# Roland Panerai RIP



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Death has been announced of the great baritone Rolando Panerai

https://slippedisc.com/2019/10/death-of-legendary-italian-baritone-95/

The greatest Ford on disc and no mean Falstaff either. What a singer!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

One of the most consistently enjoyable baritones of his time, I think. His slender, well-focused voice had the quick vibrato we associate with "golden age" singers, and I'm always pleased to find him on any recording, of which he made many. Did he ever sing in America?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> One of the most consistently enjoyable baritones of his time, I think. His slender, well-focused voice had the quick vibrato we associate with "golden age" singers, and I'm always pleased to find him on any recording, of which he made many. Did he ever sing in America?


His Wikipedia page makes no mention of America, so maybe not. He did make a lot of recordings, many of them with Callas, and he recorded Ford three times, with Gobbi, Fischer-Dieskau and Taddei.

One of my favourite post war baritones.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> One of the most consistently enjoyable baritones of his time, I think. His slender, well-focused voice had the quick vibrato we associate with "golden age" singers, and I'm always pleased to find him on any recording, of which he made many. Did he ever sing in America?


He was a lovely artist. When I heard he turned 95 recently, I was thinking how in 2019 he was a link to the past and had even sung with Lauri-Volpi (b.1892) and Pagliughi (b.1907), been conducted by Serafin (b.1878) and Gui (b. 1885) etc.

I've read that he "made his American debut with the San Francisco Opera, singing Marcello / La Bohème and the Figaros of both Mozart and Rossini" in 1958

and "He sang the title role in Gianni Schicchi […] in Chicago in 1996"

Source: http://www.bruceduffie.com/panerai.html

Nothing showing for the Met.
Source: http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm

I've also read that he sang Figaro in Nozze di Figaro in New York in 1968 with Giulini conducting and Gobbi as the Count as part of a Rome Opera production. Not sure where - maybe Carnegie Hall?
Source - Billboard - 6 Jul 1968
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...e&q=gobbi panerai giulini figaro 1968&f=false

The record exists at Omega Opera Archive:
6/28/1968 Gobbi,Ligabue,Sciutti,Panerai-Giulini
Source: http://omegaoperasite.net/


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

Sad news. A wonderful singer and like Woodduck wrote always happy to find him on any recording. Not many of the Callas era left anymore.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> His Wikipedia page makes no mention of America, so maybe not. He did make a lot of recordings, many of them with Callas, and he recorded Ford three times, with Gobbi, Fischer-Dieskau and Taddei.
> 
> One of my favourite post war baritones.


Note that he also recorded Falstaff quite late in his career with Davis and the voice is still in remarkable condition . He was a farmer away from opera . As a rising young singer he sang the peasant Masetto for Karajan which was like coals to Newcastle for him. Karajan remarked: "Drove the tractors. Everything! I think he is one of the most balanced human beings I have ever met ." Opera reviewed Panerai's performance as: " an absolute masterpiece of carefully thought out humour which evidence to self every time he appeared on stage ."


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> The greatest Ford on disc


"Paging Mr. Tibbett..."

That little tweak aside, Panerai was a superb baritone, one of the rare singers as comfortable in Mozart as he was in Verdi and verismo.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I looked through my collection and found I had the following recordings with him

*Parsifal* - Amfortas - Live 1950, Gui
*I Puritani* - Riccardo - Studio 1953, Serafin
*Cavalleria Rusticana* - Alfio - Studio 1953, Serafin
*Alceste* - Apollo - Live 1954, Giulini
*Pagliacci* - Silvio - Studio, 1954, Serafin
*Lucia di Lammermoor* - Enrico - Live 1955 - Karajan
*Il Trovatore* - Di Luna - Studio, 1956 - Karajan
*La Bohème* - Marcello - Studio, 1956 - Votto
*Falstaff* - Ford - Studio, 1957 - Karajan

But he continued performing and recording for quite some time after this. I suddenly realise I don't know any of his work after 1957. His voice had a very distinctive timbre. Did it change over the years?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Tsaraslondon said:


> *Parsifal* - Amfortas - Live 1951, Gui


Thanks - I'd forgotten that he's on that famous Callas Parsifal. One of the greatest "wrong language" performances.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Tsaraslondon said:


> But he continued performing and recording for quite some time after this. I suddenly realise I don't know any of his work after 1957. His voice had a very distinctive timbre. Did it change over the years?


