A Singer’s Guide to Voices: Tenors Pt2
I thought I would bring to your attention an extraordinary stroke of Fate – the amazing number of singers, particularly tenors, from a country with a small population, Wales. Obviously, there has been a strong tradition of male voice singing in Wales, both in the choral repertoire and in the Eisteddfod, the long-established competition for song and poetry in Welsh. However, this hardly explains the number of seriously good Welsh singers from that country. Over the past 50 years or so, we have been privileged to hear the likes of Kenneth Bowen, Stuart Burrows, Dennis O’Neill, Ryland Davies, Wynford Evans, Robert Tear, Arthur Davies, Stuart Kale and Gwyn Hughes-Jones. I have sung with many of these tenors, and remember particularly Arthur Davies with whom I sang several times in ‘Rigoletto’ at ENO in the famous Jonathan Miller production, when he popped a nickel in the juke-box and La Donna e mobile started up, one of the best theatrical coups in my experience. Arthur was a fantastic Verdi tenor, who sang predominantly in the UK, and who retired to run a pub in Swansea until his death in 2018. He was a lovely bloke.
I recently sang at Covent Garden with Gwyn Hughes-Jones, when he sang Walther von Stolzing in Wagner’s ‘Mastersingers’, and was hugely impressed with his stamina and beauty of tone. He never flagged night after night in this famously difficult and long part and gained a notable success. He is another very decent chap.
I mentioned my friend Jamie MacDougall in the first part of this survey as a sort of modern day Kenneth McKellar, and the Welsh seem to have a similar tenor in Wynne Evans, best known for his amusing adverts for “Go Compare”, but actually a very fine tenor in his own right, who appears regularly with Welsh National Opera and other British companies, and has become a presenter, like Jamie, on TV and radio.
Another country that punches above its weight in population terms for singers is Canada. As readers will know from my previous blogs, I have been lucky enough to work quite often in Canada, and in addition, I have sung with many Canadian singers in the UK and Europe. The quality and quantity of Canadians in the ranks of professional singers is extraordinary – whether it’s the light, the snow, the wide-open spaces, I know not, but it is a phenomenon, to be sure. In the 50s and 60s, the world of Wagner lovers was introduced to the amazing tenor Jon Vickers, who was possessed of one of the most enormous voices I have ever heard, but who could also scale his voice down to a honeyed pianissimo when needed. His recordings of live performances from Bayreuth, as well as his studio recordings, particularly of Tristan with Karajan, are the benchmark for Wagner tenors. That he could also sing great Verdi roles like Otello, and could make Britten’s Peter Grimes his own, as well as Aeneas in Berlioz’ ‘The Trojans’ speaks wonders for his versatility. A difficult colleague apparently, but what a singer! In recent years, another Canadian Heldentenor, Ben Heppner, has wowed audiences worldwide, and a singer who I met in Germany as a light tenor singing Fenton in ‘Falstaff’, Eric Laporte, a French Canadian, has begun to make a name for himself in Germany and Canada as a dramatic tenor. A young Canadian very much on the up is Josh Lovell, with whom I sang in ‘Falstaff’ in Victoria BC when he had just left college. He sang the difficult role of Bardolfo as if it was the easiest thing in the world and has gone on to win competitions worldwide and is starting to be seen on the big stages, like the Vienna State Opera. He has unbelievably high notes and will be a huge star!
The USA has produced some wonderful tenors over the years, mostly in the German repertoire, and my favourite has to be James King, a great Wagner and Strauss singer with the rare combination of fantastic power and thrilling high notes.
Nonetheless, Italy is still the country most associated with the tenor voice, and, in my lifetime, there have been some great ones. Mario del Monaco, Carlo Bergonzi, Giuseppe di Stefano, Luigi Alva, Franco Bonisolli (who sang with Scottish Opera) were all superb exponents of the Italian style, and, in Franco Corelli, this country produced, for me, the greatest. Not only did he possess the most wonderful voice with the most exciting ringing top I have ever heard, but he was also tall and handsome, apparently a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. He triumphed all over Europe from his beginnings in Italy and became a great favourite at the New York Met from 1961 until his retirement in 1976. As his voice declined in the 70s, he became more and more nervous on stage, until he finally decided to quit while he was on top. The tragedy for me is that he never sang the role of Otello in Verdi’s opera, a role he was made to sing. There is an excerpt which he sang at the Gala concert to mark the end of Rudolf Bing’s tenure as director of the Met in 1972, the love duet from the end of the first act, which gives us an idea of how wonderful he would have been in the whole role. Still, we can hear him in unmatched recordings of, among others, Aida, Carmen and Turandot. My personal favourite is his recording with Gabriele Santini conducting, on EMI, of Giordano’s ‘Andrea Chenier’. This opera, which is not well-enough known, needs the best tenor in the world to do it justice. Just listen to Corelli in this recording, and you will have found that tenor!
Franco Corelli
The late 60s and 70s saw the emergence of two of the greatest tenors of all in Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. Pavarotti was born in Modena in Italy in 1935, into a fairly poor family. His father was a baker and a decent amateur tenor, and his mother worked in a cigar factory, and having survived the rigours of the Second World War as a child, the young Luciano abandoned his desire to be a goalkeeper to become a singer. He loved Di Stefano, but was particularly influenced by Mario Lanza, the Italian American tenor who starred in musical films of the 50s. It is extraordinary the influence that Lanza had on the next generation of singers. Domingo has confirmed that he was an admirer, and I, in my small way, was similarly pointed in the right direction by the wayward genius of ‘The Great Caruso’ and ‘The Student Prince’. Addicted to eating and alcohol, and with a fiery temperament that saw him being sacked from most jobs he tried, Mario Lanza possessed a glorious tenor voice, overlaid with a romantic style that proved irresistible to millions. His death at the age of 38 seems to have been almost inevitable from the stories, but what a legacy he left us!
