Nicolai Gedda: An Epicure's Taste And A Great Favorite

Nicolai Gedda was born in Stockholm in 1925.  He was from early youth bilingual in Swedish and Russian, and went on to learn important world languages on his own.  He was, as a result, possessed of a great linguistic versatility during his career and sang convincingly in many languages.  Gedda is an extremely famous tenor and his biography is so easily consulted, that I need say only a few words by way of introduction.

After some introductory vocal study with Carl Martin Öhman, a  Wagnerian tenor from the 1920s, Gedda—as characteristically happens—drew almost immediate attention to himself.  His voice was large for a lyric tenor, and he always had an amazing and utterly reliable top, capable of singing above high C.  After understudying Giuseppe di Stefano at the Edinburgh Festival around 1951, he debuted with the royal Swedish Opera in Adam's Le Postillon de Lonjumeau, where he had ample opportunity to display his very high voice.  He attracted the attention of von Karajan in 1953, and his La Scala debut took place in 1953.   The role was Don Ottavio, and Gedda quickly became identified as an absolutely superb Mozart tenor.  After la Scala came the Paris Opera in 1954 and the Met in 1957.  By then, the career was international, and was to become one of the great careers in opera.  He was at the Met for 26 years, and performed 28 roles there, including all the famous "bread and butter roles."  People often mistakenly think of him primarily in terms of the French repertoire, but in fact his repertoire was very broad, including the big Italian roles and Russian roles as well.

I think the first thing that merits listening to is his "Il Mio Tesoro" from Mozart's Don Giovanni.  A well known New York opera coach once told me something that I have never forgotten:  "Everybody likes the big Mozart tenor arias, like "Il mio tesoro," but they don't want to hear them sung by a church tenor."  So very true!  This is where Gedda shone.  He sings this Mozart aria with the same verbal gusto he would use to sing arias from the standard Italian or French repertoire.  The result is one of the most viril renderings of the aria ever recorded, while remaining true to Mozart and to the essential stylistics and musicality of the piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgRe9AnkHqU

That is an "Il mio tesoro" to be proud of!  The audience response at the end of this tape, which is a live Met performance, tells the story.  It is one of the most enthusiastic applaudings of the piece that I have ever heard.  I heard him in concert, in 1961, sing this aria, and I was stunned by the amount of voice he put into it.  His was a big voice, and he made it work beautifully in Mozart.  It was stunning.  I have never forgotten it!

This does not mean that Gedda always sang lyric arias with great vocal  energy—not at all.  Here is an exemplary "Je crois entendre encore:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCImfJUFSf0&feature=related

Isn't that just beautiful!  This is Gedda in a characteristic French mode that became something of a calling card for him.  It is perhaps because of singing like this, in French, that he developed the reputation of being something like a French tenor.  He was not, of course, but he did handle the language beautifully, and his elegance and sense of style—coupled with an innate musicality—contributed considerably to that notion.

Finally, an aria not commonly asociated with Gedda, but one which he sings very well indeed.  The great perennial favorite "A te, o cara," here recorded at La Scala, where he was quite popular.  He sings it beautifully, and it provides a good vehicle for his high voice, which—considering its size—was somewhat miraculous. (I can testify to the size of the voice!)  Notice that he sings it in the original key, so the high note is  a C#. Gedda was at home, however, in this stratospheric range:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bh7snchrq0&feature=watch_response

And there you have it!  A great tenor, a great stylist, a very reliable, very high tenor voice, always under control.  For many people, and all things considered, this was a tenor for the ages!

Robert Merrill: The Rolls-Royce of Baritones!

The popular American baritone Robert Merrill (Moishe Miller) was born in 1919, or thereabouts, in Brooklyn, the son of Polish immigrants. Merrill was part of that wonderful Jewish artistic immigration to the United States, around the turn of the century, which gave us the likes of Beverly Sills, Richard Tucker, Jan Peerce, Roberta Peters, and Leonard Warren, among others. Along with the great vaudevillians from the same period—Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, George Burns, Sophie Tucker and many others, it constituted one of the greatest artist windfalls ever enjoyed by a relatively young country in the process of developing its own cultural traditions. In the classical arts of the 20th century, this means Jewish-American, and it was spectacular!

