If you look at the song list on any popular opera tenor album, you’ll notice that along with the standard opera favorites (Una furtiva lagrima, Che gelida manina, E lucevan le stelle) there are often Neapolitan folk songs mixed in, that are obviously not taken from any stage production. Songs like ‘O sole mio, Torna a Surriento, for example.  

So what gives? Why do these folks songs always seem to make their way onto serious opera albums of selected arias? As it turns out, there are a few key players in the history of music who have contributed to this phenomenon. Let’s have a look…