Pavarotti was soon establishing himself as a superstar, and, although always a big boy, his footballing youth allows us to imagine the splash that he made in his early years as Rodolfo and the Duke in ‘Rigoletto’. His voice was not huge, but perfectly focussed, and lying high, he could sing the most difficult phrases with apparent ease. He worked hard at his technique, mind you, and is for me, the epitome of the best Italian Bel Canto style. He made his La Scala debut in 1965 as Rodolfo in ‘La Boheme’ opposite his childhood friend, Mirella Freni and conducted by Karajan. He sang for the first time at the NY Met in Donizetti’s ‘Daughter of the Regiment’ bringing the house down with the famous aria Ah, mes amis with its 9 high Cs. 17 curtain calls established him as a firm favourite, and his American success marked the beginning of a love affair with audiences world-wide. I heard him for the only time live in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall in the 70s as the tenor soloist in Verdi’s Requiem, conducted by Giulini, and was amazed both by the small scale of his voice and the perfection of his sound. His ingemisco was utterly superb. Pavarotti’s recordings of Puccini and Bellini are exquisite and need to be heard. His later incarnation as the fat tenor in tails and a huge white handkerchief, the embodiment of a lost species, was sad to see, despite the continuing excellence of his singing, I don’t think it helped the public perception of opera. The phenomenon of the 3 Tenors, peaking at the World Cup in Rome in 1990, with Domingo and Carreras, and the use of his recording of Nessun dorma as the BBC theme for the competition, ensured that his last years would continue as a sort of travesty of his career, but there is no denying the splendour of his voice.
Jose Carreras, the third tenor, a fine Catalan Spaniard who had a decent career with a beautiful mellifluous voice, was also inspired by Mario Lanza, but was struck down by leukemia at the age of 40. He was given a 1 in 10 survival chance, but fortunately recovered, although the voice was never the same. His career path before the disease explains why he was the 3rd tenor of the Three, but, by 1990, his best vocal days were past. Fortunately, the 3 Tenor phenomenon has allowed him to achieve the success he might otherwise have had in opera, but at the cost of artistic integrity perhaps.
Placido Domingo was born in 1941 in Madrid and moved to Mexico with his parents, where they formed a zarzuela (Spanish operetta) company. He was trained in piano and conducting in Mexico, and soon began to be noticed firstly as a baritone, and then in his proper voice as a tenor. It is a source of sadness to me to see him ending his career as a baritone. Why a man of 79 should want to keep singing roles that do not suit his voice is a mystery, except that I assume the lure of the stage is impossible to ignore. He certainly can’t need the money, and with the controversy of his relationships with women still current, I feel he would be much smarter to retire quietly to one of his lovely homes. There is no denying the magnificence of his voice at its best. I was lucky to hear him quite early in the 1970s in Edinburgh, singing Don Jose to Teresa Berganza’s Carmen, and I often heard him at Covent Garden, notably his first Otello. In the early 90s, I sang the small role of Sciarrone in “Tosca” in Paris with Domingo as Cavaradossi (see ‘A Singer’s Life’), so I can say I have shared a stage with one of the greats.
Another of the great recent tenors, the Argentinian Jose Cura, has become a friend after we worked together on Britten’s ‘Peter Grimes’ in Monte Carlo. Jose both sang Grimes and directed the opera, in a great show, featuring my very good friend, Peter Sidhom, the Anglo- Egyptian baritone, as Balstrode, and showed what an accomplished singer and musician he is. Both Domingo and Cura have conducted extensively, and Jose also composes. These greats are far removed from the hanky-waving Pavarotti, but there is room for all sorts if you have the right voice.
There are some very fine younger tenors coming through at the moment, who will eventually replace the present heartthrobs like Jonas Kaufmann and Joseph Calleja, who are incidentally very good, but should avoid the lure of ‘crossover’! Look out for David Butt Philip, Freddie de Tommaso and Allan Clayton, and Scotland’s Nicky Spence.
I have missed out far too many wonderful tenors in this brief survey, especially the stars of the Baroque world, like Rogers Covey-Crump and Nicholas Mulroy, Nigel Rogers and Ian Partridge, but I want to end this look at the fascinating and emotional tenor voice by mentioning my dear friend of 40 years, Ian Caley.
Recognised at a young age by Glyndebourne, and having sung at Covent Garden, Scottish Opera and ENO, Ian, originally from Lancashire, spent most of his exceptional career abroad, mostly in France, singing a huge variety of major roles, mostly French opera but not exclusively so, and ended his career much too soon. He was a fantastic Bob Boles in “Peter Grimes” all over Europe, and I’ll always remember his Flamand in Strauss’ ‘Capriccio’ and Nadir in ‘The Pearl Fishers’.
Now retired, but suffering from MS, he has been a very good friend to me over all these years, and I hope he will be remembered as an important English tenor.
There are so many recordings of all these wonderful singers I have been writing about, that I could not possibly recommend anything more than the one or two suggestions I have made in the course of the articles. Suffice to say that if you Google any of these names I have mentioned, you should be able to find some great records.
