# BARITONE TOURNAMENT (Round 1, Match #4): De Luca vs Warren



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Giuseppe De Luca, Italy, 1876-1950






Leonard Warren, USA, 1911-1960






An interesting tidbit to add to this matchup is that Warren saw De Luca as a good friend and mentor, even having the older baritone to his summer home to fish, cook, and role study. These were some of the best years of Warren's career from 1946-1948.

Who's singing did you prefer and why?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

It's not even close. DeLuca gave it such emotion and heartfelt singing while Warren with his powerful baritone sang without any particular feeling whatsoever. Seemed like he just followed the notes like a good boy and damn the character.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

No contest. De Luca not only wins this match, but is the best so far. His technique is superb and he sings with feeling whilst articulating the gruppetti very well. I don't like Warren in this role, his dark tone (and I find his vowels more constricted than Milnes) isn't right and certainly doesn't work in this part. At least with Milnes we get his commitment to the drama of a part in compensation for his less than perfect technique, whereas Warren isn't ticking any of my boxes.

N.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Agree that De Luca is the winner here. Wonderful rendition with ease, elegance, and wonderful tone. I've never really been much of a fan of Warren's singing.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

I agree with you guys. De Luca is a master and Warren's singing makes my voice hurt.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

De Luca, easily. The best we've heard so far, in fact. Beautiful voice, wonderful legato, superb technique all put at the service of the music. Warren is penny plain by comparison. Still, I'd prefer him to most of the others we've heard so far.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

As much as I love Leonard Warren in many Verdi roles, De Luca here gave a master class in dynamics, shading, and rubato. This aria is really too delicate for Warren's massive instrument.

I do wish De Luca had given us at least one high G and not that crappy, out-of-character G-flat in the cadenza.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

De Luca, for me.

I particularly enjoy De Luca at 0:59 "Ah! l'amor, l'amore" with those clear vowels and control of dynamics. He is very careful over the markings.

With Warren his sturdy voice and powerful high notes in particular do make an effect but it is not subtle. 

Warren rather confuses me, I'm not sure what is technically going on...

I would say his singing is 'effortful' - as in it seems to take a prodigious amount of physical effort and mental concentration on his part - but then he doesn't quickly run out of breath as you might expect, the voice in its prime was not wobbly and those powerful high notes evidence neither his volume or range are inhibited: in fact they are the glory of his voice. 

Listening to Warren is, for me, like listening to Mario del Monaco - there is so much effort in his singing that when it works it is extremely impressive and at other times you wonder how he does not burst with the tension mid-way through an aria let alone 25 and 30 years of singing.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The results of that poll look like our present Presidential election.


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

When Warren is singing, it does not sound like Verdi at all! That`s why I voted for him.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

As I was singing through "Il balen" (again) in the shower this morning, I was thinking about how the aria is really the only tender moment for the character. Most of it is blood, guts, hate for the tenor (of course), vengeance, lust. And the duet that follows in the fourth act, "Mira, di acerbe lagrime, spargo al tuo piede un rio / Vivrá! Ripeti il giubilo" is red meat for a voice like Warren's, and I bet he would leave De Luca and most other baritones (oh, Sherrill!) in the dust. I do not think Warren's singing is effortful any more than standard operatic technique. But (and I speak from experience here) it takes a good deal of energy and constant support to get a large voice moving and singing well. Which he certainly does, to me.

Your mileage may vary.

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Highwayman said:


> When Warren is singing, it does not sound like Verdi at all! That`s why I voted for him.


Oy!! That's a slap at dear old Giuseppe.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Oy!! That's a slap at dear old Giuseppe.


It's an interesting position. Maybe Highwayman likes Handel performances that don't sound like Handel, Debussy which doesn't sound like Debussy or Wagner which doesn't sound like Wagner. Or maybe he likes all composer to sound like his favourite (whoever that may be). :devil:


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> It's an interesting position. Maybe Highwayman likes Handel performances that don't sound like Handel, Debussy which doesn't sound like Debussy or Wagner which doesn't sound like Wagner. Or maybe he likes all composer to sound like his favourite (whoever that may be). :devil:


Nope. Just don`t care for Verdi. Since the music does not mean much for me per se, I chose the performance which has provided me the better sonic experience.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Warren rather confuses me, I'm not sure what is technically going on...


He's a very confusing singer. Warren sang in the covered position throughout his range which gave him the unnaturally dark timbre. It's a dangerous technique imo. I would tell young baritones not to listen to Warren.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

When you compare the two, it's useful to remember that De Luca sings to the piano accompaniment and Warren to the full orchestra (as sparse as it might be in this aria, but still) so De Luca goes for embellishments and Warren for more sound projecting. Honestly, this might be an unpopular opinion but I voted for Warren this time.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Azol said:


> When you compare the two, it's useful to remember that De Luca sings to the piano accompaniment and Warren to the full orchestra (as sparse as it might be in this aria, but still) so De Luca goes for embellishments and Warren for more sound projecting. Honestly, this might be an unpopular opinion but I voted for Warren this time.


I don't think it's useful in this instance because De Luca sang with the same elegance and style (& power) regardless of accompaniment. Have a listen:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> The results of that poll look like our present Presidential election.


I'd have more faith in humanity if that vote had been as far apart as this one.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

De Luca, unquestionably. Hardly anything to criticize. Warren's covered quality in itself mutes his expressive intentions, whatever they may be.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

May I ask what is the meaning of "covered position", "covered quality"?


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Bonetan said:


> I don't think it's useful in this instance because De Luca sang with the same elegance and style (& power) regardless of accompaniment. Have a listen:







Warren is equally amazing here, listen to terrific diminuendo (_Tu taci!_)

So, next tournament, maybe. (Even though I hope for Boccanegra one!)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Open Book said:


> May I ask what is the meaning of "covered position", "covered quality"?


It's an artificial darkening of the tone, a "hollow" quality that tamps down the voce's potential brilliance. It should be used as expressive coloration only, not as a basic sound. The muscular action that produces a covered sound can have a detrimental effect on the vocal mechanism if too much sustained.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> It's an artificial darkening of the tone, a "hollow" quality that tamps down the voce's potential brilliance. It should be used as expressive coloration only, not as a basic sound. The muscular action that produces a covered sound can have a detrimental effect on the vocal mechanism is too much sustained.


Thanks for sharing this explanation, Woodduck - that's interesting.

I hadn't fully appreciated that besides being a bit boring for the listener, it would be tiring or damaging to the singer.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Open Book said:


> May I ask what is the meaning of "covered position", "covered quality"?


To piggyback off what Woodduck said, the general consensus is that a cover is necessary at the top of a singer's range. For a baritone this would be around high E or F and beyond. It's the point where singing top notes wide open is more akin to yelling than singing. But by shifting into the covered position a baritone can comfortably sing up to A flat, even A natural. However taking this position into the lower regions of the voice is dangerous and counterproductive.

*there are some who believe that one should never cover, but they're in the small minority in my experience


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> It's an artificial darkening of the tone, a "hollow" quality that tamps down the voce's potential brilliance. It should be used as expressive coloration only, not as a basic sound. The muscular action that produces a covered sound can have a detrimental effect on the vocal mechanism if too much sustained.


I am gonna get edumacated if I keep paying attention to you;-) Thanks


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bonetan said:


> To piggyback off what Woodduck said, the general consensus is that a cover is necessary at the top of a singer's range. For a baritone this would be around high E or F and beyond. It's the point where singing top notes wide open is more akin to yelling than singing. But by shifting into the covered position a baritone can comfortably sing up to A flat, even A natural. However taking this position into the lower regions of the voice is dangerous and counterproductive.
> 
> *there are some who believe that one should never cover, but they're in the small minority in my experience


I appreciate that elaboration from a singer. The need for "covering" at the top affects tenors, too. One famous tenor criticized for his excessively "open" top is Giuseppe di Stefano.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

Bonetan said:


> To piggyback off what Woodduck said, the general consensus is that a cover is necessary at the top of a singer's range. For a baritone this would be around high E or F and beyond. It's the point where singing top notes wide open is more akin to yelling than singing. But by shifting into the covered position a baritone can comfortably sing up to A flat, even A natural. However taking this position into the lower regions of the voice is dangerous and counterproductive.
> 
> *there are some who believe that one should never cover, but they're in the small minority in my experience


My own voice, when I am singing operatically, wants (I am 71 years old now) to start covering on E-flat and certainly on E-natural, although I can sing both notes covered or open. When you listen to both "Il balen" and "Eri tu," there are places where the singer has to sing a high F and then a lower D and a lower B-flat, coming down out of a covered position (F) into one fully open (B-flat). Notice the difficulty many baritones, even professional ones, have with keeping those descending lines coming out of a covered position, in tune.

