La spagnola

Vincenzo Di Chiara wrote both words and music of La spagnola in 1906, and the song belongs to the Neapolitan repertoire only by adoption: its subject is a Spanish woman, its rhythm a habanera, and its refrain declares that this is how Spaniards love. Enrico Caruso's recording carried it around the world, and it stayed in the repertoire of Italian tenors through Gigli and Di Stefano. Di Chiara wrote little else that survived, and the song is now attached to the singers who took it up rather than to its author.