What would the rest of us say? We must concede the factual accuracy of all this—because we recognize instantly, from the terms “bellowing” and “bull,” exactly which 1950s Italian tenor is being criticized: we understand at once that it isn’t Tagliavini or di Stefano or Corelli or Bergonzi or …. But we might perhaps say that we enjoy so much what he can do that we never spend time objecting to (or, perhaps, even seriously thinking about) what he can’t.
Of course, idiosyncratic allergies are provoked mainly by idiosyncratic singers, ones who can be instantly identified and don’t sound exactly the same as everyone else, ones who do something that nobody else on record has ever done: Caruso, Flagstad, Melchior, Martinelli, Callas, Sutherland….
2. Important though issue #1 is, if we now set it aside and pay attention to musical/dramatic context, we’ll find that not every role appears to ask for the same kind of voice, and certainly not necessarily a “good” or “healthy” voice. Verdi famously rejected a “good” voice for Lady Macbeth and demanded “una voce aspa, soffocata, cupa… che avesse del diabolico.” Loge appears to require not a standard Heldentenor but a performer whose very sound gets under everyone’s skin and causes instant dislike (“Immer ist Undank Loges Lohn”), combined with a flickery, quicksilvery, constantly varying play of intelligence that shapes every phrase individually and spontaneously. If the three tenor songs in Mahler’s Lied von der Erde are to be sung by the same person, that person would seem to need a voice suggestive of an ageing, world-weary chronic alcoholic struggling inadequately to fit into an unwelcoming universe but never attaining peace (in contrast to the alto/baritone at the end of the work).
Yet if we attend to musical/dramatic context, we may also find that certain performers act so vividly that they make some of us forget their vocal unsuitability. Stabile and Gobbi as Falstaff are famous examples. Many of us have seen senior Shakespeareans plausibly playing youngsters less than half their age, or, conversely, teenagers seeming quite credible as Lear or Volumnia. I may feel that Wunderlich’s voice is inherently less apt for Das Lied von der Erde than (e.g.) Patzak’s, but in practice I find his sheer beauty of delivery and crowd-charming manner so infectious that, when actually listening, I’m equally happy with either.
3. Finally, there’s the view expressed in the prologues, epilogues, and choruses of Shakespeare’s plays—that every performance must be an act of collaboration between the performers and the audience. No performer is ever ideal; every performer builds the bridge only a certain distance toward the audience, and it’s always up to the audience to build the rest of the bridge from the other side. “The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”
However, this view perhaps overestimates the ability of the average human imagination!
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb