Classical Music & Opera Forums

There are many things that I love about Tibbett's voice and singing (not necessarily the same thing). But I think most of all I love the solidity and dark focus of the tone together with the ease of emission; in spite of the solidity and darkness, the effect is never heavy, and the tone always flows. His legato is extraordinary.

Indicidentally, there are few more depressing things than Tibbett's later broadcasts in which the voice had simply come apart. (His decline began abruptly in 1941 and proceeded at a distressingly rapid pace.) He should have retired long before he did, but I guess that kind of adulation is hard to give up.

Count me in as another Tibbett fan. Actually, I discovered him in an old movie on TCM and became quite impressed. I cannot remember the movie and I know I have a cd by him somewhere. I came across it while looking for something else and now I can't find Tibbett's recording which probably would tell me what the movie was.

I have too many things on my plate right now and I cannot seem to chew gum and walk at the same time. Right now, listening to the wonderful Magadelena Kozena and Susan Gritton in Gluck's Paride ed Elena. While not as sublime as Orfeo, it's pretty darned good and the singing is beautiful.

calvert wrote:There are many things that I love about Tibbett's voice and singing (not necessarily the same thing). But I think most of all I love the solidity and dark focus of the tone together with the ease of emission; in spite of the solidity and darkness, the effect is never heavy, and the tone always flows. His legato is extraordinary.

I'm not terribly familiar with Tibbet (though I plan to get to know his singing more) but, from what I have heard of his singing, I completely agree with the above. Really well-said.

Circa 1945 I had the dubious pleasure of hearing both Lawrence Tibbett and Lauritz Melchior singing the top songs of the week on Your Hit Parade.
It prejudiced me forever against Melchior. All I hear when I listen to him now is, "You've got to Acc-Sent-Chuate Ze Positiff." Oy!

mogliettina wrote:Circa 1945 I had the dubious pleasure of hearing both Lawrence Tibbett and Lauritz Melchior singing the top songs of the week on Your Hit Parade.
It prejudiced me forever against Melchior. All I hear when I listen to him now is, "You've got to Acc-Sent-Chuate Ze Positiff." Oy!

I had the very same reaction to Maria Lanza when I saw his movies in the fifties--yuch! (sorry!)

I ADORE Melchior's voice (unique). BTW he was in MGM musical(s), one with Jane Powell. I recently saw him on TV on the Classic Arts Showcase in an old Firestone or Telephone Hour program--fabulous.

Also, I seem to remember that he was playing in a musical somewhere on Long Island in the fifites.

Melchior

I just found this:

24 June 1954-
11 September 1954  
MUSICAL COMEDY: Melchior gives nightly performances of Arabian Nights in Jones Beach Marine Theatre, Long Island, New York as "The Sultan."

And, I love this!

15 June 1954
TV: 8:30 PM: Arthur Murray Party. Lauritz Melchior, Jane Russell, Bert Lahr, Burgess Meredith, Jimmy Nelson, Gali Gali, Rhonda Fleming, Beryl Davis, Connie Haines.

For more campy stuff, go to: http://heroictenor.com/chronology5055.html

PS For those who don't know: Rhonda Fleming is Renee Fleming's mother! And to prove it, here's a picture of Rhonda Fleming as
Die Marschallin: http://www.suspense-movies.com/stars/rh ... honda2.jpg

mogliettina wrote:Circa 1945 I had the dubious pleasure of hearing both Lawrence Tibbett and Lauritz Melchior singing the top songs of the week on Your Hit Parade.
It prejudiced me forever against Melchior. All I hear when I listen to him now is, "You've got to Acc-Sent-Chuate Ze Positiff." Oy!

And do you remember: "See da U.S. AAAAY een a Che-vro-LAAAAAY!"? That was Melchior, too.

Tibbett was better at popular songs, IMO, that was Melchior. Of course, being an American certainly helped! Tibbett's diction was superb as well as his voice. Early on in his career, he learned forward placement and enunciation from one of his better voice teachers (whose name escapes me now). HIs teacher told him to sing text as if he were speaking it in conversation, without the artificial "hoity-toity" diction most classically trained singers affected at that time.

