On a shelf in the wizard’s private office…
Millionaire tenor Enrico Caruso was so in love with America
that he would pay his U.S. taxes on January 1st each year and add
a considerable amount extra. He was famously generous and friendly
to everyone. Caruso was also an accomplished sketch artist and painter.
This one-of-a-kind bronze self-portrait of Caruso as a laughing Buddha
is signed and dated 1909.
Arturo Toscanini was one of the most acclaimed
musicians and conductors of the late 19th and 20th century,
renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism,
his ear for orchestral detail and sonority,
and his photographic memory.
He was at various times
the music director of La Scala Milan,
the Metropolitan Opera in New York,
and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.