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When I was 11, my father brought home the voice of tenor Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) in a three-LP box set whose faux leather cover and sepia-tinted photos I admired over and over. When he put on the Sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor, I exclaimed, “Daddy, I’ve heard that before!”
“Yeah, you broke it when you were 2,” he replied.
I was weaned on opera. With all that Italianate passion bubbling in my blood, reconnecting with the voices of Caruso
