# Single Round Contes : Tenor: Strauss: An Italian Singer: Heppner, Carreras, Cole



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

For this isolated round I chose this beautiful Germanic/ Italianate blended aria from Der Rosenkavalier for the Italian Tenor. The reason I picked it is it allows me to showcase some tenors who are new to our contests. All of these tenors were audience favorites in Seattle, so I don't know how they fared elsewhere. Vinson Cole worked here so much he moved here. Carreras was treated at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Treatment Facility where I go everyday for my job. This is from much earlier in Carerras's career and he is the only one one who has been in these contests before. PS I seem to find inventive ways to misspell the titles which I can't change on these contests LOL


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## dave2708 (Sep 28, 2020)

Of the three I prefer Cole. Have never heard of him before. Sounds very much like a light Mozart Tenor.
Didn't care for Heppner. Lots of pushing. Everything seemed an effort.
Carreras was his usual awful self.:lol:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I agree that Heppner sounded too effortful, but Cole who has the right sort of voice for the piece, sounded a little strained to me.

I don't know quite what is supposed to be so awful about Carreras (see above), but his voice was still a thing of great beauty at this time and he delivers a superior rendering of the aria. I much prefer him to either of the other two.

Incidentally, Karajan's tempo for Vinson Cole is rather slow, which could accont for the strain it puts him under. Edo de Waart (I assume Carreras's version is from the complete recording conducted by him) takes it at a much better tempo.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Heppner's voice is too big for this aria, Cole's possibly too small and Carreras is... just right!

However, Cole is clearly enjoying the sound of his voice too much during his performance, which fits in exactly with the scene it comes from in the opera. I voted for Cole in the end. Interpretation trumped vocal prowess.

N.


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## dave2708 (Sep 28, 2020)

I can't get past Carreras' truly awful top notes.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

The Conte said:


> Heppner's voice is too big for this aria,


I'm a huge fan of Heppner's singing - I heard him several times on stage and in recital, and his was a voice that often recorded badly. But this isn't a good scene for him, lying as it does mostly in the passaggio, where Heppner's production sound rather squeezed.



> However, Cole is clearly enjoying the sound of his voice too much during his performance, which fits in exactly with the scene it comes from in the opera. I voted for Cole in the end. Interpretation trumped vocal prowess.


My impression was exactly the opposite. Cole sings very cleanly, but the aria is supposed to be a send-up of a stereotypical Italian tenor, and Carreras more overtly emotional singing suits the scene better. It's not Carreras best singing by any means; he could still sound better than this in 1976.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I was hoping this would spark a friendly debate. Cole was really good in French lyric tenor roles. Heppner was a wonderful Tristan in an age of few who could sing that part. He sounded worse after he lost weight.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I was hoping this would spark a friendly debate. Cole was really good in French lyric tenor roles. Heppner was a wonderful Tristan in an age of few who could sing that part. He sounded worse after he lost weight.


I really like Heppner, but he was very variable. He is out of sorts here and this isn't the right rep for him. He would have made a great Emperor in FROSCH back in the 90s.

Cole is totally new to me and I imagine he would be wonderful in the right rep (Mozart and French opera), but Carreras isn't chopped liver. In a different aria, Cole or Heppner might have won.

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

This was much too easy for me. When the simply hard-to-be-touched beauty of the tenor voice of Jose Carerras comes on the scene, better watch out. There are only a small handful who can also claim the award and they are not among the above list.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

The Conte said:


> I really like Heppner, but he was very variable. He is out of sorts here and this isn't the right rep for him. He would have made a great Emperor in FROSCH back in the 90s.


I'm not sure if Heppner ever sang the role on stage, but he did record it with Sinopoli for Teldec, and the Falcon Scene is included on the same Strauss CD as this Rosenkavalier aria. He's certainly better than the two tenors on the Solti and Sawallisch recordings, but I don't think that he's quite on the same level as James King or Hans Hopf; compared to those two, Heppner sounds like he's working a little too hard.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Cole is recorded more distantly than the others, to his advantage - if there's strain it's less noticeable - and he and Karajan have decided on a more arty approach to shaping the aria, with a slower tempo and more dynamic variation. It's pleasantly refined but it sounds calculated rather than fervent or spontaneous, i.e., Italian. Of the others, Heppner is clearly taxed and less idiomatic than Carreras, the only one of the three who sounds completely at home in the idiom (or pseudo-idiom) and the character. I can believe that he's an Italian singer.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

It's interesting how we hear things differently. I wouldn't have picked Hepner for this aria, it just sounds "wrong."

Carreras doesn't sound awful, his voice is in decent shape, but somehow it just didn't get me.

Vinson Cole did; I hadn't heard this recording before, but I don't hear the strain in his voice at all - he's got a beautiful sound; I heard him in San Francisco in Dvorak's *Stabat Mater* with Leona Mitchell, as beautiful a combination of voices as I'd had ever heard, in a gorgeous work. He was just as beautiful in Berlioz *Grande Messe des Morts* in Paris in the '90s. He gets my vote.
Recordings don't do justice to the sweetness in his sound.

However, my benchmark for this aria is Pavarotti in the Decca recording with Crespin as the Marschallin.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

MAS said:


> Vinson Cole did; I hadn't heard this recording before, but I don't hear the strain in his voice at all - he's got a beautiful sound; I heard him in San Francisco in Dvorak's *Stabat Mater* with Leona Mitchell, as beautiful a combination of voices as I'd had ever heard, in a gorgeous work. He was just as beautiful in Berlioz *Grande Messe des Morts* in Paris in the '90s. He gets my vote.


I'm sure that if we had a contest between these three singers in the Dvorak and Faure, Cole would win in a landslide. But the Italian Singer is a very different kettle of fish.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> It's interesting how we hear things differently. I wouldn't have picked Hepner for this aria, it just sounds "wrong."
> 
> Carreras doesn't sound awful, his voice is in decent shape, but somehow it just didn't get me.
> 
> ...


Glad to hear you liked Cole. I thought he had such a resonant, gorgeous sound. I remembered it as more beautiful than this recording.


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