Like Beverly Sills, Jan Peerce, Helen Traubel, Lawrence Tibbett and so many others of the period, Merrill always had one foot in popular entertainment, especially Broadway, radio and TV. Today we think of opera singers as almost exclusively opera singers, but that was not really so at that time. Actually, I think the case could be made that opera and opera singing are at their healthiest and probably most popular—at least in this country—when they exist in the company of the popular arts. That cozy relationship was shattered for good, it seems, not by opera singers and opera enthusiasts, but by the extraordinary developments, post-Elvis, of a rock-driven American popular culture that simply has nothing at all in common with traditional arts like opera. It wasn't opera's fault. But that is another story, and another blog!

There is no good reason I can think of to waste your time or mine with a mini-biography of Robert Merrill. If you're reading a blog like this, it's safe to assume you already know a lot about opera singers. Merrill was so well-known that a simple glance at Wiki will tell you anything you may not already know about this popular American baritone. A trivia point—you may not know that he was a very accomplished semi-pro baseball player, and paid for his musical education at the beginning with money he made pitching in a semi-pro league! There is always something more to people: like the fact that Roberto Murolo, the grand master of Neapolitan song and song history, actually paid his way through college as a championship swimmer:-) You just never know.

It's all about Merrill's voice. His was one of the smoothest, most elegantly and easily produced of baritone voices. Here is an absolutely classic rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening" that shows very well the perfection of his singing technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FauzdeUGeM


Now how is that for smooth! Absolutely perfect singing, as best I can judge. I am reminded of a conversation I had many years ago with Daniel Ferro, at Juilliard, one of the world's outstanding voice teachers. He compared Merrill's technique to the automatic gear-shifting of an expensive luxury automobile. He said you never notice the shift between registers; it is so smooth that it is like a perfect, steady progression. I don't think it can be said better.

Such smoothness and exemplary legato immediately suggest Valentin as a near ideal French role for Merrill, and indeed he was superb in such repertoire. Here is the much-loved aria "Avant de Quitter ceux lieux" in a live 1955 performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHajZ1U-3_c&feature=related


Again, the words that first come to mind are "smoothness," "legato," and "tonal consistency," all accompanied by a remarkably in-line transition to the upper register. It often comes as a surprise to realize that Merrill is sometimes singing Gs and even Abs as though they were part of the middle of his voice!

Finally, the one baritone aria that even those who know nothing of opera will know, Figaro's ultra-famous "Largo al factotum," staple fare of concerts, anthologies, singing textbooks and even cartoons!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNPS6AV1U14


Absolutely excellent! This cannot be faulted. I would call it a classic rendition—completely free of the extraordinary idiosyncrasies so frequently visited upon it by lesser talents. The Italian diction, which frequently gets muddled in the mouths of Americans, is pretty clean and clear here; as always, the register transitions are perfect, and the tonal consistency is absolute. That's the kind of singing that guarantees a very long career! And that indeed is what Merrill had—long, distinguished, profitable, and—not merely coincidentally—a lot of fun!

Geraldine Farrar: Hollywood Glamour Comes To Opera

Geraldine Farrar was born in Melrose, Massachusetts in 1882. She began studying music when she was a small child and was on the concert stage by the time she was a teenager. Her operatic debut was in Berlin in 1901, at the relatively tender age of 19. The opera was Faust, and she is reported to have created a sensation. From youth, she was beautiful, with strong acting as well as musical instincts. In the Victorian age of somewhat regal prima donnas, with only the slightest concern for acting and often with a seeming lack of concern about their appearance, Farrar was a potent force, both on stage and in the movies.

