Leonard Warren: "Morir! Tremenda Cosa!"

There is a tendency among opera buffs to speak of a "golden age" of opera singing, and most refer to the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the twentieth. I seriously doubt it. I believe those who say that are speaking, perhaps without realizing it, of costumes, grand manners, prima donna behavior, a high public regard for opera, and an aristocratic vogue generally during the Victorian era. In strict terms of the singing art, recorded evidence does not support the idea of a golden age of singing per se. Extant recordings of famous opera singers made from 1900 to 1920 (and there are many) often reveal a rather primitive technique: open phonation, insufficiently supported top notes, unblended registers, (especially annoying in sopranos) and a tendency to stridency, even in the greatest voices. If there were any period of great opera singing that deserves to be referred to in locus amoenus terms, I would suggest that it would most likely be somewhere around 1950 through 1970, with much of it centered at the Metropolitan Opera. To run down a list of names is subject matter for another discussion, but it is precisely within this era that baritone Leonard Warren should be placed. Many consider him the greatest of all the Verdi baritones—a mighty claim, to be sure—but I think one that may be justified. He certainly possessed one of the greatest voices of the 20th century.

Born Leonard Warrenoff in New York City, in 1911, he was the son of poor Russian Jewish immigrants. He began singing in the chorus of Radio City Music Hall in 1938, and decided to audition for the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air in that same year. He made a big impression. He was taken on by the Met, who sent him to Italy to study, as he had little formal training at that time. His Met audition was the following year, in Simon Boccanegra, and the rest is well documented history. Possessed of one of the great voices of all time, his rise in the opera world was meteoric, and he soon distinguished himself in all the major opera houses of the world, winning particular praise for his work in Verdi and Puccini operas. His voice was exceptionally mellow, and he had a very high top, able to sing notes in the extreme tenor range when he wished.

Although valued most as a Verdi singer, Warren certainly had a much broader repertoire, as the famous rollicking "Largo al Factotum" shows very well:

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


Isn't that simply magnificent! Did anyone else notice the two high A naturals in that piece!? The mellowness of the voice is very much like the effect created by the low-larynx school of verismo tenor singing, Giuseppe Giacomini and Mario Del Monaco being prime examples. In Warren's case, as a baritone, I do not get the impression that this kind of vocal production was as forced or as studied as it is in the case of the tenors. Some complained that his voice was actually too soft, that it would have benefitted from more intense focus, more like the voices of Sherrill Milnes or Robert Merrill. I find that questionable, to say the least. Warren's mellifluous voice had not only the added benefit of an extreme top, but it also gave him to ability to sing softly when he wished, with an absolutely beautiful half-voice. Here is a piece I posted on Youtube just a day ago; a recording made from a live performance made in Russia in 1958 of Tosti's "L'ultima canzone:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwE9XVclK2k


This intelligent use of a great voice on a gentle Italian song like "L'ultima canzone" is a sure sign of a master at work.
This same set of abilities also worked well for him on the stage. Not all baritone roles are blood-curdling drama. Valentin's touching aria to his sister Marguerite, in Faust, is a classic that has tended historically to be over-sung, defying the tender filial emotions of the piece. Here is the great Warren in what I have to call a bel canto moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1IP3uSrK-I


Absolutely perfect. Gounod would have been thrilled. I believe that if one wants to put the "he should have sung with more focused tonal intensity" idea to the test, it would only be necessary to listen to Warren sing this aria, and then listen to it again, featuring one of the baritones with exactly the described quality of "focused" voice, to see how this lovely and elegant song can be shattered like a dropped piece of Sevres porcelain.

Warren's untimely death is highly dramatic and remembered to this day. It was in the third act of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, at the Metropolitan Opera, on March 4, 1960. He had just finished singing Don Carlo's stirring aria which begins with the words "Morir! Tremenda Cosa!" ("To Die! A Momentous Thing!) when he fell face forward onto the stage, dead. He was 48 years old.

Even though his life was too short, his legacy far surpasses what some other artists leave after a long lifetime of effort. Warren was one of the great opera singers of the twentieth century—perhaps of all time—and his recorded legacy is more than sufficient to support that reputation far into the future.



