# Favorite "Vesti la Giubba"?



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

My grandfather always played his old 78rpm recording of Caruso.

Do you have a favorite of this great "aria"?
:tiphat:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

lately this one:


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## Il_Penseroso (Nov 20, 2010)

Del Monaco. Wonderful. (Sorry Itullian i'm on mobile, can't insert the full link)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_OV9flB1tVI#


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Itullian said:


> My grandfather always played his old 78rpm recording of Caruso.
> 
> Do you have a favorite of this great "aria"?
> :tiphat:


I have several, but forced to choose just one, I would go with your grandfather's.

Just as a curiosity, we don't have a recording of the aria by the first Canio, the Italian tenor Fiorello Giraud, but we have the next best thing: this is the tenor from Puerto Rico, Antonio Paoli, singing the role in 1907, under the baton of Leoncavallo himself!:


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

I'd have to say Di Stefano.






Close second for me would be Del Monaco.


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## Cesare Impalatore (Apr 16, 2015)

schigolch said:


> Just as a curiosity, we don't have a recording of the aria by the first Canio, the Italian tenor Fiorello Giraud, but we have the next best thing: this is the tenor from Puerto Rico, Antonio Paoli, singing the role in 1907, under the baton of Leoncavallo himself!:


Ah Paoli, another almost forgotten titan of the past. Known as "King of Tenors" in the time of Caruso thanks to his powerful voice, probably not the most sophisticated of singers but a great Canio and Otello.

My favourite version of Vesti la giubba after Caruso - who is untouchable in this piece - is this one by Mario del Monaco (obviously):






It's almost as good in terms of acting as his Tokyo performance from two years later and the singing is probably his best on live record.


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## sabrina (Apr 26, 2011)

I love Franco Corelli so this is one of RAI recordings from 1954:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Try Bergonzi with Karajan.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Lanza
Martinelli
DiStefano


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Nobody's bested Caruso in this, after 108 years. It's just absolutely right.






Among later versions, the young Corelli's is a killer, not least for the pleasure of watching a gorgeous man emote ( Post #7 above).

By the way, have you heard Mike and Luke?






I prefer Mike here. I always prefer the artist who takes his work seriously and does the best his talents will allow.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

sabrina said:


> I love Franco Corelli so this is one of RAI recordings from 1954:


Thanks for this. This is opera as it should be, and as it used to be. No "regietheater" here, no "concept," no attempt to be "relevant" and "appeal to contemporary audiences." When did audiences become too "contemporary" for the unfiltered truth of human emotion? This is the real thing, done by people with the voice and the heart to go all the way. (And isn't Tito Gobbi marvelous? One of the greatest singer-actors of all.)


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for this. This is opera as it should be, and as it used to be. No "regietheater" here, no "concept," no attempt to be "relevant" and "appeal to contemporary audiences." When did audiences become too "contemporary" for the unfiltered truth of human emotion? This is the real thing, done by people with the voice and the heart to go all the way. (And isn't Tito Gobbi marvelous? One of the greatest singer-actors of all.)


I watched this too. Despite the undoubted magnificence of the singing the actual style of acting is very dated. Given the director is not a lunatic (ie into the Regietheatre nonsense) I think singers do act far better now than they used to.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I watched this too. Despite the undoubted magnificence of the singing the actual style of acting is very dated. Given the director is not a lunatic (ie into the Regietheatre nonsense) I think singers do act far better now than they used to.


Styles in acting change. We're more restrained now. Film had something to do with that; on the screen everything got magnified and there was no need to play to the balcony. We're used to watching people who act like the folks next door. Is this necessarily a good thing? Not for my money.

This is opera. People run around singing at the top of their lungs and spit in each other's faces. This is Italian verismo. This is stentorian hunk of the century Franco Corelli - definitely not your next door neighbor! Watch Callas in the Covent Garden Tosca. Watch silent film. Watch Garbo in Camille. Bigger than life. A splendid antidote to our antiseptic sophistication and anodyne correctness.

It may be too much for you. I'd say opera needs more of it. Bring it on.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Yes, today opera singers are no longer acting for the audience, but for the DVD or the TV broadcast... Many times, when there is not even a DVD or a TV broadcast to start with!.