Her earliest roles seem to have been chosen to accentuate these characteristics. She appeared in Thomas' Mignon and Massenet's Manon, as well as Juliette in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette. Hints of scandalous affairs began to surface almost immediately, and were to become a staple of her career, as she quickly either cultivated or naturally fell into what might be called show business glitz, with all that it implies. By the 20's she would be one of the "modern women"  of that period. She even had young female admirers known as "Gerry-flappers." Her most notorious affair was probably her long-standing affair with Arturo Toscanini, something that finally, if the stories are true—drove Toscanini from the Met when she demanded marriage. She was a mighty strong-minded woman.

All this is not to say that she was without more traditional artistic talents –not at all. In fact, she became an absolute staple at the Metropolitan for almost her entire career, until her retirement in 1922. She sang nearly 500 performances during that period, creating title roles in Mascagni's Amica, Puccini's Suor Angelica, and Giordano's Madame Sans-Gêne. Also, she was the Met's first Cho-Cho-San, in 1907.

Farrar also appeared in many silent movies, including Joan the Woman (1917), in which she portrayed Joan of Arc, and, in 1915, Cecil B. DeMille's adaptation of the opera Carmen. During her career, she made many recordings with RCA Victor.

Before listening to Farrar sing "Un bel dì," it is necessary to point out that she was among the first singing actors at the Met. She did not hesitate to use her voice to support characterization. Therefore, if she needed to portray something ugly and frightening, she did not hesitate to let those qualities be shown in her voice. She was not at all wed to pure lyricism at all costs. Here, in Cho-Cho-San's famous aria, in which she dreams of her husband's return, she deliberately creates the sound of the voice of a 15-year old girl. This will be immediately apparent at the beginning of the recording. It is important to remember what she was doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEnsJxV717s


Very few well-known sopranos, then or now, would have the courage or the conviction to attempt this. The result is that we often must contend with hefty 40 year old sopranos singing Cho-Cho-San a tutta forza. Personally, I find Farrar's version very moving. It drives home, in the most direct way, the absolute tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes, as a child, with her own child, is about to have a child's first love betrayed. It's all just too terrible. This is the triumph of acting and characterization over all other considerations!

Here is a recording made in Farrar's youth, when she was only 27 years old. It is easy to see what kind of voice she had—very much in the ingénue category, very lovely and light, perfect for the kinds of heroines she was portraying at that stage of her life. This is the Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffmann, with baritone Antonio Scotti, in 1909:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-XGY8SBT1E


Mignon, Manon, Marguerite, Juliette—a perfect voice and repertoire choice joined to her youthful beauty.

Finally, Here is the "Jewel Song" from Faust, the opera in which Farrar first attracted international attention to herself as a 19-year old girl. This recording is from 1913, when she was 31, probably at her vocal peak, and shows a voice in full maturity—a rich and ringing operatic sound but with a somewhat forced B natural at the end. She never had a particularly high voice, and she was known to take on a huge schedule, which began to take its toll. She retired in 1922, when she was only 40, and it would seem to be the case that she had abused her voice with too much singing. Also, she always used the voice she had, as mentioned, in support of her acting, and that may have had some effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V2AqPNdTQs


And now, an extra treat:  thanks to one of our faithful readers, my dear Russian friend Natalie, here is a Youtube video of Farrar's Carmen in Cecil B. DeMille's film!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQjh4uvPyc




Farrar in a nutshell: Self knowledge, a mighty will of her own, an adroit use of natural gifts, and a first-class career!

Beverly Sills: A Great American Soprano

Beverly Sills, (Belle Miriam Silverman) was born in 1929 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were Ukrainian immigrants, and as a child Sills was exposed to many languages at home, including French, Yiddish, and Russian, along with her native English. This exposure gave her a very natural facility with foreign languages, which was helpful in her later career.

