Back to the past

For the past two nights we have been listening to that Italian Blue-Plate Special, Cav and Pag. But with a difference. The tenor was Beniamino Gigli. Good night! I had forgotten how wonderful he was. He lived from 1890-1957 and was considered one of the finest tenors in the recorded history of music. The son of a shoemaker, he won first prize in an international singing competition in Parma. He débuted in October, 1914 in La Gioconda in Rovigo and débuted at La Scala Milano in 1918. He rose to prominence after the death of Enrico Caruso in 1921. His voice, in contrast to Caruso's, was lighter and sweeter. But he could bring intense drama into any role he portrayed.

In this recording from 1934 and 1940, he was assisted by Iva Pacetti as Nedda, Mario Basiola as Tonio, Giuseppe Nessi as Pepe, and Leone Paci as Silvio in the Pagliacci, and by Lina Bruna Rasa as Santuzza, Maria Marcucci as Lola (of whom more later), Gino Bechi as Alfio, and Guilietta Simionato as Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana. Both operas were recorded with the Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milano.

His singing is effortless and beautiful. He soars where Caruso sometimes sounded like he was going to blow up, which, of course, he eventually did. Gatti-Casazza made the mistake of firing him from the Met when he refused to take a pay cut in 1932. Lily Pons and Rosa Ponselle also refused to sell themselves short at the same time. Much later Maria Callas did a similar thing that caused her unfortunate departure from the Met.

But the voice- It is simply amazing to hear this effortless, gorgeous production of sound and emotion. We seldom hear this happening in today's singers. Pavarotti did it for a while, but should have stopped sooner. Domingo can still do it. Alfredo Kraus did it practically up to the moment of his death as did Jon Vickers. There are several tenors now singing at the Met, from Mexico and South America, who have this resilience and beauty in their voices. Everyone else might as well stay at home.

I often wish that today's young singers would listen to some of these great voices from the past and see what they are missing.

Going back to Italy after being fired from the Met he became the favorite singer of Mussolini. After the war, a concert at Covent Garden showed the world what they had been missing during those years, and his fame increased.

His recordings should be studied by every young tenor who wishes to have a career. He was simply wonderful.

Giulietta Simionato went on to have a brilliant career in Europe and in America. Maria Marcucci wound up in Chicago. In the early fifties I heard her sing in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Hall) in a bizarre concert that equalled anything Florence Foster Jenkins ever did. Not a happy ending for her, I'm afraid.

My dear friend, the late great soprano, Lucilla Udovich, with whom I performed many times, was on a train going from Milano to Rome. She was speaking with another singer, who happened to be sitting next to her. The woman said to Lucille, 'You should sing for my teacher.' Lucille did. The teacher was Beniamino Gigli, who immediately launched Lucille's career in Italy and abroad. She continued to sing in the great opera houses of the world until back problems halted her career. When I met her in Rome in 1982, she was no longer singing in public. Through a mutual friend, Sister Camella Gambale ( who is no slouch as a singer, either) we met Lucille and asked her to sing for us. This gorgeous voice poured out of this woman who could barely walk and who had to sit when she sang. I told her that she must be heard. We did a series of concerts together with her sitting and singing. Gigli was right. She was also an amazing singer. That was a very joyful moment in my life when I first heard her sing. Serendipity!

I tend to harp on the fact that most of today's singers just don't seem to know how to sing. You be the judge. Listen to some of these old masters of the voice. Listen to Gigli; listen to Lucille's Turandot. They are a hard act to follow.