When you are on stage, in the middle of a big U-shaped theater, singing with just your unamplified voice over a sizable orchestra in the pit, your acting standards need to be more on the expansive than in the restrained side.

Nevertheless, the most important thing in an opera singer, it's for sure to be a *vocal* actor, first and foremost.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Styles in acting change. We're more restrained now. Film had something to do with that; on the screen everything got magnified and there was no need to play to the balcony. We're used to watching people who act like the folks next door. Is this necessarily a good thing? Not for my money.
> 
> This is opera. People run around singing at the top of their lungs and spit in each other's faces. This is Italian verismo. This is stentorian hunk of the century Franco Corelli - definitely not your next door neighbor! *Watch Callas in the Covent Garden Tosca. Watch silent film. Watch Garbo in Camille. Bigger than life. A splendid antidote to our antiseptic sophistication and anodyne correctness. It may be too much for you. I'd say opera needs more of it. Bring it on.*


*.*

'We the Living' _looooooooove_ this post.

<Kiss to the world!>

_;D_


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Styles in acting change. We're more restrained now. Film had something to do with that; on the screen everything got magnified and there was no need to play to the balcony. We're used to watching people who act like the folks next door. Is this necessarily a good thing? Not for my money.
> 
> This is opera. People run around singing at the top of their lungs and spit in each other's faces. This is Italian verismo. This is stentorian hunk of the century Franco Corelli - definitely not your next door neighbor! Watch Callas in the Covent Garden Tosca. Watch silent film. Watch Garbo in Camille. Bigger than life. A splendid antidote to our antiseptic sophistication and anodyne correctness.
> 
> It may be too much for you. I'd say opera needs more of it. Bring it on.


Lots of ham? Pass the mustard!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

schigolch said:


> I have several, but forced to choose just one, I would go with your grandfather's.
> 
> Just as a curiosity, we don't have a recording of the aria by the first Canio, the Italian tenor Fiorello Giraud, but we have the next best thing: this is the tenor from Puerto Rico, Antonio Paoli, singing the role in 1907, under the baton of Leoncavallo himself!:


Thanks for this interesting post. I had not heard of Paoli. I've now listened to this and several other recordings of him on YouTube, and have read numerous extravagantly complimentary remarks by listeners there, including some calling him Caruso's superior (!). I'm afraid that that isn't my impression. I hear him as somewhat crude and charmless, with the kind of pushed tone, slow, sometimes distorted vibrato, and grunted releases more typical of the would-be dramatic singing of the present day than of that era. Caruso's technique, as evidenced by his clean, wobble-free tone and his easy flexibility, was firmly grounded in bel canto. This guy is "can belto," and may have helped prepare the public taste for the bestial bawling of the likes of Martinelli. I can't hear this as great singing, but I'm willing to believe it was extremely loud. That seems to satisfy some people.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Actually, Paoli and Caruso style of singing was rather similar, even if they produced such a different sound to your ears. .

They were part of the new verismo school that was taking over the traditional Italian school, that we can call "Bel canto" (though this term is used for some quite different things, and sometimes it's not clear what we are referring to). The biggest staple of the "Bel canto" school that we can find in the available recordings is Fernando de Lucia, a decade older than both Paoli and Caruso:











In Paoli's recording from 1907, we can detect indeed a robust voice in the middle register, and rather squillante in the high notes. He was also able to modulate. Reportedly, his voice was also a huge one.

About being "superior" or "inferior" than Caruso... Well, I think almost all opera fans know who Caruso was, and have heard at least some of his arias. On the other hand, we can find many longtime fans that are not familiar even with Paoli's name, though he was quite succesful during the early 20th century. Personally, I have no doubt in my mind, I prefer to listen to Caruso, by a large margin, but I have a somewhat rosier view about Paoli than the one you are sharing above.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Styles in acting change. We're more restrained now. Film had something to do with that; on the screen everything got magnified and there was no need to play to the balcony. We're used to watching people who act like the folks next door. Is this necessarily a good thing? Not for my money.
> 
> This is opera. People run around singing at the top of their lungs and spit in each other's faces. This is Italian verismo. This is stentorian hunk of the century Franco Corelli - definitely not your next door neighbor! Watch Callas in the Covent Garden Tosca. Watch silent film. Watch Garbo in Camille. Bigger than life. A splendid antidote to our antiseptic sophistication and anodyne correctness.
> 
> It may be too much for you. I'd say opera needs more of it. Bring it on.


