Category Archives: Tenors
Richard Crooks
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th December 2020Richard Crooks (1900-72) was an American tenor. Born in New Jersey he started his singing career as an oratorio specialist. He studied with baritone Leon Rothier and vocal coach Frank La Forge. In 1927 he went to Germany where he made his operatic debut as Cavaradossi in Tosca. In 1930 he made his American operatic…
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No! Pagliaccio Non Son
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th November 2020Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci was first performed at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme in 1892 – Arturo Toscanini conducted. It rapidly spread throughout the operatic world and like its frequent partner, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, it was its composer’s only unalloyed success. The opera’s protagonist, Canio leader of a band of itinerant performers, is married to a much younger…
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Le Rêve
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th October 2020Massenet’s Manon was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1884. It rapidly became a staple of the operatic repertory and has remained so to this day. I’m ignoring the shuttered state of everything public at present. The opera has two big roles. The title character and her hormone addled lover the Chevalier Des…
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Yossele Rosenblatt
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th October 2020When I was a kid in New York, Yossele Rosenblatt (1882-1933) was a figure whose memory was still fresh. There were many who had heard him sing and spoke about his voice in the same awed tones as did opera goers who remembered Caruso. Rosenblatt was a Ukrainian born chazzan (cantor) who came from a…
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Hipólito Lázaro
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th October 2020Hipólito Lázaro (1887-1974 ) was a Catalan tenor. He was born and died in Barcelona. His career began in 1910 and continued until 1950. Though he was a lirico-spinto, he made his debut in Donizetti’s La Favorita and scored a great success as Arturo in Bellini’s final opera I Puritani. Despite his success with bel…
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Cessa di più Resistere
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th August 2020‘Cessa di più resistere’ is the tenor aria that closes Rossini’s Barber of Seville. There’s a few minutes of music that follows it, but the bravura piece is effectively the opera’s end. That is when it’s performed. It’s so difficult that that it was dropped from the opera shortly after it’s premiere in 1816. So…
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Richard Tauber
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th August 2020A reader recently asked why I had not written anything about Richard Tauber. I didn’t have a good answer and said I would; this is it. Tauber (1891-1948) was born in Linz, Austria to an unmarried actress. His father was an actor Richard Anton Tauber who eventually acknowledged him and took over his upbringing. Young…
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Lethal Tenors
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th May 2020Serious operas typically end with one or more of the principals dead. The tenor is more often victim than perp. The following excerpts are from operas where the tenor is the killer, an unusual occurrence in an art form where tenors are usually the good guys. First Verdi’s Luisa Miller. The following description is adapted…
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Recondita Armonia
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th March 2020Tosca has two great tenor arias. Everyone knows the third act’s ‘E lucevan le stelle’. ‘Recondita armonia’, the subject of this article, appears in the first act only minutes after the show has started. It requires a different approach from its more famous brother. It needs a full voiced sound without the filatura and pianissimo…
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Gianfranco Cècchele
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th February 2020Gianfranco Cècchele (1938-2018) was a noted tenor who was trained by Marcello Del Monaco, the younger brother of Mario. Accordingly he was a belter in the mold of his teacher’s older brother and other pupils of Marcello such as Amadeo Zambon profiled here in 2016. Thus it’s not surprising that he wanted to be a…
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