The critics and most opera fans didn't like Mario Lanza very much, not because he was too casual in the life-style sense, but because he was too casual as a musician. He had a great natural voice, but he was too lazy to train it properly and learn a little musicianship. He never learned to "place" his voice (much too complicated to explain here), so he pushed it and generally abused it. Also, because he pushed, he sang slightly sharp most of the time. If he hadn't died young, he probably would have burned his voice out in another few years. He was okay with pop stuff, but when it came to operatic arias, he never really grasped the dramatic subtleties within them -- he just blatted them by rote. He only sang one full-length opera (Madame Butterfly) on stage, so he was hardly one of the greatest operatic tenors of all time as some people seem to think. He was just more famous than most.

Too damned bad. He had a great gift. He could have been one of the greatest of all time. But he was too much of a slob to learn to use his voice right.

Don Firth