“His musical merits have mostly to do with style, for the voice, though neither small nor ugly, is not an organ of great beauty.”
Virgil Thomson in the New York Herald Tribune reviewing GDS’s Met debut on February 25, 1948
How would you like to have this brilliant insight following you through all eternity?
This New Yorker critic is dishonest, maybe deaf… and above all, an idiot.
I was a child when I was listening to Di Stefano ,my home was opera and my anty Neva especially.Pippo was the prince of the tenors, at age 7,8,9etc I was listening to him understanding everything he sung while I was crying.I left opera in my early teens ,but I still listen from time to time while my brother took the connoisseur’s mantel. Having l listen to many other tenors,with my natural ear, i can honestly say that the tiny little girl singing che gelida manina,ma se me’e’forza perderti, verranno a te sull’aure and many more, had caught very early on the essence of the bel canto and that was Pippo.