Sills was precocious in the extreme as a child. Starting by winning a child beauty contest at the age of 3, she began performing on the radio at the age of 4 as "Bubbles" Silverman. She started taking lessons with Estelle Liebling, and by 1937, when she was 8 years old, she had appeared in a film, released the following year, which fortunately is preserved and viewable on Youtube. Because it tells us so very much about her, I think that here is a good place to see it. The film is called "Uncle Sol Solves It," and it is far more than a vaudeville shtick because of the difficulty of the piece, and the serious way Sills sings. Notice the extraordinary presence and charm of this little girl!  Also, watch the video to the very end and notice Uncle Sol's final advice to her:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAz2HgSZaDs

Now how adorable is that!? The amazing thing is that she handles the fioratura quite well! Also, she has been taught, or naturally understands, what the great bel canto tenor Fernando de Lucía once told his student Georges Thill: "...per cantare bene, bisogna aprire la bocca!!" Which little Bubbles did! It's not hard to see why they called her "Bubbles," is it:-) Also, one other thing needs to be noticed. Did you notice Uncle Sol's advice at the end? Stay right here and study in this country., no matter how hanxious your hancestors are to do otherwise:-) .....we have great teachers here. That was one of the first things I noticed. It is important, because this was the grateful and patriotic attitude of so many at that time. The culture these Jewish immigrants, largely from Russia and Eastern Europe, brought to this country was enormous, beyond measure. You can see it in Sill's life-long attitude and work, and also in the attitudes of Jan Peerce, Roberta Peters, and many others. What they went on to contribute—and still do—is a story in itself, one of which every American can be proud, and for which all should be grateful.

Liebling encouraged little Beverly to appear on radio talent shows, which she did, and won a series of them, bringing increasing attention to herself. By age 16, she had joined a Gilbert and Sullivan touring company and began accumulating practical stage experience. Two years later, at 18, she made her operatic stage debut as the Spanish gypsy Frasquita in Bizet's Carmen with the Philadelphia Civic Grand Opera Company. By 1953, when she was 24, she appeared with the San Francisco opera as Helen of Troy in Boito's Mefistofele, and also sang Elivra in Don Giovanni with them the same year. From this moment on, her career virtually exploded. She went on, over the course of her career, to sing very many roles, in virtually all the major houses. Although she sang a repertoire from Handel, Mozart and Puccini, to Massenet and Verdi, she was known for her performances in coloratura soprano roles. Favorite operas were Lucia, La Fille du Régiment, Manon, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, The Barber of Seville, Roberto Devereux, La Traviata, and I Puritani.

Sills' life was music, from beginning to end: it never stops. The honors and accolades were extraordinary, as was her public relations work on behalf of music and charity, her administrative work at New York City Opera, and The Metropolitan. It is a vast biography, much too long to discuss here, but very easily consulted. Also, she has written an autobiography She was, without question, one of the most famous and respected figures in mid-twentieth century American cultural life.

Let us turn to Sills the artist. Here she is in her preferred repertoire, singing "Come per me sereno" from Bellini's La Sonnambula. It is a real coloratura tour-de-force. The trills, fioratura, and (very) high notes are simply stunning. It is a video of a certain length (nine minutes). If you have not the time to listen to it all now, skip the recitative. You don't want to miss any fireworks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuaGuKrq9fY

There simply can be no doubt about that technique. It is extraordinary, by any standard. The principles of bel canto singing have been thoroughly internalized, to the point where they simply come to define the singing. Few other sopranos of the twentieth century could match those trills. Sutherland could, but after that one starts to run down the list. Just amazing. And the speed of the coloratura is dazzling. This is a woman who was almost born singing, and was well taught from childhood. I would be so bold as to say that her technique was second to none.

Finally, from an American opera, the "Willow Song" from The Ballad of Baby Doe, by Douglas Moore. Sills distinguished herself in this opera, and was Moore's personal favorite in the title role (watch her, around 2:50, pick a D natural above high C out of the air!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNg8VGrIqls&feature=related


To a very great soprano, from a grateful American public—Thank you, Bubbles!

