John McCormack (tenor) Talking Machine Company during the 1910s and 1920s. He was Victor's most popular Red Seal recording artist after tenor Enrico Caruso. He also broadcast regularly by radio and performed in two sound films, Song o' My Heart, released in 1930, playing an Irish tenor, and as himself appearing in a party scene in "Wings of the Morning" (1937), the first British three-strip Technicolor feature. McCormack was one of the first artists to record the popular ballad "I Hear You Calling Me" written in 1908 by Harold Harford and Charles Marshall; he recorded it twice for Odeon starting in 1908 and
Enrico Caruso His successful debut at Covent Garden occurred on 14 May 1902, as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's "Rigoletto". Covent Garden's highest-paid diva, the Australian soprano Nellie Melba, partnered him as Gilda. They would sing together often during the early 1900s. In her memoirs, Melba praised Caruso's voice but considered him to be a less sophisticated musician and interpretive artist than Jean de Reszke—the Met's biggest tenor drawcard prior to Caruso. In 1903, Caruso made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The gap between his London and New York engagements had been filled by a series