Editing Enrico Caruso (section)

===Illness and death===
[[File:Halévy - La Juive - Enrico Caruso as Eléazar - Metropolitan Opera 1920.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Caruso as Éléazar in ''[[La Juive]]'', 1920]]
[[File:Enrico Caruso, 1873-1921, funeral at Church San Francisco de Paulo in Naples 3.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Caruso's body lying in state in the Vesuvio Hotel in Naples, 3 August 1921]]

On 16 September 1920, Caruso concluded three days of recording sessions at Victor's Trinity Church studio in [[Camden, New Jersey]]. He recorded several discs, including the ''Domine Deus'' and ''Crucifixus'' from the ''[[Petite messe solennelle]]'' by [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]]. These recordings were to be his last.

Dorothy Caruso noted that her husband's health began to rapidly decline after he returned from a lengthy North American concert tour in the autumn of 1920. In his biography, Enrico Caruso Jr. points to an on-stage injury suffered by Caruso as the possible trigger of his fatal illness. A scenery malfunction during a performance of [[Camille Saint-Saëns|Saint-Saëns’]] ''[[Samson and Delilah (opera)|Samson and Delilah]]'' at the Met on December 3rd caused a decorative pillar to fall and hit him on the back, over the left kidney (and not on the chest as popularly reported).<ref>Caruso, Jr.'s biography devotes an entire section to medical opinions concerning the tenor's ailments and possible causes of his death.</ref>{{Citation needed |date= October 2022}} A few days before a performance of ''Pagliacci'' at the Met (Pierre Key says it was 4 December, the day after the ''Samson and Delilah'' injury) he suffered a chill and developed a cough and a "dull pain in his side". It appeared to be a severe episode of [[bronchitis]]. Caruso's physician, Philip Horowitz, who usually treated him for [[migraine]] headaches with a kind of primitive [[TENS unit]], diagnosed "intercostal neuralgia" and pronounced him fit to appear on stage, although the pain continued to hinder his voice production and movements.

During a performance of ''[[L'elisir d'amore]]'' by [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]] at the [[Brooklyn Academy of Music]] on 11 December 1920, he began spitting blood as a result of a mouth or throat [[haemorrhage]] and the performance was cancelled at the end of Act 1. Following this incident, a clearly unwell Caruso gave only three more performances at the Met, the final one being as Eléazar in [[Fromental Halévy|Halévy's]] ''[[La Juive]]'' on 24 December 1920, while suffering acute pain. By Christmas Day, the pain in his side was so excruciating that he was screaming. Dorothy summoned the hotel physician, who gave Caruso some morphine and codeine and called in another doctor, Evan M. Evans. Evans brought in three other doctors, and Caruso finally received a correct diagnosis: purulent [[pleurisy]] and [[empyema]].{{sfn|Caruso|1945|pp=234–244}}<ref>Pierre Key, p. 386.</ref>

Caruso's health deteriorated further during the new year. He lapsed into a [[coma]] and at one point, nearly died of heart failure. He continued to experience episodes of severe pain due to the infection and underwent seven surgical procedures to drain fluid from his chest and lungs.<ref>Caruso described his illness and surgical procedures in a lengthy letter to his brother Giovanni, reprinted in ''Caruso, His Life in Pictures'' by Francis Robinson (Bramhall, 1977), p. 137.</ref> He slowly began to improve and by May 1921, he had recovered sufficiently to sail to Naples to further recuperate from the most serious of the operations, during which part of a rib had been removed. According to Dorothy, he appeared to be continuing with his recovery, but in July he allowed himself to be examined by an unhygienic local doctor. Caruso's condition began to deteriorate dramatically after that.{{sfn|Caruso|1945|pp=268–70}}<ref>Biographer Pierre Key attributed Caruso's decline to over-exertion as he convalesced (see p. 389), as did Francis Robinson (p. 139). Dorothy agrees with this in part, saying (p. 262) that a group of hangers-on encouraged him to go on several tiring excursions, give dinners and otherwise overexert himself.</ref> The Bastianelli brothers, eminent Italian medical practitioners, examined him and recommended that his left kidney be removed. On the morning of 1 August, Caruso and his entourage left Sorrento for the Bastianelli's clinic in Rome, but by the time they reached Naples, Caruso was running a high fever and was gravely ill. The party checked into the Hotel Vesuvio where Caruso began screaming in pain and eventually, a doctor gave him [[morphine]] to help him sleep.

Caruso died the following morning at the hotel shortly after 9:00&nbsp;a.m. local time, on 2 August 1921. He was 48 years old. The Bastianellis attributed the cause of death to [[peritonitis]] arising from a burst [[subphrenic abscess]].{{sfn|Caruso|1945|p=275}}<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B01EEDB173EEE3ABC4B53DFBE66838A639EDE "Enrico Caruso Dies in Native Naples: Death Came Suddenly"], ''The New York Times'', 3 August 1921, retrieved 14 May 2009.</ref> The [[King of Italy]], [[Victor Emmanuel III of Italy|Victor Emmanuel III]], opened the Royal Basilica of the [[San Francesco di Paola (Naples)|Church of San Francesco di Paola]] for Caruso's funeral, which was attended by thousands of people. His embalmed body was preserved in a glass [[sarcophagus]] at Del Pianto Cemetery in Naples for mourners to view.<ref>Pringle, Heather, ''The Mummy Congress'', London, 2002, pp. 294–296</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,728911,00.html|title=Italy: Caruso under Glass|magazine=Time|date=18 January 1926|via=content.time.com}}</ref> In 1929, Dorothy Caruso had his coffin covered and permanently sealed in an ornate stone tomb.