Episode Details

Enrico Caruso fled the 1906 San Francisco earthquake clutching an autographed photo of Theodore Roosevelt, stopped for bacon and eggs, and used the photo as identification to board a train out. This episode traces the Naples-born tenor from his apprenticeship building public water fountains at age eleven to his rise as arguably the world's first global media celebrity. We also examine the family myth that he was the 18th of 21 children, when genealogical research shows he was the third of seven.

We cover the brutal reception in Naples in December 1901 that led him to vow never to sing there again, his 1902 gamble recording ten tracks for the Gramophone Company when serious artists dismissed the phonograph as a toy, and his arrival at the Metropolitan Opera in 1903. We follow the suspicious 1906 Central Park Zoo arrest, the Black Hand extortion demands and the undercover sting run by detective Joseph Petrosino, and his final months: a falling pillar on stage in December 1920, coughing blood mid-performance, seven surgeries, and his death in Naples on August 2, 1921 at age 48.

• Why acoustic recording with a metal horn could not capture subtle voices but suited Caruso's power
• How his royalties reached over $2 million between 1902 and 1921
• Why his loyal Italian immigrant fan base kept his popularity intact after the zoo scandal
• His seven-performances-a-week schedule, heavy smoking, and the shift to dramatic tenor roles
• The glass sarcophagus that displayed his body until his widow had it sealed in 1929