honestly, I prefer more restrained (which is probably why bel canto appeals to me infinitely more than verismo and Sutherland to Callas)


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> honestly, I prefer more restrained (which is probably why bel canto appeals to me infinitely more than verismo and Sutherland to Callas)


Are you saying that Callas isn't a bel canto singer?


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for this interesting post. I had not heard of Paoli. I've now listened to this and several other recordings of him on YouTube, and have read numerous extravagantly complimentary remarks by listeners there, including some calling him Caruso's superior (!). I'm afraid that that isn't my impression. I hear him as somewhat crude and charmless, with the kind of pushed tone, slow, sometimes distorted vibrato, and grunted releases more typical of the would-be dramatic singing of the present day than of that era. Caruso's technique, as evidenced by his clean, wobble-free tone and his easy flexibility, was firmly grounded in bel canto. This guy is "can belto," and may have helped prepare the public taste for the bestial bawling of the likes of Martinelli. I can't hear this as great singing, but I'm willing to believe it was extremely loud. That seems to satisfy some people.


Paoli's records are a little uneven in my view, but the best of them are very good indeed. 'O souverain, o juge, o pere' is a beautiful, sensitively sung performance, and I would probably take it over Caruso's, though I prefer Paul Franz to either:

Paoli: 




He could be a bit of a sceamer on occasions, but he had real dramatic intensity and very exciting ringing top notes, as well as, on a good day, being quite a stylish singer, as in the example above. I would recommend the Pagliacci set for Paoli's singing and for the historical interest of the recording being supervised and or conducted by Leoncavallo- the Nedda, Josefina Huguet also has her admirers still.

Back on topic: here are my favourite Vesti la Giubbas.

1. Emile Scaramberg: 




I love his bitter laugh, and he always sings with the maximum emotion (not really usual for a Frenchman of that generation?) while being very much the pre verismo French singer he was. The merest suspicion of a sob on 'ridi Pagliaccio', not overdone at all, and very moving. One of the best examples of a singer whose records are much, much better than one would expect from the facts of his career alone.

2. Fernando de Lucia, an extremely famous early Canio: 



 (terrible transfer, skips a bit at the end, but the version on the Pearl CD I have is fine.)

I love his weird manic crowing laugh (especially when he also does it in 'Che gelida manina', but that's another story). I think he brings out more of the drama than Scaramberg, and is more believable as a jealous ruffian than his suave French contemporary whom I inexplicably prefer. (Sexier voice, perhaps.) Much more nuanced than Caruso or indeed anyone else, as is so often the case.

3. Tony Poncet- Canio was one of his relatively few roles and seems to have suited his passionate temperament: 




This is really gloriously sung, even if things had changed a bit since Scaramberg's day and gone down the Italian verismo route of mostly loud singing and generalised emoting a la Caruso. It's a moving, keenly felt performance, even though it relies on pure vocal splendour for effect far more than the other two I've chosen.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Diminuendo said:


> Are you saying that Callas isn't a bel canto singer?


well, now that you mention it, I do prefer her Verdi and Puccini, but no, that wasn't the point. 
more like
*verismo and Callas:* expression>tonal purity
*bel canto and Sutherland:* tonal beauty>expression


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

schigolch said:


> Actually, Paoli and Caruso style of singing was rather similar, even if they produced such a different sound to your ears. .
> 
> They were part of the new verismo school that was taking over the traditional Italian school, that we can call "Bel canto" (though this term is used for some quite different things, and sometimes it's not clear what we are referring to). The biggest staple of the "Bel canto" school that we can find in the available recordings is Fernando de Lucia, a decade older than both Paoli and Caruso:
> 
> ...


