Likewise, regarding La fanciulla del West I say that he "by no means just belts his way through his part and in Aida he "is in thrilling, clarion voice and not by any
means wholly without subtlety, pace his detractors." Even his Otello grew in refinement; about the Karajan recording I write "Del Monaco has now been singing Otello for four years and has made his first studio recording, so as a result is far more attentive to the composer’s markings, singing softly as required and being less inclined to grandstand indiscriminately: his line is steadier, the gradations of tone smoother and more controlled."
I do not maintain that he was the subtlest of artists but his reputation for "yelling" is much exaggerated - and what is operatic singing if not primarily "beautiful shouting"?
It is my party trick to be able to recognise most famous voices within just a few notes of their singing but it is true that the further you go back into the annals of recorded singing, the more alike great voices sound owing to a certain homogeneity of technique and a profound understanding of how a "properly" trained and developed operatic voice should sound - yet the three greatest singers ever (cf Serafin), Caruso, Ponselle and Ruffo remain instantly recognisable. Of course Serafin hit the nail on the head when he described Callas' soprano as "una grande vocciaccia" (untranslatable, but essentially a big, ugly, but somehow compelling, sound) - which is why she made an unsurpassable Lady Macbeth and the absence of a studio recording is so much to be lamented.
I agree that while recognising his vocal limitations, I cannot think of any voice which portrays Falstaff more colourfully than Gobbi. I would however, stick to my guns by observing that the vocal production of Peter Schreier was close to pathological and one all too frequently encountered in many a modern British tenor - but I'll cease my provocative rant here...
1. We all recognize the existence of idiosyncratic allergies to specific voices. Many discerning listeners “can’t abide the bellowing of the Bull of Milan on all those awful old 1950s Italian opera sets.” And, although this is an emotive reaction, it’s also intelligently reasoned (like Ralph’s) by pointing out that the detestable chap’s voice production was fundamentally, hopelessly flawed, rendering him (e.g.) inherently incapable of producing a true pianissimo or piano even if he had ever wished to do so.
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!
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