Warning!! In this post, I blather on endlessly about opera, some opera singers, and my personal opinions thereof, so if opera affects you like fingernails on a blackboard, don't say I didn't warn you!!Hi, Rick: --
Where you can usually hear Lanza go sharp is when he's "belting." It happens in a lot of places on his recordings, but one that comes to mind specifically is his recording of "The Loveliest Night of the Year." Early in the song, he's singing fairly lightly, using good head voice and "lofting" the tone. That's good. After a bit, he shifts gears and starts to belt. At this point you can practically hear the tone drop into his throat. His throat tightens up and he starts sounding "chesty." He does this a lot, especially on operatic arias. He loses his head resonance, and to maintain his intonation, he has to push harder, which is not good for the voice. That's where he usually goes a bit sharp. A well-trained operatic tenor (or any well-trained singer, for that matter) keeps the throat open and relaxed when belting and/or reaching for the high notes. Keeping the voice relaxed helps maintain head resonance, which is what allows a singer to bounce his or her voice off the back wall of a large opera house while singing over a whole symphony orchestra going full blast. And still have lots of voice left over the following day. Or thirty years later. Good breath control and a relaxed, open throat are the key.
(I worry a bit about Charlotte Church. I think she might be doing too much too early. I hope her voice teacher is a good one, and can keep the promoters at bay until her voice really matures.)
One well-known classical singer who did have a reputation for singing flat was (sorry, GUEST,aldus) Joan Sutherland. When she was young, and well into her middle years, her voice was absolutely magnificent. But when she grew older, she got sloppy. She started singing flat and "swooping" from note to note. It's really painful to listen to, especially remembering how great she used to be. I think she was pampered by her husband (conductor Richard Bonynge) and an army of sycophants who didn't have the guts to tell her what she needed to hear, i.e., "it's time for you to retire." Beverly Sills was wise. Nobody else had noticed, but she said she could feel herself slipping a bit, so she decided to retire while she was ahead. She commented, "I'd rather have people ask 'why did she retire?' then 'why doesn't she retire?'"
As far as pitch is concerned, Maria Callas could sometimes get pretty wobbly. And her voice was not the greatest in the world. Her main claim to fame was as a singing actress. People used to say that, voice be damned, watching her live performances in operas like Norma and Tosca were unforgettable experiences. She had a tremendous sense of drama and could project that to the audience.
I'm probably not the best one to make recommendations because although I have been an avid opera bug in the past, I haven't really kept up much with what's been going on lately and what recordings are available. A couple of decades ago I attended Seattle Opera regularly and now, when "Live from the Met" or "Live from Lincoln Center" or various permutations of "The Three Tenors" or other singers come on PBS, I'm usually glued to the tube. From what I've seen and heard lately, I think we are actually in the midst of a"Golden Age" of opera singers right now. Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras of course, along with mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, baritone Thomas Hampson, and bass-baritones Bryn Terfel and Samuel Ramey, plus a number of others. Many others, in fact. One of my favorite young tenors is Jerry Hadley. Terrific voice! Sopranos Renee Fleming and Anna Moffo are both gorgeous, and their voices are even moreso (definitely not the stereotypical "fat ladies"). I think Marilyn Horne has one of the greatest voices of all time. She's usually referred to as a mezzo-soprano, but in my opinion, she's a genuine contralto. Her voice is very flexible, she can do runs and trills better that most coloratura sopranos, and her pitch is dead-on all the time. And her low notes sound like rich chocolate (if that makes any kind of sense).
Singers from the past: Caruso goes without saying. Too bad we don't have more modern recordings of him. An absolute master of head-voice was lyric tenor Ferruccio Tagliavini. His voice seems to float, and he could practically diminish his voice to a whisper and still bounce it off the back wall. On the other hand, to hear real brute power, listen to Mario del Monaco. Incredible! I think my favorite tenor of all time is Jussi Bjoerling. His voice was like gleaming silver. Another is Beniamino Gigli. A couple of great American tenors where Richard Tucker and Jan Peerce. Baritones Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill. Basses Italo Tajo, Cesare Siepi, and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni. Coloratura soprano Erna Berger: sweet-sounding voice, all the runs and trills, and her pitch is right on.
One of my favorite recordings of operatic excerpts is a 10 inch LP of tenor/baritone duets sung by Jussi Bjoerling and Robert Merrill. The duet from The Pearl Fishers is a special treat for the ears. I don't know if it's ever been reissued. I have a few full-length recordings of operas. Two of my favorites are Rigoletto with Jan Peerce, Leonard Warren, Erna Berger, and Italo Tajo, (somebody told me that this was the first full-length studio recording of an opera ever made, and a real collectors' item) and Il Trovatore ("The Troubadour" yet!), with Jussi Bjoerling singing the role of the troubadour-knight. My favorite opera of all time is La Bohème. No great world-shaking deeds, just the story of the trials, tribulations and love affairs of a group of 19th-century hippies. Glorious music. Heart-rending stuff. I have a full-length, store-bought video of that one, staged and directed by Franco Zefferelli, with Teresa Stratas and Jose Carreras singing Mimi and Rodolfo. To the susceptible, it gets a ten-Kleenex rating.
One of the keys to enjoying an opera is trying to get a clue to what the hell's going on. Seattle Opera uses "supra-titles" (like sub-titles, only projected above the stage) which help a lot, but it's a good idea to read a synopsis of the plot ahead of time. Better still (this is what real opera freaks do when they're confronted by an opera they're not familiar with) is try to get hold of a full-length recording and listen to it with the libretto in hand, looking back and forth between the Italian (or French or German or whatever) and the English translation. The more you do this, the more the plots make sense (that's when you know you're losing it!).
Weird note:--He's definitely not an operatic tenor and his voice is minuscule compared to someone like Pavarotti, but one of the finest exponents of good vocal technique that I have ever heard is Richard Dyer-Bennet. Rock-solid breath control, relaxed throat, with ringing head-resonance all the way, and surprising projection for such a small voice. On his recording of The Joys of Love, he sings the last line of the second verse and the first line of the chorus on one breath, and he still has plenty of steam left when he reaches the end of the line. No matter what one may think of the way he handles folk songs, that sucker knew how to sing!
It doesn't mean that good vocal technique will make someone sound like Richard Dyer-Bennet or Luciano Pavarotti or Anna Moffo—you have to be born with that kind of voice—but it will allow you to make the best use of the voice you were born with, and to keep it going long after other singers have burn their voices out. I'm no Ezio Pinza or Gordon Bok, but I had some good teachers when I started out. I'm seventy years old (how in the hell did that happen!!??) and I'm happy to say that my voice is as strong and solid as it's ever been. Breath control, open throat, relaxed voice.
I'm also incredibly long winded.
Don Firth