As a musician and former tenor, I am unusually sensitive to, and concerned with, niceties of vocal technique, and intolerant of certain faults and bad habits of singers. As I listen to Paoli alongside Caruso, I hear significant differences in this respect. When I use the term "bel canto," I mean it in the sense that Callas did when she was asked about it. To her it meant not merely "beautiful singing" (its literal meaning), but "a schooling" (her term), a discipline of the voice by which it acquires evenness of production, flexibility, precision, and the range of skills implied in these.

I agree with you that Caruso and Paoli represent a similar stage in the evolution of _style_, the point at which the graces of an older school were giving way to a more direct and forceful approach under the influence of verismo. We can observe this evolution in Caruso's own recordings, with earlier ones (such as his classic "Una furtive lagrima" from 1904) exhibiting subtleties of rhythm, shading, and embellishment lacking from his later recordings. That is the _stylistic_ aspect of bel canto. But the _technique_ of bel canto remained essential to vocal training past that historical point, and singers mastered its facets more or less well. Caruso's singing clearly had a thorough technical grounding, and it is audible throughout his career, allowing him to sustain an evenness and clarity of tonal emission through all changes in his musical style over the years of his career.

In Paoli's singing I simply do not hear this same evenness and clarity. Granted that voices differ naturally in certain dimensions, I am disturbed by, for one thing, the sense of effortfulness in Paoli's vibrato, its relatively slow rate of pulsation, and the disruption of its evenness in response to applied pressure. It suggests to me some degree of muscular interference, which becomes very noticeable at times. If you listen to the vibratos of technically finished singers - Caruso, de Lucia, Melchior, Bjorling, to name a diverse bunch - the vibrato, though it varies in speed and prominence from voice to voice and, in most voices, increases in strength with increasing volume, remains basically effortless, constant, and regular. Paoli's vibrato clearly suggests extraneous effort in his vocal emission.

Another sign of such effort in a singer is the explosive or grunted release of tones, particularly likely at high pitch and volume. For tenors in particular this is to some degree inevitable, and the clean termination of notes and phrases is no doubt partly a matter of musicianship and simple good taste, but it becomes a real issue if a singer is forcing the voice and not singing within his capacity. It might be tolerated as "expressive" in the context of verismo, but it is intrinsically ugly and contrary to bel canto training. Again, as we listen to Paoli, we hear a "pushing" of the tone culminating in explosive and grunted finishes which are unpleasant and simply sound crude and unmusical. We can hear some vehement releases in the singing of Caruso, but they seem more a function of style than of technique, and do not sound like symptoms of duress.

Here is a comparison which I think illustrates these points: "Ah si ben mio" from _Il Trovatore_.

Caruso: 




Paoli: 



 (I must also point out that Paoli plays fast and loose with Verdi's written note values throughout, a degree of carelessness that has nothing to do with interpretation or style)

All questions of stylistic approach aside, I hear a lesson in vocal technique here. Quite honestly, there are moments when Paoli sounds to me like an untrained singer. We may differ in what we want to hear in singing and in what faults we consider significant. But between the two singers in question, Caruso and Paoli, I hear technical differences quite significant to me, and I have no hesitation in calling Caruso the finer singer.


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> well, now that you mention it, I do prefer her Verdi and Puccini, but no, that wasn't the point.
> more like
> *verismo and Callas:* expression>tonal purity
> *bel canto and Sutherland:* tonal beauty>expression


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> Back on topic: here are my favourite Vesti la Giubbas.
> 
> 1. Emile Scaramberg:
> 
> ...


Interesting choices. Scaremberg is _brilliant!_ This goes to the top of the list as far as I'm concerned, even in French ("Pagliace" indeed!). I'm less excited by de Lucia; his limping tempo makes the aria sound lugubrious and static, although he sings with feeling. Ultimately not my sort of voice for this role. Poncet has that sort of voice, incisive and powerful, but I don't feel the character's pain.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> As a musician and former tenor...


Well, as I said before, I have also no hesitation in saying that I much prefer listening to Caruso than to Paoli (i.e., basically the same meaning that when you are saying that he was the "finer" singer). 

