The Italian Cultural Institute of New York drew a standing-room-only crowd Thursday evening for a celebration of Enrico Caruso that was, in its own right, a testament to the enduring power of the man being honored. The program — the fourth installment in the Institute’s series presented in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s United in Sound: America at 250 festival — proved to be a richly layered evening: part scholarship, part cinema, part living archive.
The panel discussion, The Sound that Crosses the Ocean: Caruso and the Italian-American Imagery, was the intellectual heart of the night. Scholars Giuliana Muscio (Università di Padova) and Simona Frasca (Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”) traced the arc from the streets of Naples to the concert halls and tenements of New York with equal parts rigor and warmth, illuminating Caruso not merely as a singer of extraordinary gifts but as a cultural emissary whose voice carried the hopes of an entire immigrant generation.