I

Mario del Monaco: Greatness and Controversy

"Il y a des personnes qui ont plus d'esprit que de goût, et d'autres qui on plus de goût que d'esprit; mais il y a plus de variété et de caprice dans le goût que dans l'esprit." La Rochefoucauld

Mario del Monaco was born in Florence in 1915, to a cultivated and affluent family who fostered his early musical education, seeing to it that he studied the violin as a youth. He loved singing, however, and quickly turned to voice as his principal musical enthusiasm. He had a good musical education, graduating from the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro. He made good early musical contacts there, including Renata Tebaldi, who was to become a good friend and future collaborator. Among his voice teachers was Arturo Melocchi, the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) teacher of the lowered larynx school of singing that produced some notable dramatic singers, such as del Monaco himself and the excellent Giuseppe Giacomini, about whom I have written previously. The method is particularly designed to produce powerful, steely and dramatic voices, often with extended range, especially in the singer's youth. The problem that sometimes arises is that voices thus trained can begin to show severe signs of strain fairly early on, sometimes resulting in a wide wobble in the voice. This is what eventually happened to Giacomini, although he had many good years on stage before it started.

Del Monaco had a lot going for him. He was very handsome, and remarkably virile in his appearance. He was made for the dramatic Italian repertoire, especially Verdi. He made an early debut in Milan, as Pinkerton, in 1940, and began paying his dues, singing primarily around Italy and also in London. He came to the Met in 1951 and had an enormous success there for the next 8 years, doing the big Italian roles for which he became famous: Otello, Andrea Chenier, Rhadames, Canio,and Manrico, among others. His voice was very powerful and dark, and very thrilling. He could incite near hysteria in an audience. He was a melodramatic actor, not at all subtle, but then this is opera we are talking about. It hardly mattered. His adoring and loving fans will declare to this day that he was the greatest dramatic tenor ever, and one of the greatest tenors of any vocal classification. He also has detractors. Their claim is that he was histrionic to a mid-19th century degree, that he was monochromatic, and could only sing a tutta forza, and that he was quirky to the point of being outright eccentric in the lack of discretion he showed in recording completely inappropriate material: bass arias, baritone arias, or silly popular songs like "Ghost riders in the sky." He had a significant presence in film and TV, and this material can be consulted fairly easily on Youtube. I will also say that his videos on Youtube tend to occasion comments that seem to have been previously loaded onto a bathysphere in an attempt to plumb a new low. He can still, in a word, produce near-hysterical reactions in some.

I prefer always to look on the bright and positive side. Considering how many people would like to be great singers, and how many give it their all, and how few make it, a certain amount of respect is due those who actually do make it, and in addition have spectacular careers. They must be doing something right. He was in point of fact a great dramatic tenor capable of producing a visceral excitement which has become pretty rare these days. He was a giant among singers, and should be remembered as such. The eccentricities (and they are there, to be sure) are incidental. Yes, he was more than a bit of a character. But who cares, basically.

Here is a recording of a brilliant "Di Quella Pira," which he lip-synched (for reasons I will never figure out) to one of his own recordings playing over loud speakers in what seems to be an outdoor arena of some kind. One always needs to concentrate on the voice and the looks with Del Monaco, and overlook the bizarre:

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


You've got to love the Italians! It looks like something out of a Fellini film. But isn't that an incredible voice! What a tenor! A king-sized personality, possibly with less than a typical amount of discretion. However, what matters is that the voice was simply great. No reasonable person can deny that.

Here is particularly well sung and acted "E lucevan le stelle."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXjNwyJO5qY


The voice, the looks, the broad but perfectly acceptable acting, the excitement. It's all there. This is a very high level of professional performance.

Del Monaco was involved in a very bad automobile accident in the early 60's, and many claim that his voice began to suffer after the accident. This is hard to demonstrate, because those who sing as dramatically and as full-out as he did will see some natural decline in vocal powers with time. It cannot be determined. However, whether natural or caused by misfortune and injury, the voice darkened considerably later on. Here, finally, is a recording I posted on Youtube a week ago which shows the near-heldentenor stentorian singing of the later years. This is "M'hai salvato," from Catalani's La Wally, which, while technically Italian music, is much influenced by German Romanticism, which Catalani admired. The opera contains a tenor aria, near the end, which is heldentenor-like in its vocal demands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlu8cTg4qVA


Let us all agree: This was a great voice, and a great tenor. When that is said, nothing else need be said.

Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy

Peter Hermann Adler told me once that there was no doubt at all in his mind that Mario Lanza was the greatest voice America ever produced. That is a mighty claim, but it may be the case. Born Alfredo Cocozza, in 1921, in Phildelphia, Mario Lanza, as he called himself, had a whirlwind career of the kind that can only happen in America, as a rule, and he became such a presence in the popular media that he was known by virtually everyone by the early 1950's. For my generation, who grew up in the fifties, he was the biggest "classical" vocal presence since Caruso. Many singers have told me that he was their main inspiration for wanting to become opera singers. It was not so much that he WAS primarily an opera singer, because in point of fact he was essentially a movie star and radio, TV and recording artist. He only performed in two full length operas. What he did was portray an opera singer, and represent operatic singing. This gave him an enormous audience. And he did have a great voice. No reasonable person can deny that.

Contrary to much popular opinion, he took his studies seriously at the beginning of his career. He had good voice teachers and coaches, and quickly made friends with some very successful singers, including George London, Robert Weede and Francis Yeend. In fact, he went on tour with these singers in 1947, throughout North America, and was successful. In many ways, 1947-48 were years of destiny for Lanza. He had choices to make. Many things were developing at once, and to the degree that he remained East Coast based, he was on solid ground and making progress toward an operatic career. He had been heard by both Eugene Ormandy and Serge Koussevitzky, and both were impressed. In 1947, he sang at the Hollywood Bowl, and was heard by Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM Studios. He also appeared the next year in New Orleans as Pinkerton in Butterfly, one of only two full operas he was ever to perform on stage, the other having been a Tanglewood production of Niccolai's Merry Wives of Windsor in 1942. Mayer came up with a typically Hollywood sized offer, and the son of poor and struggling Italian immigrants from Philadelphia was overwhelmed. He made, at that crucial junction, what is in my opinion, and the opinion of many, a tragic mistake that would determine his destiny.

He opted for the glamorous, but relatively undisciplined glitz of the movie world, and began to make some pretty mediocre movies. He was handsome when he was young, but his acting was unschooled, and just not very good, to be honest. The first movie was The Midnight Kiss, done during this early period of 47-48, followed by an RCA Victor recording contract in 1949, and then, in 1950, the movie The Toast of New Orleans. It was in this movie that the song "Be my love" was introduced, and it went on to become his biggest pop hit, selling over a million copies. People still associate him with it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o8SZng55T0&feature=related

Incredibly, that is a high C natural at the end! An absolutely perfectly seamless voice, with spectacularly clean, clear, understandable, colloquial English, like any pop singer might deliver. Those who contend that English cannot be sung in an operatic way without distorting vowels beyond recognition should be forced to listen to this recording. It is a great voice, plain and simple. In 1952 he recorded the Student Prince, and operetta in English was an excellent vehicle for his voice. Here is the famous "Serenade," with somewhat updated lyrics.The voice, as always, is almost beyond belief in its naturalness, and seeming ease of production. No pop star ever had clearer pronunciation than Lanza. That is one of the real miracles of his singing:

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

Following The Toast of New Orleans, Lanza had made—in 1951—his biggest and most popular movie, with which he is still associated, The Great Caruso. He put all his interest and emotion in this film, because Caruso was his boyhood idol, as the great Neapolitan tenor had been for many Italian immigrants. His voice was in superb condition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaJAa6Tjhik

This is clearly pre-recorded with movie lip-synch, but then all movies are. It does not detract from the voice. The C's are splendid. The problem is that by this point Lanza has become a portrayer of opera singers, as opposed to being an opera singer himself. Also, movies require much less musical and intellectual discipline. Songs can be re-recorded, sounds can be electronically enhanced, and so on. The money is big, the fame is big, the acclaim is heady, but to a large extent it just isn't the same thing. And not much respect, if any, is garnered from the world of classical music and its artists. This can eat away at a person who wants to take his gifts seriously, but has chosen a tricky venue in which to display them.

