The following lines are based on my father's recollections of Lazaro:

      Lazaro looked somewhat like the stereotypical Latin leading man, as popularized in the twenties and thirties. My father says that he befriended Lazaro from the thirties to around 1950, in which year he retired. My father is a tenor manqué who received singing classes in Havana, Cuba, in the thirties and forties from a well-known maestro and orchestra conductor named Arturo Bovi, who was married to a singer named Tina Fanelli. They were an Italian couple who resided and taught in Cuba. They happened to be Lazaro's best friends and musical colleagues. Whenever Lazaro prepared to tour Latin America, he would prepare his voice with Bovi at the latter's home in the Vedado residential area of Havana. Since my father was one of Bovi's students, that is how he met Lazaro.
    My father remembers Lazaro as an uncomplicated, gregarious and unassuming person — not a divo but an open, engaging and approachable person. He recalls Lazaro's voice (correctly or incorrectly) as that of a "lyric tenor," with a brilliant, ringing voice and a technique that remained "marvelous" throughout the extended "prime" period of his voice.
     It seems that Lazaro had received little formal training until three years into his singing career. He more than made up for it, however. In Milan, in 1912, he received intensive training. He always prepared well before a series of performances, in fact, he was somewhat of a model in this regard. My father has many cherished anecdotes about Lazaro's concern for technique and equipment, including one in which he boasted that the "dome of the palate" of his small grandson displayed the "configuration necessary for a great tenor." He was referring to the arch-like palate that (he believed) was an essential component of the brilliance inherent in the tones of Gigli, Caruso and, of course, of Lazaro himself. In Havana, he was famous for his technical mastery, but he sometimes experienced what in Cuba where called "gallos" (GAH-yoh) or voice breaks upon hitting a high tone. This was towards the end of his career, when he was past his prime. My father says that there was notable example of a gallo when Lazaro sang "Baltasar," a then new Opera by a Cuban composer at the Teatro Nacional.

Lazaro was born in Barcelona, Spain. To break into the world of Italian opera, he initially appeared in operas under the name Antonio Manuele. What Mascagni admired most about Lazaro was the brilliancy of his tone, according to Lazaro himself. Lazaro admired Mascagni and was particularly grateful to him for choosing to create several roles, but Lazaro did not particularly like Mascagni's personality. Aside from Il Piccolo Marat, Lazaro created the tenor role in Parisina and in Giordano's "La Cene delle Beffe."
    My father remembers him still in his prime as a most effective and dynamic Duke of Mantua that he ever saw in that role, and one of the best Rhadameses. Although he was a great favorite of these Italian composers like Mascagni and Giordano, Lazaro's greatest popularity was in Latin America, where he travelled frequently and to great acclaim. As I said, he always prepared his Latin America tours with Arturo Bovi.

Lazaro died on May 14, 1974. My father seems to remember that Lazaro was born in 1887, because of a conversation in which Lazaro commented that my father was exactly 30 years Lazaro's junior. My father was born in 1917.

These are the pertinent facts that my father remembers from conversations with his friend Lazaro at Bovi's home and from attending Lazaro performances. He has many prized anecdotes from their long friendship.