Charles Craig was born in London on December 3, 1919, and died on January 23, 1997. He came from a large, unmusical family – he was the youngest of fifteen children. As a child, he was fond of the recordings of Enrico Caruso, though he didn’t consider a career as a singer. Craig worked in ordinary jobs, including tailoring, warehouse work, and helping in the family shop.
The Second World War had a profound effect on his life. Craig joined the army and, after being posted to India in 1943, found himself in an Entertainments Unit, where singing arias and ballads gave him hope of a musical career. After demobilization in 1946, he auditioned for the Royal Opera House. He was accepted, but only into the chorus, and for several years he sang tiny parts while learning repertoire from backstage.
His decisive break came through Sir Thomas Beecham. In 1951, Beecham heard him at auditions connected with Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl and offered to sponsor him, paying for singing, acting, and language lessons and even providing a living allowance. Craig studied with the Italian tenor Dino Borgioli. Beecham launched him in concert at the Royal Festival Hall on December 17, 1952, but Craig was ill – apparently with pneumonia – and his performance did not make much of an impression.
He joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1953, making his debut as Rodolfo in La bohème. Touring with Carl Rosa gave him exactly what a late-developing tenor needed: stage experience, stamina, and a broad repertory. He sang Faust, Don Ottavio, the Duke in Rigoletto, Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, and Des Grieux in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. By 1957, after admired performances in London, he joined Sadler’s Wells Opera, where he added such parts as Samson, Manrico, and the Prince in the first British professional performance of Dvořák’s Rusalka.
In 1959, Craig made a successful Covent Garden debut as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, followed by an even stronger success as Cavaradossi in Tosca. That same year he sang Andrea Chénier, Luigi in Il tabarro, and Sou-Chong in Lehár’s The Land of Smiles. His voice had warmth and a ringing top, which is why Italian audiences sometimes assumed he was one of their own.
During the 1960s, Craig became a major dramatic and spinto tenor. He sang Radames in Aida at Covent Garden in 1961, and the role soon took him abroad – to Rome, Vancouver, Barcelona, Zurich, Naples, and Bologna. His Italian repertory also included Manrico, Canio, Calaf, Turiddu, Cavaradossi, Pinkerton, Andrea Chénier, and several Verdi roles. He also sang Arturo in I Puritani with Joan Sutherland and Pollione in Norma opposite Maria Callas.
His greatest success was as Verdi’s Otello. Craig first sang it with the Scottish Opera in 1963. He made his American debut in the part at Chicago in 1966, and then sang it in Vienna, Berlin, Naples, Munich, Venice, Salzburg, Turin, Lisbon, Düsseldorf, and elsewhere. Curiously, despite this international reputation, he did not sing Otello at Covent Garden until November 1983, when he replaced Plácido Domingo for two performances – twenty years after first taking on the role.
Craig also assumed the heavier German and Russian roles. He sang Florestan, Siegmund, and Siegfried for Scottish Opera; Lohengrin in Berlin; Siegmund again in Hamburg; and Aegisthus in Elektra. In Russian opera, he sang Golitsyn in Khovanshchina and Sergei in the British premiere of Shostakovich’s Katerina Ismailova.
He was not universally admired as an actor; critics sometimes found him stolid. But when the staging suited him, he could be theatrically powerful. The British musicologist and critic Elizabeth Forbes singled out his Turiddu in Zeffirelli’s Cavalleria rusticana as vividly convincing, and his best roles – Otello, Cavaradossi, Radames, Canio – show his vocal acting and emotional directness to be at a very high level.
Craig’s last stage appearance was in 1985 with English National Opera as Cavaradossi in Tosca. Even at sixty-six, his voice was reported to have retained its Italianate color and clarion top. His recorded legacy is not as large as his reputation deserves, but it includes recital discs of Puccini, Italian songs, and operatic arias, as well as a valuable English-language Otello recorded in performance at the English (though it could be in Swahili, I could barely understand a word) National Opera under Mark Elder, recorded in January 1983 with Rosalind Plowright as Desdemona, and Neil Howlett as Iago.
Craig’s importance lies in the unusual combination he embodied: an unmistakably English singer who sounded, in phrasing and vocal color, remarkably close to the Italian tradition. He was not a glamorous international celebrity on the scale of the tenors who dominated the record industry, but he was a fine spinto, verging on dramatic, tenor. At his best – especially in Verdi and Puccini – he had a masculine, ringing sound that made him one of the most distinguished British tenors of the twentieth century.
Thus, the obvious question is why he didn’t make more of an impact, given that he had a world-class instrument? One answer is that horrible curse, bad luck. Another is that he was English, and many opera-goers do not expect a great Italianate sound to come from an Anglican throat. Regardless, he was a great tenor who was underappreciated.
Below are nine recordings that show his rich voice and his fine use of it. First Di quella pira from a live performance in Geneva. Note the powerful high C.
Next two selections from his signature role – Verdi’s Otello. They are both from a staged performance of the opera in Naples in 1969. In ‘Si pel ciel’, the duet that closes Act 2, Craig is joined by Anselmo Colzani. This is followed by ‘Dio mi potevi’. Craig gives a brilliant, emotionally charged reading of the great soliloquy.
In ‘Meco all’altar di Venere’ from Bellini’s Norma, Craig takes the optional high C near the aria’s beginning. Flavio is the young Dennis O’Neill whom I’ll come back to at a future date.
Craig and Peter Glossop (the renowned English baritone) sing the famous duet “Au fond du temple saint”. It’s in English, and some of it is understandable.
‘Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemon’ is from Act 1 of Die Walküre. He brings a lyricism to the piece that often eludes German singers.
Next, some studio recordings that show to great advantage how good Craig’s voice and vocal production were. The Improvviso from Act 1 of Andrea Chenier is brilliantly performed. Craig sounds like a full dramatic tenor.
Every tenor sings ‘Nessun dorma’, but not at this level.
Finally, the Italian song by Tosti – ‘L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra’.