Gianfranco Cecchele: A Great and Under-Publicized Tenor

Gianfranco Cecchele ws born in 1938 in Padua, Italy. Even as a child he showed a precocious interest in opera and operatic singing. His interest was steadfast, and by 1963, when he was 25 years old, he decided to give it a try, and took some voice lessons. His teachers were impressed with his vocal potential, and in the same year he won a singing contest organized by the Teatro Nuovo in Milan. His debut followed quickly, and in the following year he debuted at the Teatro Bellini in Catania, in a relatively obscure work, a one-act pastoral poem by Giuseppe Mulè entitled La Zolfara. However, possessed of a heroic voice, he quickly (within the same year, actually) moved on to La Scala to sing no less than the leading role in Wagner's Rienzi! Next—and this is all in 1964—on to Rome and Aida. Clearly, this young tenor with a stentorian voice was making a quick and powerful impression on audiences and critics alike. In rapid succession he accumulated a repertoire that included, in addition to Rienzi and Rhadames, Don Carlo, Turridu, Don Alvaro and Calaf. In the following year he appeared at the Paris Opera, with Maria Callas, in Norma. It is hard to imagine a more rapid rise in a very demanding repertoire, and that of course was a double-edged sword. He was, after all, only in his 20's! He reputation spread throughout Europe and he gave 241 performances between 1964 and 1969. Of course, the inevitable happened, and toward the end of the period, around '67 and '68, he seriously strained his voice, causing vocal inflammation. Too many big roles too quickly. He had to quit singing entirely at that point, at least for a while, to undergo a long and painful recuperation from swollen and seriously strained vocal musculature. He temporarily dropped off the map, so to speak, and not much was heard of him. After a few years, however, he was re-establishing himself, and adding some less demanding roles to his repertoire and singing less often, having learned the lesson that many tenors do. Had he displayed that wisdom earlier on, there would likely not have been an interruption in his career. Also, the fact that he sang very largely in Italy made him an opera singer who, while enormously popular there, was not much known in America. This is also the case with two other fine Italian tenors, Mario Filippeschi and Salvatore Fisichella. (Giuseppe Giacomini, also less well known here than he should have been, was nevertheless very active outside Italy.)

Listening to a bit of Cecchele erases all doubts about the greatness of the voice and his abilities as a singer and actor. One of his signature roles, from the beginning, had been Calaf, and here is a superb rendition of "Non Piangere, Liu"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRgDJvj9-go


Isn't that wonderful! The clarity of the voice, along with the richness and fullness, is positively thrilling. This is a great voice, no doubt about it. And, not coincidentally, Cecchele was a handsome man, and restrained in his acting. This is a 1968 TV video, when he would have been 30. I do not have sufficient information to know if this was during the period of recuperation from his vocal troubles or not; judging from the relative ease of the production, I would assume he was learning how to take it a little easier...there does not appear to be any stress in evidence here.

Here is an aria recorded in 1981, when he would have been 43, stable and in complete control of his voice: "La mia letizia infondere," from Verdi's I Lombardi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7mkHrozXCI&feature=related


Absolutely superb! The quality of the voice is beautiful and well controlled; the top is entirely intact and completely in line with all the registers; that was a B natural near the end, and it was perfect and, most importantly, not overstressed or unduly elongated. In a word, it was exemplary, both vocally and stylistically.

Finally the big tenor aria from Turandot, "Nessun Dorma," from a 1981 filmed production:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jW-pdPhWPQ&feature=related


I find it impossible to fault this singing; this rendition of "Nessun Dorma" will stand with that of any other tenor, and seriously exceeds the efforts of many, some of them much more famous. Cecchele was, simply put,  a superb tenor.

There are reasons, as I pointed out earlier, why Cecchele was not well known in the United States. Certainly the most important is that he was, it seems, perfectly happy to sing in Italy. Not everyone, after all, wants to spend half their career lives on airplanes. There is also the fact that there was something of a lock-out on some Italian tenors in the United States during the 70's and 80's. That is one of the reasons another great dramatic tenor, Giuseppe Giacomini, was seen so seldom here. But that, as they say, is a discussion for another time.

