A Singer’s Guide to Voices: Baritone Pt2
In Part 1 I looked at what constitutes the baritone voice, and, to some extent, what it is not. Then I wrote about some baritones from my youth and before, finishing with a paragraph about the great Tito Gobbi.
Interestingly, I recently acquired a recording of Gobbi singing Rigoletto in the eponymous opera. Not surprisingly, it is immaculately sung, but I noticed a reticence about adding optional, or even gratuitous, high notes. The reason for this is quite clear from other recordings. He didn’t really have them in his voice. Unlike some others, and certainly some American baritones, Gobbi was not in the habit of singing anything much above A Flat, as far as I can hear. Into the 70s and 80s, when I was starting to go to operas and concerts as an adult, I was lucky enough to hear the likes of Renato Bruson and Piero Capucilli. These baritones did have big high notes, especially Bruson, and it was wonderful to hear these dark, manly voices extending their range towards the tenors. Capucilli was a great stylist and possessed the most wonderful breath control of anyone I have ever heard. He could sing phrases in one breath that frankly defied nature. I have no idea how he did it, but it was amazing.
The only other singer who I heard who could sing such long phrases was the wonderful Wagner baritone, Norman Bailey. I first sang with Norman when I was with Scottish Opera in the early 1980s. He came to sing Hans Sachs in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” while I sang the small (but crucial) role of the Nightwatchman. I was able to watch at close quarters this consummate singer at work, and I can safely say that his was the Sachs against which all other Sachs should be measured, warm, tender, argumentative, moving and above all, wonderfully sung. For me, he was a true baritone, without a bass timbre, and inexhaustible in a tessitura which lies consistently high for several hours. He was also a great Wotan and Dutchman, although I prefer a darker voice for the King of the Gods. Another of his great roles was Barak in Strauss’ ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’, another deeply sympathetic character. His humanity shone through when he sang, especially his Sachs, which he recorded with Georg Solti for Decca. Born in Birmingham, he emigrated with his parents to South Africa after WW2, returning to study in Vienna, and became a big star. I studied with him quite extensively in the early 90s and enjoyed his laid back style. Although still speaking with a trace of a South African accent, he came over as an amiable English gentleman, always polite and courteous, and this quality was evident in his singing. I have sung in ‘Die Meistersinger’ with two other great singers, Gwynne Howell at ENO and Bryn Terfel at Covent Garden, but neither of these fabulous artists came near the luminosity of Norman’s interpretation, vocally or dramatically, fine though they were. Sadly, Norman died recently (September 2021) in Idaho USA, aged 88, having married the fine American soprano, Kristine Ciesinski, who herself died tragically in a 2018 gliding accident.
The Germanic baritones I best remember from my early days were Walter Berry and Bernd Weikl. Berry (who was married for many years to the great Christa Ludwig), I never heard live, but he made scores of recordings and could sing in almost any style. His Bach arias in the Passions, although rather old fashioned to modern ears, were beautifully sung, and he was both a fine Mozartian and a decent singer of the non-heroic Wagner parts. He was, I suppose, another of these in-between voices, not a bass but not a Verdi baritone either. Weikl, on the other hand, was able to sing both the Italian and German baritone roles, as befits an Austrian, I guess. I heard him sing Wagner’s Dutchman at Bayreuth, and it was very fine, rich and easy throughout the range.
I must give a final mention, in this survey of my youthful years, to Tom Krause. This is not perhaps a name with which most of my readers will be familiar, but for a few years in the 1970s, this Finnish baritone was very popular. I first heard him in Salzburg, when I was still at school but was beginning to be obsessed with singing. On a family holiday to the Austrian lakes, I found out that the Salzburg Festival was taking place not far from where we were staying. I persuaded my father to ask the holiday rep if we could go to something. I think this must have been the first time a Scottish visitor on a package holiday had ever asked for tickets to the Salzburg Festival, and I assume the rep must have seen it as a challenge. Tickets were astronomically expensive and hard to find, but somehow, he managed to get three tickets to a recital of Schubert’s ‘Schwanengesang’ with Tom Krause and Irwin Gage, and some sort of transport there and back.
Well, dear reader, I had an epiphany. My experience up to then of singers, was a couple of visits to Scottish Opera and a few Edinburgh Festival concerts. In the Mozarteum in Salzburg, I heard a voice of such power and quality that I was overwhelmed. Thinking back, he probably had a voice only slightly heavier than my own now, but then, it was amazing! There are a couple of songs in the first part of ‘Schwanengesang’ which need great stamina and strength, and, my goodness, he gave it laldy! I also remember being fascinated by the American pianist, Irwin Gage, who was enormously animated at the keyboard.
Not long after this experience, I saw that Krause was singing Escamillo at the Edinburgh Festival, and managed to persuade my parents to get me a ticket. I was so excited to see my hero again, that I failed to notice that this Carmen was to be conducted by Claudio Abbado, with Teresa Berganza and Placido Domingo! They weren’t too bad either! Later on, I was annoyed to discover that DG were to record this Festival Carmen, but substituted Sherrill Milnes for Krause, wanting a bigger name for the record. Now, as you have heard, Milnes was a great baritone, but Krause was an infinitely better Escamillo, a role which lies awkwardly for many baritones. At least I heard him on the night.
