Friends

Giuseppe DeLuca was loved and held in high regard by his colleagues, the greatest artists of that era had such great esteem and admiration for him and the many photographs dedicated to him attest to this.
His granddaughter, Nicoletta Panni, continues her recount,
“I also remember the opinions he had of two artists, one of Cesare Siepi that he liked very much and the other of Ezio Pinza whom he adored. Above all I remember one evening, at the performance of “Faust” at the Metropolitan Theatre sung by Giuseppe Di Stefano a very young man at the time. Di Stefano hit a “do” in Salve dimora with a soft voice, then tried a little louder only to go back to singing softly once more. Grandpa stood up and said, “what a dangerous thing...” and then when everything went smoothly he screamed “BRAVO!” and went into the changing room to hug him. He was also very good friends with Licia Albanese and Rosa Ponselle whom I also came to meet later on in the future. He was best friends with the tenor Martinelli (in a way the heir of Caruso at the Metropolitan) and lived at the same hotel.”

“With regards to women....there's a very interesting dedication from Lina Cavalieri and it's my impression that grandpa was a bit of a “Ladies Man”, even though nothing leaked out in the family. Another nice memory I have is of the evening I was at the house of Toscanini. Toscanini, who had a very rough character at work and with people in general, was lovely with our family. He brought my mother and I to his “music room” to listen to one of his recordings of Beethoven's first symphony, directing it for us. Then he showed us an armoire containing 300 to 400 cravats that he obsessively collected. He showed us everything, happily like a child. I remember him lying down on the carpet watching a boxing match on television, a sport he enjoyed a lot; an expected hobby of such a gruff man. This was the exact opposite of grandpa, who was jovial with his friends but gruff with his family.”

“Another memorable friendship was that with Enrico Caruso, whom he admired profoundly. My grandfather stayed with Caruso in his last days at Sorrento where he died from an infection contracted after a lung operation due to a serious illness. My mother Wally, eighteen at the time, was with my grandfather and went boating with Caruso to swim in the sea and sunbathe; she was the legendary, young and mysterious woman friend that the tenor talked about.”