I have also no doubt that Caruso's singing technique was superb, and was based on the true roots of the Italian school. For a tenor, this means the technique that was developed by merging the teachings of people like Manuel García coming from the end of the "true" Belcanto singing period, and the full voice used for the high notes during the Romantic period, that started in the 1830s.

I think I understand what you are calling "the sense of effortfulness in Paoli's vibrato", but this is partly motivated, in my view, by the acoustic recording technique. For singers like Paoli, with the way he placed his voice high, the final effect, a kind of "balancing" sound, same as we can find in other singers recorded in that period, like Slezak, can be described like that. In my mind, I try to discount this kind of things when hearing really old recordings. Caruso, due to the nature of his voice, didn't have that problem.

That's to say that I don't think that, if by some magic we could translate back to 1907 or 1911, we would hear that particular vibrato-like effect in the voice of Paoli. I think that was a fault of the recording (of course, I could be wrong, too. Regrettably, we will never find out unless someone invent that time machine for us). Totally different, speaking of the Italian school, of the 'vibrato stretto' that was produced on purpose and part of the singing technique of tenors like De Lucía himself or, more noticeably, Alessandro Bonci: 




About the way Paoli sing the notes, I can agree he is a little bit cavalier about some of them, especially at the end. However, I don't find any definitive 'no-no' in his performance, and I don't think I would have corrected him, it seems to me that all of them are within the freedom that we must permit to a singer (but I'm a very permissive man, admittedly), even if we don't necessarily agree with everything they did (and I don't, in this case). But if you point me out to a specific passage, then I can review it and then agree (or not ) with you.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

schigolch said:


> Well, as I said before, I have also no hesitation in saying that I much prefer listening to Caruso than to Paoli (i.e., basically the same meaning that when you are saying that he was the "finer" singer).
> 
> I have also no doubt that Caruso's singing technique was superb, and was based on the true roots of the Italian school. For a tenor, this means the technique that was developed by merging the teachings of people like Manuel García coming from the end of the "true" Belcanto singing period, and the full voice used for the high notes during the Romantic period, that started in the 1830s.
> 
> ...


I was only made aware of Paoli's carelessness by watching the score while he sang, courtesy of YouTube. Besides a prominent mistake just a few bars in, he consistently renders Verdi's sixteenth note pickups as eighth notes, for no reason I can think of. It removes some incisiveness from the rhythm. I think this sort of thing was actually not uncommon then, but even aside from its particular musical effect the senselessness of it annoys me. Were I the conductor I would definitely send Paoli back to the score for a refresher. I may be more sensitive at the moment because I was listening to some of Adelina Patti's recordings last night, and although I'm an admirer of the old gal, I found her "Casta Diva" to be an absolute rhythmic horror, a mess in the first degree. Paoli is quite innocent compared to that!


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Interesting choices. Scaremberg is _brilliant!_ This goes to the top of the list as far as I'm concerned, even in French ("Pagliace" indeed!). I'm less excited by de Lucia; his limping tempo makes the aria sound lugubrious and static, although he sings with feeling. Ultimately not my sort of voice for this role. Poncet has that sort of voice, incisive and powerful, but I don't feel the character's pain.


It's worse than "Pagliace"- it's "Paillasse" in French, which I always want to read as "Pale A$$".  Glad you enjoyed Scaramberg.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> It's worse than "Pagliace"- it's "Paillasse" in French, which I always want to read as "Pale A$$".  Glad you enjoyed Scaramberg.


I think the German title Der Bajazzo is worse.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sloe said:


> I think the German title Der Bajazzo is worse.


Good God. Tell me you made that up.

Why must we translate proper names? I shouldn't think "Pagliaccio" so unpronounceable to a Frenchman or a German.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Good God. Tell me you made that up.
> 
> Why must we translate proper names? I shouldn't think "Pagliaccio" so unpronounceable to a Frenchman or a German.


No I didn´t.
And I will not say way I think bajazzo is a horrible name for me.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

The title in Italian is "Pagliacci" (not "I pagliacci', as we can find sometimes). That means, simply, "Clowns". 

So, the proper German title should be what?. Die Bajazzos?...


