Core ‘ngrato

(Salvatore Cardillo-Riccardo Cordiferro) – Enrico Caruso - 1911

A Neapolitan song written in Brooklyn? This too could happen in the early 20th century, when emigration from Campania to the United States of America reached very high peaks. Two sons of Neapolitan immigrants met in New York: Alessandro Sisca wrote a lyric about unrequited love for which Salvatore Cardillo composed music that immediately stated his cultural reference, the operatic romanza. The dramatic nature of the verses and music give a good rendering of the protagonist's sense of dismay at being rejected by Caterina (the woman to whom the words are addressed) when he wants to continue a love story that for her is now clearly over: her heart becomes ungrateful, insensitive to the amorous lament of her ex-lover. Sisca chose a pseudonym (Riccardo Cordiferro) and together with Cardillo contacted another Neapolitan, this time very illustrious, living in New York at that time, the great Enrico Caruso, who liked the song very much. The famous tenor had chosen the American metropolis because the fledgling record industry put at his disposal recording techniques and equipment that would have been inconceivable for Italy and Europe, and so Core 'ngrato invariably ended up in his repertoire and remained there forever. The song’s great success took it all over the world and into the territory of the classics, appreciated above all by lovers of bel canto, and many others: in fact, among those who recorded it are Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa, Francesco Albanese, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Josè Carreras, Placido Domingo , Luciano Pavarotti, but also pop music singers such as Roberto Murolo, Sergio Bruni, Claudio Villa, Giacomo Rondinella, Nilla Pizzi and Mina.