The Complete Caruso

I have been collecting Caruso performance since 1960- of course they were on vinyl- I even had some 78's. I think the 78 and vinyl records produced a warmer tone, but it is a delight to have the Master's performances in one place. My vinyls are worn to shreds. Except for the lighter and bel canto roles, Caruso is supreme in the Italian and some of the French repetoire. Last night I listened to the Quartet from Martha for the first time in many years. Caruso sings about a 20 second phrase beginning "DormiPur" which had me in tears as it had in the past. The ease of Caruso cadenzas in "La donna e Mobile" and "Una Furtiva Lagrima" put most tenors with a 1/4 of Caruso's vocal weight and size to shame. There are no American/Swedish or any other hyphenated Carusos. He was unique and I am a Bjoerling freak. I find itodd that a previous reviwer mentioned Mario Lanza favorably with Caruso. Lanza rarely performed on an opera stage. On recording his voice seems large but his singing is amateurish. He squeezes, forces, barks and croons. At times one can hear a pretty sound but I do not consider him a major opera singer. Rudolf Bing's comment that people who heard Richard Tucker were just as lucky as those who heard Caruso is silly. Tucker was excellent but NOT Caruso. Lauritz Melchior, in the heavy German repetoire and to my mind Otello, is as unique and uncomparable as Caruso is in the Italian and French repetoire.

I adore E. Caruso. I have most of his cd's and I have been listening to him and his music, since I was very, very young. My only issue with these cd's is that they were all filthy and dusty. None of them would play, until they were carefully cleaned. I had to virtually wash each cd and then dry them with a super clean, soft cloth, so carefully. One cd, had a stain on it, that would not come off. It plays, ok, but not great. I wrote to the seller, they had no replacement set and it is also out of print.The seller, had very little concern for the state of the cd's and nothing was ever offered to fix the issues. I did not return these cds, because the whole set is out of print and hard to find. I knew that they were not a new set, but it would have been nice if some semblance of a good will gesture was made. I do not remember who the seller was, now at this point..but I would not buy from them again. Something should have been done for me.....Nothing ever was.The cd's play now, but only due to my very careful cleaning and drying of each one.

The deffect that some previous reviewers were so mad about did not happen to my set. After purchasing it for two years and listening to the disks every other day, they are still shiny and beautiful like new. You can't use the word "EVERY" so cavelierly, because you have not listened to EVERY set.

I recently bought the RCA Complete Caruso set. The first thing I did was perform A-B comparative listenings with two earlier Caruso LPs on RCA, "The Voice of the Century" and "The Tenor of the Century". I won't dwell on the subjective issue of sound quality. Some may prefer the cleaned up, more natural sound of the CD set; some may prefer that a 78 recording sound like a good, ol' 78. I often felt, switching from vinyl to CD, how dead the CD sounded in comparison. (Then again, I always felt that way when playing a cassette and switching Dolby on.)But the Complete Caruso CD set is wholly deserving of a minimum star rating for one completely inexcusable defect: speed. With the exception of perhaps 2 songs from the two record albums (about 28 songs total), the CD tracks are SLOW! Some are slightly slow, most are dreadfully slow, maybe 4 to 8 seconds longer over the course of 2.5 to 4 minutes. The drop down in pitch switching to the CD version will hit you over the head. No, the LPs are not fast; one of them discusses the lengths they went to to get the speeds correct. I have no idea what the explanation is; if BMG were merely "careless", we'd have as many sped up tracks as slowed down ones. I didn't find any tracks noticeably sped up.You can observe this phenomenon yourself without fooling with vinyl; play an early recording of "O Lola" on the set, and then Caruso's last version. The drag is excruciating.So, I hate to ruin everybody's fun with the CD set, but if Caruso sounds to you even more "baritonal" than he is generally noted for, it's because BMG slowed down most of the tracks.

I purchased this set when it first came out, and play it about every three years or so. Every positive thing your reviewers say is true about the content. The problem is that there must have been something very wrong with quality control at RCA. Each time I take these CD's out, unlike any other CD I have in my collection, I find that all by themselves, the CD's have become very dirty and unplayable. I am forced to clean off a mysterious film which appears on each CD and makes it almost opaque. My CD players will not read through this mysterious film. After having the set for only a year, I was forced to send one of the CD's back when this problem made it unplayable. I wish I had sent the entire set back to RCA. I only wish there was something that could be done now. Each time I take the set out to play it, I have the anxiety that the CD's will not be in playable condition. I have about 2000 other CD's and this has never happened with any of them. What gives?

THIS IS MUST HAVE FOR ANYONE WHO CHERISHES TRULY GREAT SINGING. AFTER LISTENING TO THIS SET YOU WILL TRULY SEE WHY CARUSO IS CONSIDERED THE GREATEST SINGER (NOT JUST TENOR) OF ALL TIME. EVEN THE GREAT PAVAROTTI HAS SAID THAT THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANOTHER VOICE LIKE CARUSO'S (INCLUDING HIS OWN).

I think this is a priceless set and I was very happy when I finally bought it.However I noticed just one omission.I could not find the 1913 recording of " Deh!non parlare al misero" which originally appeared on Victor 89058.It is an aria from "Rigoletto",act 1,scene 2.G.Farrar is dueting with Caruso.

Sehr glücklich diese Collection von Caruso gefunden zu haben!