The title above is that of a new CD containing 23 selections sung by the late tenor. Why another Lanza disc when so many are already available? These have been remastered and converted to Digitally Extracted Stereo (DES).
When listened to on a good audio system the effect is magical. Lanza’s voice is even more beautiful than it sounded on the original mono recordings. The disc is available at Amazon – Golden Days Mario Lanza. Also, if you download it, only do so in a lossless format so that the full effect of the DES conversion will be maintained.
The only tenors I can think of with voices as beautiful as Lanza’s are Joseph Schmidt, Jussi Björling, and Giuseppe Di Stefano. His vocal production and technique were flawless; if premature death had not been his sad fate he likely would have morphed into a full-fledged spinto while retaining the beauty of his tone. If that had happened, and he had escaped the deadly embrace of the movie business, he would have been the greatest tenor of the 20th century.
Don’t buy this disc unless you have a first-rate audio system. Without it you will not be able to appreciate the wonderful technical effect that Robin Cherry and Stephen Cutler have achieved using the DES system.
My deep appreciation to Professor Derek McGovern for sending me the disc. He is a long-time Lanza aficionado who oversees the mariolanzatenor.com website and wrote the liner notes. The disc’s contents are below. It is a must have for Lanza fans or anyone interested in great singing.
I’m naturally delighted that you enjoyed this CD so much, and I’m hopeful that Sepia Records will issue many more of Lanza’s best mono recordings in Digitally Extracted Stereo. This promo by my fellow compiler Vince Di Placido neatly explains the process, while also providing snippets from some of the CD’s tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txhw9jsDRxc&t
It’s interesting that you singled out Schmidt, Björling, and Di Stefano as possessors of similarly beautiful voices. Lanza would have appreciated the compliment, as he himself always singled out both Björling and (especially) Di Stefano among his own contemporaries. (Del Monaco, on the other hand, did not appeal to him at all.) And while I don’t know his opinion of Schmidt (another tenor who died at just 38!), it’s hard to imagine that he would not have appreciated both his voice and his passion.
I should add one thing: To the best of my knowledge, this release is only available as a physical CD. Amazon is currently listing streaming and MP3 download options for this disc, but those will only lead unwitting purchasers to Jerry Hadley’s 1994 CD of the same name!
I think he prefered Corelli,s voice to Del Monaco,s
Lawrence: Yes, according to Lanza’s publicity agent during his final years in Rome, “he even preferred Corelli to Del Monaco.” But it was always the natural voices, as opposed to the manufactured lowered-larynx brigade, that Lanza adored: from Caruso, Pertile, and Gigli through to Björling and Di Stefano. And especially those singers who lived what they sang—hence his reverence for Di Stefano above all his contemporaries.
A curious side note: In 1958 Lanza recorded the little trio “E voi ridete” from Così fan tutte with Gigli’s son-in-law, bass Plinio Clabassi. It was both recorded and subsequently filmed at the Rome Opera for Lanza’s final movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn2oHrVyEjE&t