Not truly a duet, not really, but a great moment sung by great singers: the "miserere" from Verdi's Il Trovatore. Great singing from Giannina Arangi-Lombardi and Francesco Merli, pre-WWII.
So how about a great trio?
The same tenor and soprano, joined by the great baritone, Carlo Galeffi, in a trio from Trovatore. Great stuff for an opera that actually made it into a Marx Brothers film (Night at the Opera).
How's about another trio?
Another Verdi trio, with Elizabeth Rethberg, the legendary Ezio Pinza, and the one and only Beniamino Gigli, from I Lombardi.
Something a little different, perhaps?
This one is from Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia- a wonderful opera that is often overlooked. Alas, the performance is far from what I would like to post, but one quickly gets the idea from hearing that that there are voices out there, but where is the style, and where are the refinements? Alas that is something for considerable discussion. We are in an age where mediocrity reigns supreme- but hey, everyone LOOKS good. This is the problem with audiences who are too used to TV; this is also the problem with modern directors and opera management: fucked up casting.
We all love to look at hot young attractive people. Nothing wrong with that- but Opera is about great singing. My blog is all about what makes great singing- not just technique, but the right voice for the right role, and having the vocal equipment and technique to express the music beautifully and appropriately. These singers in the example above aren't attrocious singers, but they don't sing well enough to truly be able to do justice to this remarkable trio.
So, while I await recommendations from my friend the dramatic mezzo and a call from my favorite accompanist/sparring partner, let's listen to some good singing, shall we?
None other than Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," sung by the one and only great Jussi Björling. It's so fantastically well sung, so expressive, and so beautiful it belies the artistry and technique of this singer. It's also such a simple song- and one that for many of us is wrapped up in memories of Bugs Bunny- it's hard to take seriously at first. Jussi, on the other hand, sings this like the melancholy song it is of a lover lost forever.
Another Jussi cut, this time in his native Swedish, Till Havs (To Sea), which is thrilling. Here is Björling singing full tilt, but not oversinging. In his own language in particular, his singing is more nuanced and even more expressive. One criticism of him was that his emotions are a little generalized in Italian, or at least that his singing is somewhat less nuanced. That is somewhat true, in that he was not fluent in the language and let's face it, singing is not just singing, or even just music, but communicating. In opera, that is all the more true in that the emotional intensity is turned ALL THE WAY UP. Music with words is an interesting marriage- at their best, the intensity of the other brings out the best of both. This is true in any musical genre, by the way, Jazz, Rock, religious music, opera, you name it.
Let's look at a text in English: "the sun is up, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, and so are you" sounds like something my four year old might write. However, in context of a masterpiece like this-
The Beatles, of course, "Dear Prudence," 1968- those words are still simple, but beautiful, too. They're layered in meaning just as the simple melody of this song and the simple, almost hypnotic finger-picking guitar style is layered with sound, creating something incredible. The last time he repeats the text, at the song's climax, we've got a real piece of art!
So here is something very different, the opening song of Schumann's Dichterliebe (A poet's love), poetry by the great Heinrich Heine. Heine was a German Jew who lived most of his life as an exile in France; he had nominally converted to Christianity as it was his "passport to European civilization" yet never took his conversion seriously. He lived essentially as a perpetual outsider: to the Jews, he was a traitor and a convert, to the Germans, a Jew, and the French, a foreigner. His poetry reeks of sarcasm and alienation. Here is the opening poem:
In the wonderfully beautiful month of May,
When all the buds were bursting,
then in my heart
Love spring forth.
In the wonderfully beautiful month of May,
when all the birds were singing,
then I revealed to her
my love and longing.
It sounds better in German, as if such a thing was possible. The poem is gorgeous, and not too difficult to understand. Enter Robert Schumann, insane person, madly in love with his piano teacher's daughter, and writes this:
Sung by Wunderlich as wonderfully as ever (it's even what his name means!). Schumann's setting is so moody- so painfully evocative not of the happy spring time but of desperate longing. The song doesn't even end on a tonic chord, but sets up the next song. But this moody opening- this is not going to be a happy love affair, clearly. A lesser composer might have made this a happy little springtime song. Schumann creates an entirely different atmosphere loaded with emotional anguish. It's frankly delicious. Shall we hear more?
Well, we know this is going to be an unhappy affair, but that is made all the more clear by the fourth song:
When I gaze into your eyes,
All my pain and grief vanish-
and when I kiss your mouth,
I am made truly well.
When I lean your bosom,
joy as of heaven comes upon me!
But when you say, "I love you"
I must weep bitterly.
Clearly, the poet knows that his beloved is lying to him. Since when do the words "I love you" make anyone weep "bitterly?" Well, Schumann clearly gets it:
Schumann's little piano postlude is in and of itself no throw away. Very clearly, this love affair is about over. The setting, so simple, is also so remarkable in its emotional intensity.
Brahms, of course, was a friend and student of Schumann. A far more talented composer, he really could write these songs and pieces of stunning emotional power without packing a big punch. For the Germans, emotion is something to bathe in, not discharge like static electricity, something more in the Italian vein. Here is a beautiful song of Brahms. The poetry is originally from the Persian-
How delightful you are, my Queen,
Because of gentle kindness,
You need but smile and scents of spring waft
Blissfully through my heart!
The splendor of unfolded roses,
Shall I compare it to you?
Above all else that blossoms
Your flowering is delightful!
If you walk through arid deserts,
Green shadows will spread-
Where horrible heat waves endlessly extend
What joy, what bliss!