I had a coaching many years ago with Maestro Roberto Benaglio, former chorus master of La Scala and Dallas Opera, where he tried (unsuccessfully) to get me to sing the the opening (and later) la-ran-la-lera"s in "Largo al factotum" (Barber of Seville) wide open, rather than covering the E's and singing the D's open. I had great difficulty with that. If one is singing pop or Broadway style, it is not uncommon to sing higher notes open. One instance is, for example, "My Funny Valentine" in C minor/E-flat major, at the end taking a high G and back to the tonic E-flat on "stay little Valentine, stay."

A professional baritone whose technique I always found curious and fairly unappealing was Cornell Macneil, precisely because he seemed to never cover his voice. It worked for him, but it was never a voice to my taste. But he could sing amazing high notes and had a respectable career. He also had the unfortunate habit of walking around with his mouth open when not singing, or on musical rests.

I'm not sure if Warren used an artificially covered sound or if that was just his voice. It worked for him, and like dark chocolate, I just eat it up.

Falsetto is also another vocal technique, and I have found it useful (in my declining years) to practice singing falsetto using descending scales down _as low as I can go_ (which is around F below middle C). It's a wonderful exercise to try to find the so-called "mixed voice" or "voix mixte," crucial to singing softly in the middle-high range where the sound is neither completely covered nor completely open. I am not a professional singer but came close, and have always sung high baritone/low tenor. These are my own vocal experiences. I took my last voice lessons (so far) in 2016, four years ago.

Your mileage will certainly vary.

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^ All this technical talk makes me nostalgic for my singing days. I'm the same age as you, but left off singing many years ago. The voice is quite flabby now, and trying to revive it would be too much work, besides which I'm too much of a perfectionist to inflict my foggy wobble on the music I love. I guess I'll just settle for singing 4'33" in the shower. In that work Lauritz Melchior has nothing on me.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

While I "keep my voice up," I too have a wobble. It comes with age. And I am also a perfectionist. I even quit my church choir shortly before the Covid hit, chiefly because I could no longer produce sounds that were entirely pleasing to me, even though other people still ask me to sing. Some days I miss not being able to toss off "Come un' ape nei giorni d'Aprile / Ma al finir" from Cenerentola or "Largo al factotum" but I can (except for the wobble) do a decent job with "Per me giunto / Io morró" from Don Carlo, and I love to sing a couple of Russian arias. But most days, I don't miss singing at all. Knowing from memory hundreds of songs and arias (and remembering all the words and what key everything is in) comes with the territory, I suppose, and provides me some joy as well as a lot of critical (sometimes far too critical--it's hard to turn that perfectionism off, isn't it?) listening skills.

Back of sorts to the subject of the thread with a question for Bonetan: Do you hate Sherrill Milnes' vowels worse than those of La Stupenda?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Barelytenor said:


> Back of sorts to the subject of the thread with a question for Bonetan: Do you hate Sherrill Milnes' vowels worse than those of La Stupenda?


Which vowels? She only used one - Auhw best describes it.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Barelytenor said:


> Back of sorts to the subject of the thread with a question for Bonetan: Do you hate Sherrill Milnes' vowels worse than those of La Stupenda?


Yes, but only because Milnes uses his vowels to ruin roles that I sing and hold dear :lol: I will never forgive him!


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Bonetan said:


> Yes, but only because Milnes uses his vowels to ruin roles that I sing and hold dear :lol: I will never forgive him!


:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Which vowels? She only used one - Auhw best describes it.


So that's the way it's spelled! Thanks. Next time I'll know to write "Cauhwstauhw Dauhwvauhw."


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> So that's the way it's spelled! Thanks. Next time I'll know to write "Cauhwstauhw Dauhwvauhw."


Hahaha. I actually was able to translate that. A new language learned! :tiphat:


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