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Diminuendo said:


>


for the record, I disagree vehemently with her assertion that "heavy voices must be kept light and limber". the voice should move the way it wants to move, and trying to lighten up a large, dramatic voice can be just as damaging as trying to push a lyric coloratura into singing Aida or Lady Macbeth. if you are like Joan Sutherland and are somehow capable of putting out stentorian, dramatic sounds AND rapid, canary coloratura, cool, but there are too many singers today singing rep which is wrong for their voice simply because it's in style.

on the other hand, I think _every_ voice wanting to sing bel canto should acquire at least a cursory proficiency in coloratura, be they spinto soprano, leggiero tenor, bass or lyric mezzo. if you cannot sing all the notes of a role comfortably and beautifully, you cannot sing the role, and the effort Callas put into doing so is something I've always respected about her.


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## Cesare Impalatore (Apr 16, 2015)

Sloe said:


> I think the German title Der Bajazzo is worse.


It is really bad indeed but not as bad as when the Nazis made Giuseppe Verdi into "Joseph Grün" :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> for the record, I disagree vehemently with her assertion that "heavy voices must be kept light and limber". the voice should move the way it wants to move, and trying to lighten up a large, dramatic voice can be just as damaging as trying to push a lyric coloratura into singing Aida or Lady Macbeth. if you are like Joan Sutherland and are somehow capable of putting out stentorian, dramatic sounds AND rapid, canary coloratura, cool, but there are too many singers today singing rep which is wrong for their voice simply because it's in style.
> 
> on the other hand, I think _every_ voice wanting to sing bel canto should acquire at least a cursory proficiency in coloratura, be they spinto soprano, leggiero tenor, bass or lyric mezzo. if you cannot sing all the notes of a role comfortably and beautifully, you cannot sing the role, and the effort Callas put into doing so is something I've always respected about her.


Are you sure you're understanding what Callas meant by her statement? Arguably no voice "wants" to move at all, and vocal training consists largely of training it to do so. It's true that every voice will encounter an individual limit on what it can do. Birgit Nilsson was never going to be a Queen of the Night, even if she did entertain people with the arias at parties. But she did believe that singing Italian opera was good discipline for her voice, and that it was important to keep the voice "slender," by which I assume she meant something akin to what Callas was saying. Other singers say that it's important to practice your Handel and Mozart even if what you sing in public is Aida and Isolde. There's been a general consensus that the size of a voice should not necessarily be an impediment to acquiring basic skills, and that the more thoroughly your voice is trained in those skills the better you can sing anything you wish to sing. The fat, heavy, unwieldy voices of singers like Varnay and Modl, whatever the virtues of those ladies as artists, do not resemble the limber, quick, flexible instruments of Leider, Gadski and Lilli Lehmann, who sang some of the same dramatic repertoire but also a great deal of lighter and even highly florid music. In their time the goal was not to become a fach such as "dramatic soprano" but a complete singer, capable of singing anything one's strength of voice would allow. "Limberness," or "flexibility," might be taken as a summary of the techniques that every voice must strive to master, to the extent that nature allows. Vocal training is the training of one's muscles to do one's bidding, and Callas's comparison of a singer to an athlete seems reasonable to me.

How does your concept of vocal technique and vocal training differ from this?


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

For me, Di Stefano's is unparalleled in terms of expression.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Are you sure you're understanding what Callas meant by her statement? Arguably no voice "wants" to move at all, and vocal training consists largely of training it to do so.


I would disagree with this, the same way that most children want to engage in some form of physical play (be it wrestling, sports, etc), even if it results in a healthy level of soreness afterword. if the voice never wanted to move, we would not feel compelled to sing in the first place, nor would we feel _good_ after a long performance.



