The Writer's Almanac Daily Newsletter
Today: "Becoming Bostonian" by Lawrence Kessenich
Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016
Becoming Bostonian
by Lawrence Kessenich
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I hear the music of seven languages
on a four-block stretch of Harvard Square,
see the copper glow of the Hancock
Tower at sunset, feel the familiar
bump of cobblestones under my feet.
Mark Twain said people in New York ask
"How much is he worth?" while Bostonians
ask "How much does he know?" That burning
desire to discover keeps the city humming,
yet weâre grounded in history, too,
still treading on sidewalks made of
baked clay. I stand
one night on Beacon Hill, gaze up at the
few stars city lights allow to shine,
feel myself stretched between past and future
the pull of the earth on which
our forefathers stood, the pull of the moon,
which they could not have dreamed their descendants
would visit. Or perhaps they did.
One historian reports that
"there were books on Beacon Hill while wolves
still howled from the summit." Perhaps some
Englishman closed his book one night and stood
where I stand, dreaming of what weâve become.
"Becoming Bostonian" by Lawrence Kessenich from Age of Wonders. © Big
Table Publishing, 2016. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
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It's the birthday of former Beatle George Harrison (books by this
author), born in Liverpool, England, in 1943. He was the youngest of
Harold and Louise Harrison's four children, and the youngest of the
four Beatles as well. He joined the band when he was only 14, and there
was a tendency ever after for his bandmates to treat him like a
tag-along kid brother. He was often crowded out of the limelight by
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and he was only granted two tracks on
every album. When the band split in 1970, he finally recorded and
released several of the songs from this backlog; he had enough material
for a triple album, 1970's All Things Must Pass.
His memoir, I Me Mine (also the title of a Beatles song he wrote), was
published in 1980, and is dedicated "to gardeners everywhere." He died
of cancer in 2001, and former bandmate McCartney said of him: "He was a
lovely guy, and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense of humor. He
is really just my baby brother."
It's the birthday of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, born in Limoges,
France (1841). He began painting when he was 13 years old, first on
porcelain, then later painting on fans. He went on to form the style of
painting known as Impressionism, along with the painters Claude Monet
and Alfred Sisley. Renoir became severely disabled by arthritis
starting in 1902, but he continued to paint. By 1913, he was completely
crippled, and he instructed his assistants in creating several of his
last sculptures. Renoir said, "The pain passes, but the beauty
remains."
It's the birthday of the first recording star in history of music,
Enrico Caruso, born in Naples (1873). He grew up extremely poor, in the
slums of Naples, but he sang in his local church choir, and he was
known around his neighborhood as "the little divo." When he was a young
boy, his mother insisted that he go to school, but when he was 12 years
old, his father made him quit school and take a job in a factory. He
worked there for four years, but he still sang in church. Then when he
was 15, he was performing at church one night when he received word
that his mother had died. He left the church in the middle of the song,
one of only two times in his life that he interrupted a performance.
The only other time he didn't finish a concert was his last.
A year after his mother's death, he decided that he wanted to pursue a
career as a singer and ran away from home. He began supporting himself
singing at local resorts, weddings, and funerals. He later said that he
had to cut his shirtfronts out of white paper, because he couldn't
afford to buy real shirts. He also wore his suit so many times that it
turned green from mold, and he had to dye it black again.
He entered the military when he was 21. An officer noticed his
beautiful voice and introduced him to a wealthy nobleman who was
connected to the opera industry. And that was how Caruso got his first
role in an opera. He was paid $16 for his first two performances in
1895. The first opera he sang in was a failure, but he worked his way
up in the minor opera houses until he was singing in the most
prestigious houses in Naples. By 1898, he was so famous that he was
invited to sing in St. Petersburg, Russia. After his performance, the
czar gave him a pair of gold cuff links set in diamonds. At that time,
the New York Met was the one of the world's leading opera houses, and
when the manager of the Met heard Caruso sing in England, he signed
Caruso to a five-year contract for 50 performances a season.
Unfortunately, the manager of the Met resigned before Caruso arrived,
and that meant that his contract was null and void. The new manager had
never heard of Caruso, and was only willing to commit to 25 appearances
for an unknown tenor.
There was a good deal of anticipation among opera aficionados for his
Metropolitan debut in Rigoletto in 1903, and most critics agreed that
he did a good job, but it wasn't a standout performance. Over the
course of that first opera season, Caruso began to relax, and he sang
better and better with each performance. By the end of the season,
audiences were going into hysterics. After one of his last performances
of the season, the audience members began yelling, stamping, and
screaming his name. One woman jumped up on stage as Caruso came out for
a bow. She tore a button from his coat and immediately burst into
tears.
Less than three months after his Metropolitan debut, Caruso made some
recordings for the Victor Company. At the time, the gramophone was just
a curiosity, but Caruso had become a household name, and people all
over the country wanted to hear his voice. His records inspired
thousands of people to buy their first gramophones, and his were the
first records ever to sell more than a million copies. It can therefore
be argued that Caruso's voice was responsible for the beginning of the
musical recording industry.
Caruso went on to perform 17 consecutive seasons at the Met, giving a
total of 626 performances in New York, in 37 different operas. He gave
his final performance at the Met on December 11, 1920, but he had to
leave the stage after the first act, because he was coughing up blood.
It was the final performance of his life. He died a few months later.
Enrico Caruso once said, "[A great singer needs] a big chest, a big
mouth, 90 percent memory, 10 percent intelligence, lots of hard work,
and something in the heart."
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®