The Great Jacques Urlus

Jacques Urlus was born in 1867 near Aachen, and grew up in Tilburg, in The Netherlands. As was—and is— so often the case with great artists, entertainers and sports figures, his family was poor, so much so that they could not afford to give him any musical training. The result of this is that Urlus was essentially self-taught, and a mighty job he did of it, for he was to become an extraordinary technician, with a near-flawless vocal technique that made it possible for him to sing Mozart, Wagner (with which he was particularly associated), and Lieder. In a word, like Franz Völker and Leo Slezak, he could sing anything he put his mind to. Essentially, it is always the same voice, and it always works well! More on this subject in a moment.

His debut was at the Amsterdam Opera House, in 1894, in a small part. After singing around Amsterdam for a while, he had the chance to go to Hannover, Germany, where he appeared in Lohengrin, to considerable acclaim. He sang for Cosima Wagner, but was not at that time given any opportunities at Bayreuth. So, it was back to The Netherlands, where he continued singing where he could. His next big move was in 1900, to Leipzig, which became his artistic base for many years. Debuts from farther afield soon came, and he went on to perform in Berlin, Vienna, Frankfurt and other houses in Germany and Austria. He also appeared at Covent Garden at this time. Finally, in 1911, he did get the chance to go to Bayreuth, where he sang Siegmund , which was well received.

It was on to the Met the next year, and Urlus was now established, having sung in all the major Northern opera houses. I do not know that he ever sang publicly in any language except German, or, I assume, Dutch in some of the performances in The Netherlands.  After the Met engagement, it was back to Germany, where he essentially spent the rest of his career.

Urlus is a good example of what I talk about often in these pages, and that is the unsatisfying vagueness of our current terminology for voice types. He was a great tenor. To me that sums it up. We are so besotted with ever-finer vocal definitions, that they lose meaning after while: Heldentenor, heroic tenor (the same thing) dramatic tenor (the same thing), spinto tenor, leggiero tenor, lyric tenor, etc. ad infinitum. They are all in fact tenors, men with high singing voices. We burden our vocabulary with endless definitions, to almost no avail. Most of these definitions, when you stop and think about it, describe the color, size, intensity and flexibility of the voice. It does not invent a new category every time one tenor sounds different from another. Let's look more closely at Urlus, a good example of what I am talking about. Commonly called a "Heldentenor," a term I somewhat uneasy with in his case, here is his rendition of a popular Mozart aria, Tamino's "Dies Bildness ist bezaubernd Schön"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCou93le6zU&feature=related


It is beautiful, and reminds me of what a well-known New York opera coach once told me: "Everybody likes to hear these great Mozart arias, but they don't want to hear a church tenor singing them." Indeed. Urlus' voice sounds different here, of course, from that of Fritz Wunderlich, Jussi Björling, or Alfredo Kraus, but so what? They are different people, each with his own voice. If it resembles anyone else's rendition, it would be Franz Völker's. Both were eminently successful singing Mozart. And Wagner!

Let's hear Urlus move now to Verdi, and to what is commonly considered a "big" and "dramatic" aria, "Celeste Aida."  Urlus sings it with exactly the same voice with which he sang the Tamino aria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB1gfEe1IlY


I would say this is exceptionally well done; that it is, in fact, great tenor singing, without question. The line, the purity of the vocal production, the style, and the dynamics, even with the "as written" ending.  It is elegant and consummate singing, by any standard and in any historical period.  What I am not sure I hear is "Heldentenor."  If Lauritz Melchior is a "Heldentenor," then Jacques Urlus may not be. That is as simply as I can put it. They are both tenors, and they both sound very good in very different kinds of roles.