> It's true that every voice will encounter an individual limit on what it can do. Birgit Nilsson was never going to be a Queen of the Night, even if she did entertain people with the arias at parties. But she did believe that singing Italian opera was good discipline for her voice, and that it was important to keep the voice "slender," by which I assume she meant something akin to what Callas was saying. Other singers say that it's important to practice your Handel and Mozart even if what you sing in public is Aida and Isolde.


it appears my qualm is a little more semantic. the word "slender" to me gives more of a sense of trying to cut back the size and cut off registration rather than letting the sound flow out naturally, thus impeding volume and weight



> There's been a general consensus that the size of a voice should not necessarily be an impediment to acquiring basic skills, and that the more thoroughly your voice is trained in those skills the better you can sing anything you wish to sing.


no argument there



> The fat, heavy, unwieldy voices of singers like Varnay and Modl, whatever the virtues of those ladies as artists, do not resemble the limber, quick, flexible instruments of Leider, Gadski and Lilli Lehmann, who sang some of the same dramatic repertoire but also a great deal of lighter and even highly florid music.


fair enough (in fact, Flagstad's recording of Inflammatus from Stabat Mater is among my favorites, and it is sung surprisingly _lyrically_, more like a full lyric soprano than a Wagnerian)



> In their time the goal was not to become a fach such as "dramatic soprano" but a complete singer, capable of singing anything one's strength of voice would allow. "Limberness," or "flexibility," might be taken as a summary of the techniques that every voice must strive to master, to the extent that nature allows.


I wasn't aware anyone even thought like this to begin with (which, now that it has been mentioned, was a little naive on my part). you don't _become_ a dramatic soprano (soubrette, lyric tenor, etc) you either _are_ a dramatic soprano or you aren't (this isn't directed at you, I'm preaching to the choir on that point)



> Vocal training is the training of one's muscles to do one's bidding, and Callas's comparison of a singer to an athlete seems reasonable to me.


I never disagreed with that part



> How does your concept of vocal technique and vocal training differ from this?


well, what little training I've had was a bit more, shall we say, "naturalist" (4 years of Speech Level Singing, which, while insufficient for teaching the nuances of operatic expression, did well for me). obviously, everyone need to learn to sing legato and staccato, coloratura, glottal attacks, etc. (along with a plethora or more advanced stylistic components), but the foundation, imo, is listening to the body. what sort of sensations happen when you are phonating comfortably? what sort of acoustical phenomena are occurring? etc. if the voice produces weightier sound on its own (_actual_ vocal weight, not the deliberate, ear splitting, forced vocal weight piled on by so many of today's "dramatic sopranos", which I assume was your point), it should not be forced into singing Zerlina, Papageno or Alfredo. if a role feels uncomfortable or unnatural....don't sing it. if you have to "lighten" the voice excessively to sing a certain role, don't sing it. 
my main beef with Callas was that she took way too many liberties playing around with different vocal weights which were, for such a dramatic instrument, unnatural and detrimental (well, that and singing so many Turandots in her 20s, which is about as save as a 16 year old girl deliberately running off with some 40 year old man because she "wants a challenge").

PS: on a similar note, people often comment that opera sounds "unnatural" to them. I have never understood this, because operatic singing has always sounded the _most_ natural to me since I started singing at 15.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I would disagree with this, the same way that most children want to engage in some form of physical play (be it wrestling, sports, etc), even if it results in a healthy level of soreness afterword. if the voice never wanted to move, we would not feel compelled to sing in the first place, nor would we feel _good_ after a long performance.
> 
> it appears my qualm is a little more semantic. the word "slender" to me gives more of a sense of trying to cut back the size and cut off registration rather than letting the sound flow out naturally, thus impeding volume and weight
> 
> ...


I really think your disagreement with Callas is more semantic than actual. The word "light" certainly accommodates a range of meaning. I hear her as saying, using her own case as an example, that if a voice is naturally "heavy" we don't want to simply indulge that tendency and slight the sort of training which will enable it to be used in a light and flexible way as music might require. I don't think she is saying that _everyone_ must be able to sing Gilda or Lucia, although I do think she's saying that the same skills should be practiced whether one does or not. We can forgive her for what might be a slight overestimation of the potential of other voices for singing the full range of musical styles, as she could herself and as her idol Ponselle could. (Whether Callas was wise to take on Isolde and Turandot in her twenties is debatable - I'd say probably not - but her ability to move immediately into _Puritani_ after _Wakure_ and succeed brilliantly in both is simply a matter of record. That is neither here nor there for the purpose of understanding her remarks on vocal training.)