Let me perish in your arms-
within them even death
ever the bitterest deadly torture
would seem as extacy.
It's a beautiful poem, but in the hands of Brahms, brilliant:
The melody is beautiful, to be sure. But one of the best things in the piece- and not immediately recognizable without listening to it, is the accompanying figure in the bass (piano left hand). It comes in slightly later in each measure, creating a sense of breathless anticipation.
Since I'm a tenor, I think about tenors. But I am not all tenors and sopranos and high-c's, dear readers. Nope, I dislike bad singing in every possible vocal category.
Now then, shall we hear a great mezzo-soprano? The joke of the term is that it can mean two things: a lower female voice than soprano, or a "medium" soprano, meaning one that is not very good. We'll try to stick with the first one here.
Here is the great Ebe Stignani singing from the Camille Saint-Saens opera "Samson et Dalilah," in Italian (composed originally in French, of course). Notice that dark, rich lustre. Stignani still had great high notes, but mezzos sing not usually as high as sopranos, and usually with a different timbre up there- a bit wilder, usually.
Let's hear another great one:
Here is Fiorenza Cossotto, a great mezzo, not a young woman anymore- notice the power she has in the middle voice to cut through the heavy orchestration, particularly at climactic moments. The last note is a little botched, but the audience goes bonkers, because, let's face it, this is one hell of a great singer.
So, let's have an example of how not to sing an aria. Not that Di Stefano's voice is unattractive, mind you, but as he goes up, he doesn't handle the change of registration into the higher voice well. Basically, he sings wide-open, without doing what we call "covering" or modifying the vowels in the "break" in the voice that allows male singers to sing ABOVE the actual break in the voice where the crack would be. He just sort of yells by this point in his career, and idiots love this crap. It's crap, because believe me, Di Stefano should NEVER have sung this. It's not only not his repertoire- I am a big believer that not all things are for all people- but his technical flaws are so painfully obvious. Here is a performance of the big aria from Turandot, "Nessun Dorma:"
Let's compare that performance to a kick-ass version of the same aria, shall we? The right voice type, and the technique to sing it:
Franco Corelli, live performance. Corelli was a true heavy-voiced tenor who was suited perfectly for this role, which he sang a LOT at the MET and nearly everywhere else. Corelli's technique was crude, in some ways; he also pushed his larynx down to create volume and depth of tone, called the melocchi technique. Personally, I hate this, but it worked for him. Corelli, when he didn't have to be subtle, could sing the shit out of repertoire like this. Not that he couldn't sing softly or even kind of "sweetly" but he was not convincing in his forays into the more lyric repertoire. In fact, he sang several roles that are better left to lighter voiced singers, but he had gigantic towering high notes, so he sang them anyway. That, and he was tall and very good looking.
How about di Stefano in the right repertoire? Well, like I said before, all depends on WHEN. Here's young di Stefano, singing like only he could:
Here he is in 1950, singing like a God, practically- taking a diminuendo on a high C! Would that he stayed where he belonged, or, maybe, took a couple of lessons with a good teacher? Or even took some decent advice?
Yes, this is my first blog. What do I blog about? Music, mostly, the thing I am almost always most passionate about. Then again, it's rare for me not to have an opinion on something! ;)
This is Lina Bruna Rasa, a great soprano. There are some people who are unaware that before Maria Callas, most singers actually could both sing and act, at least with their voices. Singers sang from the kishkes, from the guts, and they sang like they meant it, real blood and guts singing. Singers were distinctive, and had great technique, even if their voices weren't always "pretty" or even attractive. Yet, the vast majority of those singers had very solid technique, something that at least to my ears Callas never quite had a handle on. (Sure, in the right repertoire, she could sound pretty wonderful, but rarely if ever ravishing- and certainly there is always the thought in the back of your mind that she might not make it through the aria, much less sing the high note. Her famous, and frankly awful, Tosca recording already shows a voice in serious trouble.)
Now then, this is a blog about singers I think sang well, consistently, not had a good night once in a while. I am no fan of DiStefano for exactly that reason, although when he was very young, like prior to 1950, he was stunning. In the early fifties, for a few short years, he still sang relatively well. But his technique! Terrible. We almost forget that a singer should have great technique AND can be unbelievably exciting.
Seems strange, doesn't it? A TRULY awe-inspiring singer like AURELIANO PERTILE, for example, had amazing technique but not the prettiest sound. In fact, critics in his own time said that his voice was actually UGLY, and frankly, that isn't an untrue assessment. So, let's listen to Pertile:
Why is this singer considered great? Well, his singing is impassioned, expressive, and exciting. From a technical point of view, he sings through the passagio perfectly, for one. His top notes ring, and the voice has a true passionate, Italian "throb" to it. His technique was so good that he sang without much of change in his timbre or range for the nearly twenty five years he sang professionally, from about 1915 or so to about 1940.
Pretty voiced FRITZ WUNDERLICH, was also an exciting singer, but not just because he had an impassioned throb in the sound, but because the sound was just so heartachingly gorgeous. Let's hear ol' Fritz, who died at 35 years old:
Here he sings a really killer aria from Mozart's Escape from the Seraglio. He handles the thing like nothing could be easier, and at the same time, sings with a gorgeous tone and great musicality. Mozart suited him beautifully. Even though he sang the Italian lyric repertoire beautifully (like everything he sang!), he never seems quite at home there. Then again, he was so young at the time of his death that one can only begin to imagine that voice in its maturity, and with some really solid coaching in the style.
Okay, this was just a little taste of what I felt like doing. More some other time, I suppose?