Finally, 2 short Wagner arias, from Lohengrin, recorded in 1907 and 1911. ("In Fernem Land," when Urlus was 40 years old, and "Mein lieber Schwan," four years later. I invite you to compare the voice, in all its aspects, to the two pieces we have already heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETGflvP5el8


And there you have it. Superb singing on all fronts: Mozart, Verdi and Wagner, and we have not even touched the lighter song repertoire, at which he also excelled. One voice, finely tuned and universally applicable. The fact that he always sang in German or Dutch, of course, helps make this happen. If he were to sing in Italian, Spanish, or French, it would be possible to talk about his particular aptitude for one or the other language, but that only adds another element to the real differences between tenor singing voices, and that is the aptness to the language of birth—another matter altogether, unrelated to voice types. Jacques Urlus was a great tenor; remarkably consistent and almost infinitely adaptable.*

__________________________________________
*For those who wish to listen to more of Urlus, please permit me to recommend strongly the Youtube channel of Mr. Tim Shu, at dantitustimshu, one of the very best sites currently available on the web, where you can find many Urlus videos, all with erudite and reliable commentary.

Léopold Simoneau: The Art of Elegant Lyricism

Léopold Simoneau was born in St. Flavien, Québec. After beginning studies in Québec City and Montreal, he went to New York to study with the well-known American tenor and teacher Paul Althouse. His first important debut was in 1949 at the Opéra Comique in Paris, in Gounod's Mireille. His lovely, elegant singing was an instant hit with the French, and in the next two years he went on to debuts at the Paris Opera, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, Edinburgh, Salzburg, Vienna and Milan. He was quickly establishing a reputation not only as a brilliant Mozartean tenor, but as a near-perfect exponent of the elegant style of older opera in general, including Gluck's Orfeo, Delibes' Lakmé, and Rameau's Les Indes galantes. In the US, he sang at the Chicago Lyric from 1954 to 1961, and one season at the Met, as don Ottavio, in the 1960's. New York was not a fertile artistic field for elegant tenor singing in the Franch style at that time, being heavily invested in Italian verismo opera. Simoneau's superb lyric craftsmanship won him many honors in Canada, and he was, during his entire career, greatly respected for his musicianship and sense of high style.

His sense of style and finely tuned singing technique is something easily appreciated from hearing it, as opposed to someone talking about it! Here is the lovely "Un'aura amorosa," from Mozart's Così Fan Tutte:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in7Nhn1H7Zs


Isn't that lovely! The legato line is perfect, and the smoothness of his singing is truly astonishing. This little aria is much trickier artistically that it might seem. The back and forth movement over the passagio can be treacherous, and it is not at all easy to maintain a smooth legato in the process. This is exemplary Mozart singing, and in fact Simoneau was praised throughout his career as one of the very greatest of Mozart singers.

It was not only in Mozart, of course, that he excelled. As a French-speaking tenor, the transition to operas such as Bizet's Pearl Fishers was natural. Here is the famous and beautiful aria "Je crois entendre encore:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCl-Ib9FmTs


That is supremely beautiful, and vocally matches even the most famous tenors of all time (and I think every professional tenor has recorded it!) and is, I must say, far more convincing stylistically and linguistically that the versions of many well-known tenors. Simoneau is squarely within his favored repertoire!

Finally, an unusual piece. The music itself is very well known (Orpheus' heart-breakingly beautiful "che farò senza Euridice") but it is almost always sung by a contralto or mezzo-soprano. In France, however the piece was mounted as a French 18th-century style opera, with Orpheus sung by a tenor. This may sound a bit unusual to those who have heard only the contralto version, because dramatically the tenor best represents the role and the music as a male heart-broken lover who has lost his beloved, and the dramatic inflections which Simoneau makes place the piece slightly outside the more concert-like lilting, legato versions of female singers. I think it's a small matter, because the piece gains much in the (appropriate, I think) drama of its presentation. See what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYxgVjpZvrw


I find this very moving, and I think it works perfectly well.

Simoneau's career was one of very high musical and stylistic quality , and his recordings still bear eloquent testimony to that fact!