicinity ... The same applies to large cities. Church music and lectures can be spread abroad by the Radio Telephone.

Several years later, on January 13, 1910, the first public radio broadcast was an experimental transmission of a live Metropolitan Opera House performance by several famous opera singers. This transmission was arranged by de Forest. This event is regarded as the birth of public radio broadcasting.

The wireless radio broadcast consisted of performances of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. Riccardo Martin performed as Turridu, Emmy Destinn as Santuzza, and Enrico Caruso as Canio. The conductor was Egisto Tango.

More information: Smithsonian Magazine

The New York Times reported on January 14, 1910: Opera broadcast in part from the stage of the New York City Metropolitan Opera Company was heard on January 13, 1910, when Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn sang arias from Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci, which were "trapped and magnified by the dictograph directly from the stage and borne by wireless Hertzian waves over the turbulent waters of the sea to transcontinental and coastwise ships and over the mountainous peaks and undulating valleys of the country. The microphone was connected by telephone wire to the laboratory of Dr. Lee de Forest.

The few radio receivers able to pick up this first-ever outside broadcast were those at the De Forest Radio Laboratory, on board ships in New York Harbor, in large hotels on Times Square and at New York City locations where members of the press were stationed at receiving sets.

Public receivers with earphones had been set up in several well-advertised locations throughout New York City. There were members of the press stationed at various receiving sets throughout the city and the public was invited to listen to the broadcast.

The experiment was considered mostly unsuccessful. The microphones of the day were of poor quality and could not pick up most of the singing on stage. Only off-stage singers singing directly into a microphone could be heard clearly. The New York Times reported the next day that static and interference kept the homeless song waves from finding themselves.

De Forest's Radio Telephone Company manufactured and sold the first commercial radios in the demonstration room at the Metropolitan Life Tower in New York City for this public event. The wireless transmitter had 500 watts of power. It is reported that this broadcast was heard 20.1 km away on a ship at sea. The broadcast was also heard 97 km away in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

More information: National Today

The birth of public radio broadcasting had an immediate impact on radio broadcasting as it stimulated the idea of having additional musical programs. The next month on February 24th the Manhattan Opera Company's new opera singer Mariette Mazarin sang Love is a rebellious bird from Carmen over a transmitter located in DeForest's laboratory. This radio concert was heard by a group of scientists, diplomats, newspaper reporters and the public within 32 km.

The New Jersey Telephone Herald did evening musical shows after their regular daily newscasts starting on March 15, 1911. The various musical programs consisted of instrumental music from a regular orchestra in attendance, individual recitals, and group singers. In addition they had theatrical performances, opera and organ playing at their new location on the second floor of the Essex Building in Newark, New Jersey.

DeForest in 1912 put together an amplifying technology from his 1906 Audion vacuum tube invention. He figured out how to take a weak signal and increase it many times (amplification) through a feedback circuit.

He had learned through experimentation that his Audion would increase the strength of a weak signal to some degree if a small wire mesh was placed inside the vacuum tube between the heated electron emitting element at the bottom of the tube and the pick up plate on top that had a high voltage opposite charge. He took this electronic idea one step further by taking part of that amplified electrical signal and sending it back through the Audion again. That increased the signal strength even further. That idea was further developed by Edwin Armstrong and Alexander Meissner and the technology of the vacuum tube feedback oscillator was perfected in 1912 by them.

This continuous feedback loop idea became a source of continuous waves through repeated feedback and amplification over and over again. The continuous waves of a particular frequency could be altered to a small degree by another signal introduced into it. This is called amplitude modulation. This was further advanced to the idea of having very high frequency continuous waves tens-of-thousands of cycles-per-second (kHz) modulated (slightly altered) with another signal from a microphone. From that concept developed the amplitude modulated transmitter, which lead to AM radio broadcast entertainment.

More information: Current

TV gives everyone an image,

but radio gives birth to

a million images in a million brains.

Peggy Noonan

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