Category Archives: Tenors
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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Hermann Jadlowker
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd January 2020Hermann Jadlowker (1877-1953) was a Latvian tenor; born in Riga he was a member of the choir at the Grand Choral Synagogue where he received vocal training. He wanted to be a singer, but his father wanted a business career for him. To resolve this dispute he left home at age 16 and settled in…
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Giuseppe Di Stefano Video
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th November 2019Below is a video made by the late tenor shortly before he was beaten senseless by unknown assailants as he was exiting his car near his home in Kenya. The attack was in 2004; the singer never fully recovered and died in 2008. Di Stefano’s prime coincided almost exactly with that of Maria Callas with…
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MICHAEL SPYRES – Cessa di più resistere
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th June 2019Cessa di più resistere is an aria for the tenor (Almaviva) in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. It occurs near the end of of the opera. For a very long time it was omitted – for two reasons. First it place the focus on the tenor at the expense of both the title character and…
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Javier Camarena – Contrabandista
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th April 2019Contrabandista is the title of Mexican tenor Javier Camarena’s new CD. It’s built around the career of the Spanish singer, composer, teacher, and general all around handyman Manuel Garcia (1775-1832). Of the 10 selections on this disc, five are by Garcia. He is better known as the first Almaviva in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville…
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Nicola Fusati
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th February 2019Nicola Fusacchia (1876-1956) really deserves a spot on this site. After earning a medical degree from the University of Rome in 1901, he trained as a surgeon and became chief of surgery in Norcia Hospital in Perugia in 1904. Somehow he found time to study singing. He made his stage debut as Radames in Aida…
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Michael Spyres High Notes and as a Bass
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th February 2019First a YouTube compilation of tenor Michael Spyres singing high notes – some of which can only be heard by dogs. Spyres has mastered mixing, without a noticeable break, all the registers that a tenor can use. His highest notes from operas written before tenors sang high Cs and above from the chest employ voix…
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Michael Spyres in Philadelphia
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th November 2018New York’s Metropolitan Opera is suffering from a plague of inadequate tenors. Major productions have chugged along with tenors not up to the standard one would expect from the world’s most important opera house. The recent stagings of Samson et Dalila and Aida clearly demonstrate the Met’s tenorial difficulties. Yet the company does not engage…
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