One of my favorite Tibbett stories concerns the first time he sang Jack Rance in Fanciulla del West. The stage director, an Italian, wanted Tibbett to enter in Act II (when Rance is looking for Johnson the bandit) in a crouched position with his gun sticking straight out and bug-eyes. (One assumes that this director's only experience with American sherriffs was watching Yosemite Sam in Merrie Melodies cartoons.) Tibbett demurred and said that no sherriff would enter a dwelling like that when looking for a suspect; he would enter quickly, erect, with gun held loosely at his side ready to swivel shoot in any direction. The director told Tibbett that he knew nothing of being a sherriff. Whereupon Tibbett informed the director that both his father and his uncle had been sherriffs in California when he was growing up, and in fact his father had been killed by a suspect in the line of duty. The Eye-talian let Tibbett do it his way.

Article and pictures of Dessay's first Traviata in Santa Fe

From the looks of the costuming and set, it seems as if they are following the Netrebko/Villazon Vienna production path.


http://www.playbillarts.com/features/article/8040.html

amneris wrote:Article and pictures of Dessay's first Traviata in Santa Fe

From the looks of the costuming and set, it seems as if they are following the Netrebko/Villazon Vienna production path.


http://www.playbillarts.com/features/article/8040.html

I meant the Salzburg production.

That Santa Fe Traviata looks like a big mistake.

Traviata is one of those operas for which updating to the present day blows the whole story line to hell. The drama pivots on the social conventions and mores of a time long gone (e.g., families "disgraced" by a member having an "unsuitable" liason), and which are totally irrelevant to most people today. The whole Germont-Violetta scene becomes nonsense transferred into a modern setting, certainly one as sophisticated as those photos suggest.

My brother is traveling to Santa Fe for the opening night Traviata, so I will get a full report from him.

Years ago, I heard a recording on a radio program of Tibbett singing "Erlkoenig" in English. It was the spookiest thing I'd ever heard!

And then, spooky in an entirely different sense, was the bargain album of arias I bought, which were late recordings, after his voice started collapsing. Why did they put a microphone in front of him at that point?!!! It was so sad. But much happier, is the sound of him in my living room, singing "Eri tu" on my victrola, in his prime.

I've read somewhere that the character in the James M. Cain novel, Serenade, was based on Tibbett.

brunnhilde wrote:But much happier, is the sound of him in my living room, singing "Eri tu" on my victrola, in his prime.

That "Eri tu" recording is magnificent, which makes it all the stranger that Tibbett never sang the role of Renato. An odd lacuna in his repertoire.

Voigt has cancelled her Royal Opera TOSCAs for this month, and will be replaced by Gheorghiu and Miricioiu -- not on the same evenings, hopefully! Poor Debbie -- I'm afraid she made a bad decision about that operation -- will she make it to the Met's new RING???

Dargom: The effects of the surgery seem to take a few years before fulling manifesting themselves. When I heard her in Die Aegyptische Helena, the voice was definitely different (the warmth in her mid-register had been replaced by a steely edge) but it was still a very impressive instrument, if not as beautiful as before. But since then, she seems to have had more and more problems with her singing. She had pitch problems as Isolde which seemed to stem from technical issues. When did she have the surgery? Five years ago?

calvert wrote:

mogliettina wrote:Circa 1945 I had the dubious pleasure of hearing both Lawrence Tibbett and Lauritz Melchior singing the top songs of the week on Your Hit Parade.
It prejudiced me forever against Melchior. All I hear when I listen to him now is, "You've got to Acc-Sent-Chuate Ze Positiff." Oy!

And do you remember: "See da U.S. AAAAY een a Che-vro-LAAAAAY!"? That was Melchior, too.

Tibbett was better at popular songs, IMO, that was Melchior. Of course, being an American certainly helped! Tibbett's diction was superb as well as his voice. Early on in his career, he learned forward placement and enunciation from one of his better voice teachers (whose name escapes me now). HIs teacher told him to sing text as if he were speaking it in conversation, without the artificial "hoity-toity" diction most classically trained singers affected at that time.