The quality of the movies began to decline after The Great Caruso, and Lanza began to show the tell-tale signs of Hollywood stress. He could in fact deliver fine concerts in public when given the chance. He sang with great success in London, for example, at a Royal Command Performance in 1957, to considerable acclaim. He had the goods, but he had made a Faustian bargain early on, and was never to escape from it. He was only going to live one more year, his struggle with weight gain out of control, and his personal habits deteriorating to a disastrous degree. Nowhere on earth is the road down more precipitous than it is in Hollywood. Overnight stars go hand in hand with overnight disaster. He was quickly abandoned by the fair-weather friends who abound in Hollywood, and found himself in deep trouble. He made one last decision to go to Italy and study, with an eye toward a legitimate Italian debut, a decision which, had it been made a decade earlier, might have led him to a great operatic career. But it was too late. He died in Italy, in 1959, at 38 years of age. The details surrounding his death were never clear. I have heard many stories, including some from a man who worked as his publicity agent, but I will not repeat them. They are sordid and unpleasant and cannot be proven. His heart gave out, and he died, still a young man. That is enough to say. He seemed to have it all at the beginning: a truly great voice, very handsome features, good friends and connections. It is impossible, and finally silly, to try to gainsay history and the decisions of other people, or to go on about what might have been, but it seems pretty clear that it was largely Hollywood, with its infamous life-style and all that goes with it, that destroyed Mario Lanza. It was a tragedy; a particularly American tragedy and an unspeakable loss to the world of great singing.
_________________________

The Great Mark Reizen, People's Artist of the USSR

It is safe to say that Mark Reizen was one of the great singing basses of all time. Until recently, he has not been so well known outside Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union. Thanks to Youtube, and the web generally, the work of this magnificent singer is becoming much better known in the West.
Mark Reizen was born into a family of miners in Zaitsevo, in present-day Ukraine, in 1895. He was drafted into the Tsarist army at the outbreak of World War I, and greatly distinguished himself in battle. He was a very big man; strong, severe and courageous. He was twice decorated with the St. George Cross for Bravery, 4th class—the highest honor with which a regular soldier could be honored.

Encouraged by friends to try and develop his abilities as a singer, he began his studies after the war and made his operatic debut in 1921 as Pimen in Boris Godunov. At six foot three, and possessed of a very serious and dignified manner, he was a commanding presence on the stage. One success led quickly to another, and at the age of 35 he became a member of the Bolshoi, where he remained until his retirement in 1954. He had by that time received the Stalin Prize three times (1930, 1941, 1949) and had been named People's Artist of the USSR in 1937. These are extraordinary honors, especially considering the fact that Reizen was Jewish, and Stalin was known not to like Jews in general, and particularly on the stage portraying Slavic heroes. However, even with this prejudice, he could not resist honoring Reizen, whom he greatly admired as an artist. Reizen bore the honors with great and almost severe dignity. He was a private person, very formal and taciturn. He was certainly aware of the potential handicap of being Jewish, but his retreat into aloofness worked very well for him. (And of course it did not hurt that he was prodigiously gifted.) He continued to teach after retiring from the Bolshoi, and embarked on a long career of concertizing, singing brilliantly until he was very old. His last public appearance was at a gala at the Bolshoi in honor of his 90th birthday, at which occasion he sang Gremin's aria from Eugene Onegin. We will see that video shortly. It defies belief.

Reizen's voice was big, and he handled it well. He never barked or growled (a failing of some basses), but invariably bestowed grace, elegance and control—as well as drama—on the music he sang. He sang all the great bass parts, and sang them all well. The comparison with Chaliapin always arises, and I believe the simplest way to differentiate them is with the observation that where Chaliapin was a singing actor, Reizen was an acting singer. You will see what I mean.

Here is the great bass as Boris Godunov, singing the well known monologue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTTj3nGLXM


The acting is wonderful, restrained and dignified, and the large voice, as always, is under perfect control. One has the impression that there is always much more available, in reserve, for use at moments of high drama. It is impossible to fault this interpretation, in any way.

Here is Reizen, at 85 years of age, singing Rachmaninov's "Do Not Depart," a song typical of those he sang in concert during this period of his life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6mUYXX4hj4&feature=related


Such singing at any age is admirable, and at 85 it is truly astonishing.

This is not, however, the most amazing of his performances. That would surely have to be his appearance in the Bolshoi gala production of Eugene Onegin. Reizen here is 90 years of age. I call your attention in advance to the reaction of the audience, and, even more telling, that of the other singers on the stage and in the wings, who realize they are seeing something absolutely unique: This video is well worth watching to the very end, (the aria is only 5 minutes) because it is one in a million. It is, for example, at the very end, when friends and family help him to a platform to accept applause, that one realizes just what it means to be singing an operatic aria at 90 years of age!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0hVOpCGAD4


The great, and unique, Mark Reizen.