I'm sure that Nilsson did not mean by "keeping the voice slender" any sort of inhibition of its natural flow or resonance. No such inhibition is audible in her own tone production. She was simply aware of the danger of letting the voice get overweighted in the middle as a result of overindulging in dramatic singing against Wagnerian orchestras. This is what happens too often to voices whose "natural" tendencies are overindulged. We don't want to sing roles which are awkward for our voices and cause strain, agreed, but I don't think either Callas or Nilsson is arguing that.


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

This is one of those things that I like about this forum. The thread started about your favorite Vesti la Giubba. Then there was discussion about different translations. Light and heavy voices. Bel canto, Callas and Nilsson. When you start a thread you can never know where it will go.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Sloe said:


> No I didn´t.
> And I will not say way I think bajazzo is a horrible name for me.


Why is it horrible? I think we should be told.  Pronounced the German way, it sounds tolerably like 'Pagliaccio', even though written down it looks a bit like the English neologism 'vajazzle'- let's hope regietheatre directors never make that mental connection.  In the standard English translation of the aria ('On with the motley') 'Pagliaccio' is translated as 'Punchinello'- I don't know enough about the _commedia dell'arte_ to know if that's a good translation or just a metrically convenient one. Here's an excellent 'On with the motley' by the great English tenor Richard Tauber (Germany's loss was our gain) from a film version of the opera which sadly had most of the music taken out, though most of Canio's music remains:


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> Why is it horrible? I think we should be told.  Pronounced the German way, it sounds tolerably like 'Pagliaccio', even though written down it looks a bit like the English neologism 'vajazzle'- let's hope regietheatre directors never make that mental connection.  In the standard English translation of the aria ('On with the motley') 'Pagliaccio' is translated as 'Punchinello'- I don't know enough about the _commedia dell'arte_ to know if that's a good translation or just a metrically convenient one. Here's an excellent 'On with the motley' by the great English tenor Richard Tauber (Germany's loss was our gain) from a film version of the opera which sadly had most of the music taken out, though most of Canio's music remains:


Is it enough if I say Mozart would probably have thought it would have been a fun title.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> Why is it horrible? I think we should be told.  Pronounced the German way, it sounds tolerably like 'Pagliaccio', even though written down it looks a bit like the English neologism 'vajazzle'- let's hope regietheatre directors never make that mental connection.  In the standard English translation of the aria ('On with the motley') 'Pagliaccio' is translated as 'Punchinello'- I don't know enough about the _commedia dell'arte_* to know if that's a good translation or just a metrically convenient one. *Here's an excellent 'On with the motley' by the great English tenor Richard Tauber (Germany's loss was our gain) from a film version of the opera which sadly had most of the music taken out, though most of Canio's music remains:


It's not very metrically convenient, is it, if 'Pagliaccio' is only three syllables (?) and 'Punchinello' is four.


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## HumphreyAppleby (Apr 11, 2013)

This is by far my favorite rendition:


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Absolutely this version


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Caruso > Bjorling >>>>>>>>>>>> Gigli > Corelli >>>>>>>>>> anyone else

Looks like there's youtube links for Caruso and Corelli in this thread, so here's Bjorling and Gigli:

Bjorling:





Gigli:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

For me, Caruso all the way. His laugh is perfect, the conviction and intensity in his voice brims with fire and vitality, each phrase is perfect and his voice is golden with overtones. At one time, I heard Caruso's rendition every day for year to start the day, and it turned out to be a pretty good year.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Why Lauritz Melchior, of course!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Melchior's is better in German than most others' in Italian. The same is true of his excerpts from Otello. It's a great pity he was confined to Wagner at the Met.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Like a number of others here, I vote for Caruso. His rendition was a true landmark in the history of recorded sound. In another forum, I listed what I thought were the top ten classical music recordings of all time from the point of view of the magnitude of the impact they had on our culture overall, not just on classical music and not even just on music. This was one, in fact the earliest one.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Carlo Bergonzi "Vesti la giubba" Pagliacci

For me this one, any day of the week. :tiphat:


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