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44 to catch without too great effort both the meaning of the individual words and the spirit of the text as a whole.

The great Italian tenor Caruso expressed himself forcibly upon this point during an interview for the Christian Science Monitor, in 1913. In reply to the question "Where do you locate the source of expression in singing?" he said:

I find it in the words always. For unless I give my hearers what is in the text, what can I give them? If I just produce tone, my singing has no meaning.

"Thereupon" (continues the interviewer), "vocalizing a series of scale passages such as are used in studio practice, Caruso commented":

"Singing, then" (the interviewer goes on), "as Caruso began to define it, is a sort of exalted speech, its purpose being to illuminate the imagery and sentiment of language. The mere music of singing he seemed for the moment to put in a subordinate place.

"By way of further emphasizing his point, he referred to a theme in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, which is used in two opposing situations—by the soprano in a mood of joy, and by the tenor in a mood of sorrow. He sang the measures of the soprano as though laughing. Then he sang those of the tenor as though weeping."

"But those two passages of melody cannot be identical," objected the interviewer.

"Oh, yes, they are," the tenor declared; and he quickly proved it by singing them over again with a less marked indication of the moods. "Here you