The timbre didn't change at all. Here's a video him in Gianni Schicchi; even his speaking voice is instantly recognizable.

[video]http://www.operaonvideo.com/gianni-schicchi-florence-1983-panerai-tajo-gasdia-cupido/[/video]


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

wkasimer said:


> Thanks - I'd forgotten that he's on that famous Callas Parsifal. One of the greatest "wrong language" performances.


Funny (or maybe not) how we refer to it as the Callas Parsifal. I don't know any other recording of the opera that is referred to by the name of its Kundry.

It also has Boris Christoff as Gurnemanz, and Lina Pagliughi as one of the Flowermaidens, probably the only time two famous Lucias appear in an opera by Wagner!


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I looked through my collection and found I had the following recordings with him
> 
> *Parsifal* - Amfortas - Live 1950, Gui
> *I Puritani* - Riccardo - Studio 1953, Serafin
> ...


He made some excellent records subsequently in the 60s like Sharpless in Butterfly with Scotto/Bergonzi/Barbirolli and repeated his Silvio, this time with Karajan and sounding as good as he did ten years earlier with Serafin. He was also a fine Marcello with Karajan in 1972.

His voice did not thin out noticeably or turn wobbly which says something for his technique.

For me, there were times in his later recordings (I first noticed signs in the Ceccato Traviata) where I thought his singing was not so much forthright but perhaps curt for want of a better word. I wondered if he could sing more quietly, was it perhaps hectoring rather than powerful? etc

As such, I'd choose to sample his later records on a case by case basis: as you've noted, he made so many excellent records when he was young this is not such a great hardship


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Revitalized Classics said:


> He made some excellent records subsequently in the 60s like Sharpless in Butterfly with Scotto/Bergonzi/Barbirolli


Oh, of course I have that Butterfly too. I'd forgotten he was the Sharpless on it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> *"Paging Mr. Tibbett..."*
> 
> That little tweak aside, Panerai was a superb baritone, one of the rare singers as comfortable in Mozart as he was in Verdi and verismo.


Tibbett was a noted Ford but did he record the part?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Tibbett was a noted Ford but did he record the part?







Tibbett created a sensation at the Met in 1925 in role. Until that performance, he was virtually unknown, but his Ford completely overshadowed the Falstaff, the veteran Antonio Scotti. IIRC, Scotti didn't like being vocally upstaged, and refused to share the stage with Tibbett again.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> Tibbett created a sensation at the Met in 1925 in role. Until that performance, he was virtually unknown, but his Ford completely overshadowed the Falstaff, the veteran Antonio Scotti. IIRC, Scotti didn't like being vocally upstaged, and refused to share the stage with Tibbett again.


Scotti was nearing 60 then. He'd had a fine career, so he must have been an awfully insecure fellow to be envious of a young singer like Tibbett.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

A project I've been working on is remastering Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor from Berlin in 1955.

This is a sample to let you hear Rolando Panerai's dramatic performance from Act One Scene One: I wanted to celebrate him somehow, since I've been thinking on how much he contributed to a lot of recordings that I admire.





Tu sei turbato! (Starts 00:00)
Cruda, funesta smania (Starts 02:54)
La pietade in suo favore (Starts 07:29)

Gaetano Donizetti
Lucia di Lammermoor

Rolando Panerai as Enrico

Mario Carlin as Normanno
Nicola Zaccaria as Raimondo
The Chorus of Teatro alla Scala
The RIAS Sinfonie Orchester Berlin
Herbert von Karajan conducts
Berlin, 29 September 1955
Stereo


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

A very long life and career, I remember him being Germont in that "original locations" Traviata, already well into his 70s back then. He was also on the first Trovatore recording I ever acquired, so I have fond memories. A beautiful voice.

Edit: listened to that Lucia video and that unscripted high note? Wow. Never heard it before.


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