Franco Corelli: Prince of Tenors

It is safe to say that Franco Corelli was one of the great tenors of the 20th century, and almost certainly of all time. Born in Ancona, in 1921, Corelli was encouraged as a young man in college to sing in a music competition, where he impressed the judges sufficiently to win their encouragement to study further. He did so, at least briefly, and then through self study and application was able to develop his voice to such an extent that he was hired by the Rome Opera in 1951 to sing Manrico. The Rome Opera became his base for the next several years, during which time he also started singing in regional theaters throughout Italy. He was a hard working and highly disciplined young singer, memorizing many roles, not only the standard bread and butter repertoire, but also roles seldom done. His voice was a natural spinto tenor, with a lovely and somewhat dark color. It was a thrilling voice, with a brilliant and ringing top that extended all the way up to and beyond the high C. This places him in a category distinct from that of the typical dramatic tenors of his day whose voices characteristically did not possess the range or the velvet-like color of Corelli's, and were essentially baritonal in nature. There was always something of a lyric smoothness and line to his singing that was not characteristic of the dramatic tenors who often tended to bark and shout, and who did not have much usable range beyond Bb. Corelli always sang (even if loudly) and never condescended to shouting or barking for dramatic effect. He was a consummate vocalist (if not always the greatest stylist) whose essential technique—and this will sound strange to some—was not that far from traditional bel canto singing. It is possible to sing in such a way and still have a big, darkish, powerful voice. One does not exclude the other. Lauri Volpi, the greatest of the bel canto tenors, considered him a great tenor and went so far as to say that Corelli was his natural heir. Taking into account the more than considerable opinion that Lauri Volpi had of his own reputation (deservedly so, I am forced to concede), this was a kind of ultimate compliment from one great tenor to another. Because Corelli never had much formal study of music, his style and musicianship can be faulted in some instances, but his natural musical instincts, coupled with what an intelligent and hard working young man can learn from great conductors world-wide, were more than sufficient to make him a perfectly acceptable musician. Also, importantly, he was extraordinarily handsome; so much so that had he not had a great voice, or an inclination to sing, he would have been a natural for the movies, a real matinee idol. Because of all these qualities, he found adoring audiences all over the world, especially at the Met, where he began singing in 1961, and where he remained a great favorite for the next 14 years.

One of the roles with which Corelli is particularly associated is Manrico, the ill-fated troubadour. Here is a relatively young Corelli (36) in the famous "Di Quella Pira:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXIElPNn-l4



This is the essential Corelli; the coloration of the voice is whiter than that of many dramatic tenors, and the top is simply magnificent. Those high C's take no prisoners! Very, very few tenors have ever had such splendid vocal endowments.

One of Corelli's truly noteworthy qualities is his ability to sing bel canto showpieces such as "A Te, o Cara," from Bellini's I Puritani. This was also a favorite showpiece for Lauri Volpi:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEz4ta3u78



The high C is of course spectacular—it always is with Corelli, but that is not what I most notice in this piece; rather, it is the musical line. The length of Bellini's musical line is notorious, and everywhere commented upon, and it is precisely this stylistic quality which characterizes this famous aria. One cannot rely on high notes alone (Corelli actually sings it down one half tone); the aria will not work if the line is broken at any point. And he does not break it; it is one long, unbroken flow of sound, always coming to rest on the appropriate word, so that the grammatical period of the lyrics coincides exactly with the resolution of the musical phrase. I will say again that this is something few if any dramatic tenors can do properly. It is for that reason that I have never considered Corelli a dramatic tenor. He could sing all those roles, certainly, and he did—very well—but he never compromised musical line.

Here, finally, is a role with which the great tenor was also associated, Andrea Chenier. This video is from a 1971 Tokyo concert. I find it as thrilling today as I did then. I do not believe I have ever heard the "Improviso" sung more intensely or beautifully:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW4jA8wIEKQ



Simply stunning!

Corelli does of course have his detractors; those who claim he was monochromatic (on the loud side), or who fault his musicianship and style, saying that he exaggerated the high notes and the big moments in an "old fashioned" way, like the divas of past ages; that he sang poorly in any language other than Italian (as if anyone cared) and so on. Rubbish. He was extremely popular because he was a great singer, physically beautiful, and an intense dramatic presence on the stage, and, hardly coincidentally, because he possessed a lovely voice with a wide range and an almost uniquely thrilling top. There have been few tenors like him, and there are no more in the works, at least not at the moment. In many ways, the day of that kind of grand singing has passed. Perhaps that is as it must be, evolutionarily, but it is missed by many.

