Pappano's Classical Voices

[jean]

I wanted to know a bit more about how the bel canto tenor turned into Pavarotti (who sang Rossini at the start of his career, didn't he?) but the big innovation Pappano noted happened in the early C19 he said, when tenors started to sing their top notes in their chest register.

He told us that Caruso was hugely influential in the forming of the modern (operatic) tenor voice, but he didn't really explain how.

[gurnemanz]

How I longed to hear Peter Schreier, or Ian Bostridge (Pappano has done recordings with him) - or indeed anyone singing Bach, Schubert or even Messiah. All the same, most of what Pappano says makes perfect sense, and I know he knows the other sort of tenor exists. The programme is just too limited.

Just catching up on this thread. As I read your comment, I was on the point of mentioning Peter Schreier (also, Karl Erb, a great favourite of mine from the past) and song generally in response to ardcarp's above point about the series being mis-named. I suppose, for an hour-long programme, you just have to make a choice.

[ardcarp]

Ah, Peter Schreier...a great voice.

[Richard Tarleton]

He began to explain about the heldentenor and Wgner...but then included no Wagner, just John Vickers in Fidelio. Didn't quite follow that.

He did play a snatch of the Forging scene at the start of that little section - Nothung, Nothung - but yes, and where was Melchior?! And Caruso reminded me we didn't get Rosa Ponselle last week....And Mario Lanza's voice, pace Carreras and Domingo, has always sounded irredeemably vulgar to me. And fancy seeing Hughie Green.

I found the technical stuff with Allen and Kaufmann fascinating - passaggio etc. I was lucky enough to see Vickers twice in the same season - Aeneas and Otello, both with Colin Davis...thinking back to last week I read a story in Vickers' biog about him and Nilsson - they were due to do, I think it was Tristan at the Met, she learnt that he proposed sending a deputy to the rehearsal, whereupon she let him know that if he wasn't at the rehearsal, she would not be at the performance. Not to be trifled with, that one. Solti in his autobiog says "For some reason, Vickers and I never got on well, which was a pity, since he had an excellent tenor voice []; we could have done some very good work together".

[gradus]

Vickers had the strongest stage presence of any singer I've ever seen, even greater than Nilson. I think it was the intensity of his characterisation aided by the plangent quality of his voice that made the difference. For example, in full tails at an RFH concert with Haitink and the LPO he was Florestan in a dungeon and 15 minutes later Sigmund in Wintersturme, both utterly convincing and completely engaging his audience in the drama of the music. Truly a force of nature.

[aeolium]

Agreed - absolutely superb in the title role in the Karajan DVD of Otello. Unfortunately I never saw him in a live performance. I have yet to catch up with the second Pappano programme on the tenors. Was there any footage of Patzak, such a wonderful and distinctive tenor?

[Richard Tarleton]

No. Bjorling, Corelli, Wunderlich were there (and Florez and those wretched high Cs)...and Pears, already mentioned. The bit about Pears being able to sing - was it sustained Eflats? - with ease unlike most tenors was interesting....

But yes all about opera, as I suppose he says at the outset.

[gurnemanz]

Agreed - absolutely superb in the title role in the Karajan DVD of Otello. Unfortunately I never saw him in a live performance. I have yet to catch up with the second Pappano programme on the tenors. Was there any footage of Patzak, such a wonderful and distinctive tenor?

Patzak was not mentioned. Up until a few years ago, I only really knew the famous Lied von der Erde with Bruno Walter and Kathleen Ferrier, but I now have quite a few recordings - all Lieder - and really enjoy his singing. I like his fairly noticeable Viennese lilt which might deter some people. He is well represented on the Raucheisen wartime recordings box - which include a marvellous "Schöne Müllerin". I recently acquired his Winterreise from 1964 when he was aged 66, with Jörg Demus accompanying. This would not be a standard recommendation but has become one of my favourite recordings of that cycle.

[Conchis]

No. Bjorling, Corelli, Wunderlich were there (and Florez and those wretched high Cs)...and Pears, already mentioned. The bit about Pears being able to sing - was it sustained Eflats? - with ease unlike most tenors was interesting....

But yes all about opera, as I suppose he says at the outset.

Corelli WAS featured, and quite substantially.

Vickers recorded Aida with Solti in the early 60s: it is a superb performance.

However, he fell out with the maestro when the latter attempted to 'teach' him how to sing 'Wintersturme...' They never worked together after that.

Strangely, Vickers got on exceptionally well with Karajan. They were expected to clash but found a surprising chemistry, witnessed by the three opera recordings they made together.

[Simon Biazeck]

The bit about Pears being able to sing - was it sustained Eflats? - with ease unlike most tenors was interesting....

Sustained E naturals, right on the passagio where most must lighten and slim the sound if they are required to move beyond it in a single phrase. Typically, Grand Opera composers do not dwell in this area. Typically, Britten does because it was known as Pears's 'best note'. Commenting on his singing of the Agnus Dei from the War Requiem, Galina Vishnevskaya said he made a sound 'like an angel' in that perilous final phrase, and sang more 'like a soprano' than a tenor! She was in awe of his remarkable refinement.

The 'Great Bear and Pleiades' aria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y84nZ2yIAXA

[aeolium]

gurnemanz, I have a lovely old LP of Patzak singing Die Schöne Müllerin with Walter Klein accompanying. I love his singing in the famous recording of the Lied von der Erde with Ferrier and Walter. In "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde", the phrasing of the lines "Das sind die Dinge, die zusammen passen" and "Wird lange feststehen, und aufblüh'n im Lenz" is simply bewitching, and the crystalline delicacy of his singing in "Von der Jugend" is for me unmatched. No-one would say that his voice was the most beautiful of tenors (whatever that is), but what character and what musicality!

[Lordgeous]

My friend Roderick Sharpe has built a fascinating Patzak site: http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfrls2/patzak/index.htm

[Richard Tarleton]

Corelli WAS featured, and quite substantially.

Yes, as I said - there was a full stop after my "No", which was in answer to aeolium's question! I was hoping for Carlo Bergonzi. but I suppose there wasn't room for everybody.

[aeolium]

My friend Roderick Sharpe has built a fascinating Patzak site: http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfrls2/patzak/index.htm

Many thanks for that, Lordgeous. Mentioned on that site is Patzak's performance as Florestan in the 1950 Salzburg Festival Fidelio with Flagstad as Leonore and the glorious Paul Schöffler (who will hopefully be featured in a later Pappano programme) as Pizarro and Furtwängler with the VPO. I prefer this interpretation to the EMI recording Furtwängler made with Windgassen and Mödl, even though the sound quality is worse.

[ardcarp]

I thought it was a bit prescriptive to say all tenors have their 'break' on E natural. Agreed it's in that region of the voice, but it surely varies from person to person? Mine was (is?) more like an F. Pears produced his voice so differently from most tenors (i.e. a closed throat technique) I don't expect he had a 'break' as such. I think Papano was dwelling mainly on the big operatic voice, and most of his comments, based on his unsurpassed experience in the opera house, probably don't apply either to the English lyric tenor nor to the German 'oratorio' singer. Then there's the likes of Rogers Covey Crump who just sings up and up without any apparent break at all. Envy, envy.