Items related to Franco Corelli and a Revolution in Singing
Synopsis
Across the years more forceful, less subtle singing styles won out over sweeter and more nuanced interpretations. In the mid-twentieth century superstar tenors Mario Del Monaco and Franco Corelli came forward with a new technique that involved singing with the larynx lowered. They competed fiercely with each other but had a common objective: to sound more virile. They became the models for many others and ultimately changed the world's expectations of what tenors should sound like in Verdi and Puccini. Together they relegated sweet tenor singing to the junk heap of history. Corelli, with his more "masculine" approach, became opera's greatest sex symbol. The singer himself was consumed with sexual desire but believed that to sing well he had to suppress it. Over the years he engaged in a series of affairs, despite his eagle-eyed wife.
The book includes extensive interviews with Corelli about singers and singing--as well as interviews with some of his women. Featured are more than one hundred photos, some of great rarity, some full of personality. Because of both its analyses and its revelations, the book will be of interest to opera lovers everywhere.
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About the Author
STEFAN ZUCKER is a writer, star of nine films, radio talk-show host, tenor--and a former substitute lover for Franco Corelli.
From the Back Cover
Franco Corelli and Stefan Zucker, in edited transcripts of thirteen years of conversations on the radio, in their theater presentations and master classes and in private, discuss changes in tenor singing: Beginning in the 1820s Donzelli and Duprez sang with a massive darkened tone at the expense of vocal inflections and agility. Their coarser, more obvious but more exciting style won out over the more nuanced singing that had prevailed until then. Stefan critiques Donzelli, Rubini, Nourrit, Duprez, de Reszke, Tamagno and De Lucia, and together Franco and Stefan discuss Caruso, Pertile, Martinelli, Schipa, Gigli, Lauri-Volpi, Björling, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Tucker, Del Monaco, Di Stefano, Domingo, Pavarotti and Carreras.
A central question for tenors is whether or not to "cover" their tones (explained in the book). Verdi extensively coached Tamagno who didn't cover, but Verdi tenors from Caruso through Domingo do, resulting in a very different sound.
Caruso and those who followed him mostly sang at full volume. Compared to his predecessors, such as Jean de Reszke, Tamagno and De Lucia, Caruso had less musical nuance, variety of dynamics and rubato; in short he had less musical imagination. He also had less control over dynamics.
Franco describes how, using Arturo Melocchi's controversial lowered-larynx technique, he and Del Monaco revolted against sweet tenor singing in favor of older-sounding tones and a more "virile" approach.
Franco explains that he tried to combine Del Monaco's fortissimo, Lauri-Volpi's high notes, Pertile's passion, Fleta's diminuendo and Gigli's caress. He describes using more portamento than his predecessors, his copying of some of Pertile's interpretations and his attempt to emulate Schipa's Werther.
Stefan describes Franco's music-driven interpretations and Di Stefano's word-driven ones, the history of vibrato, Gigli's two kinds of chiaroscuro, chiaroscuro of dynamics and chiaroscuro of timbre, and compares eighteen Radamès recordings with Pertile, Martinelli, Gigli, Tucker, Del Monaco, Björling, Di Stefano, Corelli, Bergonzi, Vickers, Domingo, Carreras and Pavarotti.
Robert Tuggle, Director of The Metropolitan Opera Archives, contributes a chapter on Björling to the appendices.
The volumes are printed on top-quality paper and feature more than 350 rare lithographs and photographs, the majority provided by the Met Archives.
This is not a biography, nor is it a book of anecdotes. Instead it explains the evolution of tenor singing from 1820 to Domingo. Here's an example of what Franco has to say:
Franco Corelli: During the first years of Del Monaco's career Gigli's influence undoubtedly was very strong. After all he was the dominant singer on the Italian stage. His voice was beautiful in strong passages, in mezza voce and in falsettone. By 1940 when he sang loud his sound was more masculine than when he began, but he still had his falsettone, which was unique to him--it approached the sound of a nightingale. With him in the field it was terribly difficult for another tenor to come forward. Del Monaco undertook heavy repertory, excepting a Butterfly and a Bohème, yet he still was up against a Gigli old but in voice. But Del Monaco quickly came to make a more dramatic sound, and a dramatic sound perhaps was the one thing Gigli fundamentally lacked. Gigli, dominant though he was, had to cede the dramatic repertory to Del Monaco, because Del Monaco introduced a more dramatic manner.
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