Category Archives: Tenors
Giuseppe Giacomini
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th November 2024Giuseppe Giacomini (1940-2021) was one of the greatest tenors active during the last 30 years of the 20th century. Despite the excellence of his singing, he never achieved the widespread fame accorded his exact contemporaries – Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Nevertheless, his career was quite successful; he appeared at all the major opera houses,…
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Insieme – Opera Duets
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th September 2024Jonas Kaufmann and Ludovic Tézier recorded nine tenor-baritone duets, released on a Sony Classics disc in June 2022. Insieme translates from Italian as together. The two singers are friends who have often performed together hence the title. The master of the tenor-baritone duet was Verdi. Accordingly, seven of the selections are by him. The CD starts with the…
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Ah, La Paterna Mano
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th September 2024Verdi’s Macbeth was his 10th opera. It was his favorite of these 10 and the first of his three operas based on Shakespeare’s plays. It is clearly the masterpiece of his pre-Rigoletto works. The tenor role of Macduff is a minor part; he has little to do except sing the great aria that is the…
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John McCormack
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th July 2024John McCormack (1885-1945) was an Irish tenor active from about 1909 to the early 1940s. Born to Scottish parents who had emigrated to Ireland, his interest in singing began as a child. In 1903, he won the coveted gold medal of the Dublin Feis Ceoil. A friend of James Joyce, who was two years older than…
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Golden Days – Mario Lanza
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th April 2024The 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…
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Carlo Bergonzi
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd April 2024Carlo Bergonzi (1924-2014) enjoyed a long career as a leading tenor with all of the world’s major opera companies. He was born in Polesine Parmense near Parma. During World War II he was an active anti-Nazi and in 1943 was imprisoned by the Germans. After being released by the Russians he walked over 100 km…
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Benjamin Bernheim – Boulevard des Italiens
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th March 2024Boulevard des Italiens is the title of French tenor Benjamin Bernheim’s second CD. Released in 2022 it offers 16 selections. The recital presents arias and one duet written by Italian composers to French texts or subsequently adapted to French texts for performances in France. Bernheim was born in Paris and grew up in Geneva. Before…
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Salvatore Fisichella
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th October 2023Salvatore Fisichella was born in 1943 in Catania Sicily to a noble family distinguished in diplomacy, jurisprudence, philosophy, and theology since the 17th century. He was opera’s leading bel canto tenor for the last 30 years of the last century and into the first few years of the 21st century. Known for the elegance of his singing as well…
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Fritz Wunderlich
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th June 2023I’ve written a little about the great German tenor before but have not devoted a full post to him. Wunderlich was born in1930 and died in 1966 following a fall down a stone staircase which fractured his skull. He was just shy of his both his 36th birthday and his debut at the Metropolitan Opera….
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Cav & Pag – Corelli and Tucker Alternate Roles
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd February 2023Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci have been paired more often than Southwest Airlines has had recent on time flights. The two leading Italian style tenors at the Metropolitan Opera who sang the leading roles in these operas during the 1960s were Franco Corelli and Richard Tucker. Both had virile spinto tenors that…
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