Emilio de Gogorza: A Brooklynite Sings in Brooklyn
One hundred years ago today, Emilio de Gorgoza sang at The Brooklyn Academy of Music. A native of Brooklyn who spent his early years in Spain (his parents’ country of origin), here’s how he sounded in 1920:
De Gorgoza was a multilingual baritone, a close associate of Enrico Caruso. On January 9th, 1920 he performed in his home borough as a featured guest of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which had what we would now recognize as a first-Friday-of-the-month residency at BAM, as indicated by this Fall 1919 Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, the organization that oversaw the performing arts space.
Bulletin of Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Courtesy BAM Hamm Archives.
The New York Symphony Orchestra also played regularly at BAM, and had recently featured Segei Rachmaninoff.