Moving forward into my own career span, I would like to write about some of the great baritones it has been my privilege to work with. I think I can be honest and say that probably the finest was Lancashire’s own John Rawnsley, a larger than life character if ever there was one, I sang many times with John in two productions of Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’, when he sang the title role. One was in Italian at Scottish Opera in a quirky but successful production by David Alden, the other, in English, was the famous and rightly renowned Jonathan Miller “Mafia” production at ENO.
I had heard John’s Northern predecessor, the Yorkshireman Peter Glossop, as Scarpia, in Anthony Besch’s Scottish Opera ‘Tosca’ and was bowled over by this great baritone’s voice and charisma. Glossop had become one of the world’s finest baritones in the 60s and 70s, singing and recording the title role of Billy Budd in Britten’s opera, and recording and performing Iago in ‘Otello’ with Karajan. His Scarpia was genuinely chilling, a fascist leader in Besch’s production, bringing an almost contemporary terror to the role.
John, on the contrary, brought enormous pathos to the character of the hunchback, Rigoletto, as well as singing it with a magnificent opulence, never eschewing any of the famous interpolated top notes which tradition had demanded from the baritone. I sang the fated Monterone, who famously curses Rigoletto for his terrible behaviour and turns the confident jester into a haunted and desperate man, trapped in a web of his own making. I got on really well with John and learned a vast amount about stagecraft and singing in general with this warm and charismatic character.
I was lucky in those final years of the Elder, Pountney and Jonas triumvirate at ENO, at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s, to work with some superb baritones as well as John. Jonathan Summers, Peter Sidhom and Peter Coleman-Wright stand out as lions of the era.
We must not forget the magnificent Thomas Allen, one of the greats, who is still performing as I write, at the age of 76! Some of my earliest memories involve Tom – I remember in 1974, in a live Prom Concert, he collapsed from some unknown fever and was helped off the stage. A bloke stepped out of the audience. ”I know this piece”, he said, as he came up to the platform, and André Previn signalled for him to take over (the story went that the official understudy was a doctor and was too busy attending to Tom that he couldn’t take over). The unknown bloke duly completed the solos (in Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’) to great acclaim, although even I, at the age of 18, could see that he was not really good enough to sing Orff’s high lying part. Nonetheless, it was seen as a typical example of plucky British adaptation to adversity and has passed into folklore! A little later, I was able to enjoy Tom singing at Covent Garden in roles as disparate as Malatesta (in ‘Don Pasquale’ – I remember a duet between him and Geraint Evans of brilliant virtuosity), ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’ (he was a superb Pelléas) and Billy Budd (a magnificent interpretation unequalled in my experience). Quite recently, I was working with him again at Covent Garden, and we exchanged pleasantries, the conversation reminding me that he still retained his lovely County Durham accent.
As I began to work more and more abroad, I got to meet some of the best baritones from around the world, notably Laurent Naouri, Victor Torres, Peter Mattei and Lucio Gallo. I sang many times with Laurent, one of the most versatile of singers. He is a wonderful performer, a fine actor and a possessor of a voice with an incredible range. He is also one of the most intelligent singers I know, with an ability to speak several languages, completely fluently, and is half of France’s golden couple, being married to Natalie Dessay. We have worked together in some memorable productions, notably ‘Pelléas’ in Strasbourg (Stein Winge), ‘Figaro’ in Aix (Sir Richard Eyre) and ‘Les Contes d’Hoffmann’) in Lyon (Laurent Pelly). Victor Torres, the fine Argentinian baritone, was Falstaff to my Pistola in France and Switzerland. It is funny, looking back now over 20 years, to think that I went on to sing Falstaff myself (a role better suited to me, I think), while Victor established himself as a great baroque singer (his Orfeo in Monteverdi’s opera is on a CD which I often enjoy). He was, however, a very big guy in real life, needing little padding, as was another Falstaff, Ambrogio Maestri (seriously big and a renowned chef!). I sang my last Pistola with him in Manchester with the Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Mark Elder.
I first met Peter Mattei and Lucio Gallo in Brussels, in 1998, when we were engaged to sing in Mozart’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ at La Monnaie, conducted by Antonio Pappano and directed by Christof Loy. I realised this was a big deal when I was flown to Stuttgart, at La Monnaie’s expense, to have tea with Christof, so we could meet up before he would agree for me to sing Doctor Bartolo! It was a phenomenal cast, since, as well as the two baritones, we had Leontina Vaduva, Soile Isokoski, Katarina Karnéus and Anne Howells! The two men were perfectly cast, Peter, the tall, aristocratic epitome of style and suave power, and Lucio, the dark, edgy servant who finally beats the count at his own game. It was a great production, 20th century costumes but 18th century mores, and wonderfully sung, and with so many Scandinavians, an occasion for serious drinking!
I saw Lucio many years later, first in the audience at Covent Garden for ‘Otello’, in which he sang a notable Iago, alongside Aleksandrs Antoneko (with whom I later sang in Geneva in ‘Samson’), and then on stage, also at Covent Garden, in ‘Gianni Schicchi’ in which he was a great Schicchi, outwitting my character, Simone, and the rest of the ghastly family of Buoso Donati. He has a rich, Italianate baritone voice, ideally suited particularly to Verdi and Puccini’s villains, and is also a very warm and enthusiastic colleague.
In Part 3, I shall take a look at a few more baritones, and investigate further their position in the operatic world.