The Great Tetrazzini

Luisa Tetrazzini was born in 1871, in Florence. She began to sing as a small child, and was trained at the Instituto Musicale in Florence. By the age of 19 she was ready to make her debut as Inez in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine. She sang around Italy, and then went to Russia, where she scored a big success in St. Petersburg. She was kept busy as a young lady, learning her craft and drawing increasing attention to herself by virtue of her superb voice. She was not beautiful, as was Patti, but was rather fat from early on. Her divine voice, however, spared her from any undue or cruel criticism for her appearance. From the earliest days, she displayed a flexible and high coloratura, of the kind that was very much in vogue in the lyric theater of the day. She commanded an extraordinary trill, easily produced, and was comfortable with extensive fioratura. There was a thrilling sound to her voice that won her acclaim early on in her career. Her American debut was in San Francisco in 1905. By this time, she was well known for her lyric coloratura roles, especially Violetta, Gilda and Lucia; roles in which her great vocal endowments could be shown to advantage. She auditioned at the Met, but they seemingly were not impressed, which is somewhat curious, as she was already famous. One suspects that something unknown outside the Met may have been in play. It makes no sense otherwise. She did sing for the Manhattan Opera in 1908, but never warmed to the Met, because of their inexplicable attitude, and only sang one season there, in 1911-12. She was in such demand world-wide that the Met was inconsequential in any case. She is reputed to have made a very large amount of money. Unwise associations over time, however, led to a sad end, characterized by poverty. Most scandalous was her victimization at the hands of a dreadful male gold-digger, thirty years her junior, who married her late in her career, and stole most of her money. In spite of such reckless errors of judgment, however, she was by all accounts a lovely person, outgoing and friendly, even to the extent of letting aspiring singers live in her home, at her expense, at least during the good years. Her last days in poverty and sickness anger and bewilder many people even today. It is so wretchedly unfair. One wonders where the charity of fellow performers was. Yes, times were hard in late 30's, but Gigli, to take but one example, managed to raise a huge amount of money during this period by the many charity concerts he gave. Were people wary of her because of her poor judgment in getting involved with such a vile (although doubtless "charming") man as the one who wrecked her life? Why did no one come to her aid at the end when she was so obviously in need? The State of Italy, at least, provided her with an appropriate funeral. It's just all too sad.

Here is the great soprano in "Caro nome":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zhang5VIx0



As the recording shows, the top part of her voice was quite extraordinary. Like virtually all sopranos of her age, she will scoop down into the lower registers, and that sound jolts us somewhat today, when all sopranos simply sing low notes very softly. It is possible that in Tetrazzini's time, when people actually paid more attention to the words, sopranos felt they needed the additional heft in the lower register, so that their voice, and the words they were singing, did not get lost in the orchestra. Another thing that is immediately apparent is the exceptional and easy nature of her trill. I don't think I have ever heard that many trills in "Caro nome" before. But she was just showing off one of her greatest natural endowments. Here is the famous "Ah non giunge," from La Sonnambula:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTYPRL5pdhY



Certainly an attractive rendition, although one must be honest and point out certain tendencies that are perhaps not up to today's standard: There is sometimes a lack of adequate articulation on the cadenzas that comes dangerously close to a glide, although she was not alone in that during her day. She also sacrifices the lower parts of her voice to the top, which is certainly common (and smart) because that is what people are paying to hear. From an aesthetic point of view, however, she lays herself open to criticism for making the bottom and(especially) middle register of the voice rather open, white, and somewhat blaring. The top is excellent.
Here is a sentimental view of Tetrazzini—the only moving pictures I am aware of—listening to a Caruso recording late in life, and bursting into song along with it. Her girly and giggly abandon at the end is most charming, and just makes one upset yet again that she was treated so badly by others, and did not have the dignified and comfortable retirement she deserved.

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


Isn't that delightful? She seems a lovely person, and the fact that people speak of her so fondly even today, nearly 70 years after her death in 1940, is a fitting memorial to a magnificent artist, who literally gave it all.