One of my favorite Tibbett stories concerns the first time he sang Jack Rance in Fanciulla del West. The stage director, an Italian, wanted Tibbett to enter in Act II (when Rance is looking for Johnson the bandit) in a crouched position with his gun sticking straight out and bug-eyes. (One assumes that this director's only experience with American sherriffs was watching Yosemite Sam in Merrie Melodies cartoons.) Tibbett demurred and said that no sherriff would enter a dwelling like that when looking for a suspect; he would enter quickly, erect, with gun held loosely at his side ready to swivel shoot in any direction. The director told Tibbett that he knew nothing of being a sherriff. Whereupon Tibbett informed the director that both his father and his uncle had been sherriffs in California when he was growing up, and in fact his father had been killed by a suspect in the line of duty. The Eye-talian let Tibbett do it his way.

This post is worth its weight in gold! Jamie, you had me ROTFLMAO with that Yosemite Sam image. You always have such good stories to tell. My favorite still remains the one in back of the taxi with Tebaldi and Corelli. Maybe you'll tell it again one of these days.

I've noticed that some of the baritone clips recently linked here have come from a youtube channel called "primobaritono". I wanted to let those interested know that I happen to be virtually acquainted with the channel manager, a young baritone himself who has advanced from vocal studies in Florida and is now a student at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. His father is/was a very fine American baritone who performed mostly in Europe. You can read more about them, hear and see more by just typing in "primobaritono" on youtube. There you will find many wonderful opera, other vocal and additional interesting clips with commentary that Robert has posted, for the love of music. His passion is contagious -- enjoy!

God, How Dark It Is Here

It's by now a tired (and tiresome) subject, especially where I'm concerned (the subject has been an almost idée fixe on S&F since the blog's inception), but I still can't resist linking to or quoting well written (even if not terribly original) pieces on other venues dealing with the subject no matter how brief.

And so, with that caveat, I link to a brief article by Geoffrey Wheatcroft written for The Guardian. The comments in the comments section are, um, interesting as well (my thanks to constant S&F reader "Jacinto Fernandez" for the link).

An excerpt:

To begin with, those directors [of Regieoper] regard any and all music as a challenge to be overcome. [...] And I remembered what the late Brigid Brophy said about the opera director who cannot bear to leave the audience unattended in the presence of Mozart's music even for a few bars. She said that nearly 40 years ago now, well before the reign of Regieoper – "director's opera" – with its doctrine that any opera is no more than a blank space on which the director can impose his (more rarely her) concept. And she said it long before that Berlin [Die Entführung with Konzept by the notorious Eurotrash vandal, Calixto Bieito], which illustrates Clive James's saying that directing opera is what Germans do nowadays instead of invading Poland [Bieito is Catalan, but no matter].

RTWT here.

ACD

A beautiful (and chilling) "Credo" by a splendid baritone ... who really inhabits his roles, vocally and physically!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my5zKJW0l8M

Ugh! Of course you've tapped my anger button, ACD as you, and everyone else here, know well what I think of "Eurotrash" (okay, attempting PC -- "Regitheater" [trash].)
I have convinced myself that every managing director who employs Calixto Bieito delights in having the devil "women" brought down. If ever there was a person who had a serious problem with mama it was that monster Bieito. Lucky for him that instead of being ignored he is living out his sick sexual fantasies and misogyny dream by being encouraged and lauded by persons who have the same sad problems stemming from their childhood. (how's that for armchair psychology?)

mogliettina wrote:My favorite still remains the one in back of the taxi with Tebaldi and Corelli. Maybe you'll tell it again one of these days.

You mean the one Charles Handelman stole and took credit for in the Corelli bio?

mogliettina wrote:I have convinced myself that every managing director who employs Calixto Bieito delights in having the devil "women" brought down. If ever there was a person who had a serious problem with mama it was that monster Bieito. Lucky for him that instead of being ignored he is living out his sick sexual fantasies and misogyny dream by being encouraged and lauded by persons who have the same sad problems stemming from their childhood. (how's that for armchair psychology?)

I have long held that many opera directors use (abuse?) operas as vehicles to work out their own sexual problems and/or fantasies in public. Why can't they just do the decent thing and masturbate in private and spare the rest of us their kinkiness?

Frankly, l am surprised that there has not been more outcry from feminists about the misogyny - an overused word, but in your context spot on - that fills much modern staging.