Adelina Patti: An Enchanting Echo of a Distant Past

Ancient recordings provide a kind of evidence of the past that is at once fascinating and problematical. When written words alone are evidence of the past, our minds are free to construct a reality that is almost always fanciful, and one which bears at best a tenuous relationship to the real events or persons involved. In opera, the same forces are at work. The golden age, the locus amoenus, always rears its head and asks us to daydream about the bygone glory days of singing. It sometimes happens, however, that old recordings come to the rescue of sober assessment. There are not a few 19th century singers whose tenuous grip on what would today be called solid technique belie such fanciful idealizations of the past. Particularly in the case of sopranos, there is a lot of evidence of insufficiently supported top notes, inadequate cover, and perhaps most annoying of all, what I "register scoops." Some singers of that era had a clearly defined notion of different registers, but paid inadequate attention to smoothly blending them together. It can happen, therefore, that a modern listener can be carried aloft by floating high soprano tones, only to be jolted by a sudden unmediated drop into a husky, alto-like chest register, usually initiated by a crack in the voice. It can shatter what had been a lovely vocal image. It is all the more noteworthy then, and excites genuine admiration, when one looks at the soprano who may be the oldest recorded opera singer of note in the 19th century, the divine Adelina Patti, praised effusively by the great composers of her day, and celebrated everywhere as the acme of the opera singer's art.

Born 166 years ago (!) in 1843, Adelina Patti was the daughter of tenor Salvatore Patti. She was born in Spain, while her family was on tour there, but moved to New York as a child. She began singing when she was little more than a girl, making her debut at New York's Academy of Music at 16, as Lucia. I am not one who as a rule yearns for things past, but I have to admit I would give a lot to be able to go back in time and hear that! She was beautiful as a young woman, with what all contemporaries claim was a pure, sweet, lyric voice. Imagine a beautiful Lucia so near the age of her heroine! We have by now become accustomed to seeing very mature (and often rather large) women sing that role, and much is lost, dramatically . [In the 18th century, it would have been possible for a boy soprano to take the part, but, verismo and romanticism having done their work, that would now be so unseemly as to be impossible.]

At 18 years of age, she made her Covent Garden debut in La Sonnambula, and in 1862 sang for President and Mrs. Lincoln, upon the death of their son Willi. From there on, there was no holding her back. She was already a star, and she promptly soared to super-stardom. There are good bios of her on the web, as her life has been much studied, so we can proceed to hearing a recording.

It has not been easy to choose a decent recording. Most are from 1905 and 1906, when she was either 62 or 63 years old. She did make an Edison cylinder recording in 1895, but it is, sadly, little more than a few inchoate shrieks. In my opinion her best recording, and one that with only a little imagination can show what the glory of that singing must have been 30 years earlier, is the 1906 rendition of "Ah, non credea mirarti," from Bellini's La Sonnambula:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozci5xK3BZc


That is just stunning! Remember that she was 63 years old when this was made. The clarity and purity of the voice are most noteworthy, as are the floating, haunting tones that are almost hypnotic. The breath control is exquisite, and she sings perfectly on the breath, which is how she is able to float those tones and portamento up and down so smoothly and seamlessly, and also trill so well and so easily. The fluidity of the presentation makes me almost weep with desire to have heard that 16 year old Lucia! This is an excellent recording, and there is only one instance, toward the end, where she breaks the legato and pops out of line with a quick high note and exclamation that probably on stage would have been heard simply as dramatic, but it's the kind of thing a horn tends to resonate and amplify, and is a bit jolting. But that is a matter of no consequence.

Another recording that is interesting is the 1906 "Batti, batti, o bel Masetto," from Mozart's Don Giovanni:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hRFF_lsP-E


She excels in the same areas indicated in the previous recording. The purity of tone, the (musically appropriate) simplicity of the phrasing, the easy fluidity of the voice, are all exceptional. The same small, distracting qualities are also there. Notice the "register scoop" into chest voice on the last note...also the turns on the top of phrases toward the end pop out of line. Not really a problem, because of the probably, again, of the recording horn being the villain. One other thing is worth mentioning—Patti was born a mere 57 years after Don Giovanni was premiered in 1787. That distance is small; it would be no more distant for Patti than would Rodgers and Hammerstein be for a girl born today. I rather suspect the singing and stylistic traditions would still be alive, easily transmittable, virtually unchanged, for any teacher in his or her 50's or 60's at the time of Patti's youth. I am ever on the lookout for hints about how the music of bygone eras was actually performed. This could be one of those hints, but I will make no more of it because it is largely speculative.

Of one thing there can be no doubt, however, and that is that Adelina Patti was indeed an astonishing vocal talent, and even the faulty recordings that survive are enough for an attentive listener to be able to see and appreciate the depth and breadth of that astonishing talent from so long ago.