About Us

“Other companies that used to put out similar material have stopped simply because there’s not enough money in it. We’re a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation and we’re content to survive to enable us to put out more titles and do some concerts. I cherish much of this material and go to great lengths to find it, restore it and present it. Putting out rare treasures has become something of a mission.” —Stefan Zucker

Click for full article, “Screen Gems,” by Richard Fawkes, from Opera Now

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Bel Canto Society Celebrates 36 Years of Opera Fanaticism

On November 3, 1968 Bel Canto Society made its debut: a staged Puritani with orchestra, at Spencer Memorial Church in Brooklyn. Since then we have presented 10 operas—including the world premiere of Bellini’s fourth version of his Adelson e Salvini at The Town Hall in New York—and dozens of concerts in Europe and the U.S. We have hosted interviews and master classes with Franco Corelli and have screened films. Besides The Town Hall, the majority of our events have taken place in Gould, Kaye and Merkin concert halls in New York and at Columbia and New York Universities.

From 1982-94 BCS produced “Opera Fanatic” on Columbia University’s WKCR-FM. We publish Opera Fanatic magazine (when we have the money) and have made editions of Bellini’s Adelson e Salvini and Bianca e Fernando as well as works by the tenor Rubini and other 19th-century composers. We also have translated libretti and issued “Stefan Zucker: The World’s Highest Tenor,” “Rossini’s Rivals: Music by Then-Famous, Now-Obscure, Italian Composers” and other LPs.

BCS has issued more than 800 titles on videotape. Those currently available are listed in our store or catalog. The Web site has reviews, essays and photos that are not in the catalog.—Stefan Zucker

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Bel Canto Society DVDs, from The Wall Street Journal

“With enormous delight, I’ve been watching a very old opera video. My excuse—as if I needed one—was that the video was recently released on DVD, by the invaluable Bel Canto Society . . . . [these] DVDs have a sonic and visual clarity we don’t always see in transfers from old material.”—Greg Sandow

“Beyond High C, High Technology,” from The New York Times

“If you don’t get the speed right, not only is the sound off pitch but it is also off in timbre, or sonority.”—Stefan Zucker, quoted by William G. Honan in his article about Zucker, Bel Canto Society, and the pains taken in producing superior CDs and videos of vintage material.

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Performances

Bel Canto Society produces performances and recordings. Since 1968 we have presented ten operas—including the world premiere of Bellini’s fourth version of his Adelson e Salvini at Town Hall—and dozens of concerts in Europe and the U.S., including six at Merkin Concert Hall. There we also presented an interview with Franco Corelli, in June 1991. At Gould Hall we screened films, and we hosted interviews and master classes with Corelli there and at the Kaye Playhouse. We have made editions of Bellini’s Adelson e Salvini and Bianca e Fernando, as well as works by Rubini and other 19th Century composers, translated libretti, screened other films and issued “Stefan Zucker: the World’s Highest Tenor,” “Rossini’s Rivals: Music by Then-Famous, Now-Obscure, Italian Composers” and other LPs.—SZ

Publications

Opera Fanatic Magazine

“Do the stories we can’t,” Bob Jacobson, the late editor of Opera News, exhorted me, prior to publication of the first issue of Opera Fanatic, "Every other music publication is in thrall to the establishment.”

I took his advice and tackled such taboo topics as, to cite only three examples, the involvement of Pavarotti, Domingo, Tebaldi and 40 other celebrity singers with Lyndon LaRouche, the Met’s secret miking of performances and the Met’s “approval rating” (more than two thirds of those responding on balance disapproved, citing casting, conducting, productions, repertory and more).

Opera Fanatic is also a forum for debate and multifarious views—the magazine’s most unusual feature is record reviews by the listening public, with each album receiving as many as 60 no-holds-barred critiques.

Opera Fanatic is published at substantial financial loss. Fourteen American music magazines recently have gone under: Musical America, Diva, Music Journal, Keynote, Opera Digest, Opera Guide, Opera Monthly, The New Records, Opus (not the renamed Schwann), Ovation, High Fidelity, Classical, Sonorities and Spotlight (the magazine of the New York City Opera).

We too would go belly up but instead are asking our subscribers to be patient. We have entered into the computer most of the words for the next issue and will publish it when we’ve made enough money from selling products or received more contributions. This is how we were able to publish the last issue.—SZ

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“The Bel Canto Society has done valuable service in preserving and circulating videos of films featuring great singers of the past.” —Richard Dyer, Boston Globe

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Joseph McLellan, writing in The Washington Post

“Bel Canto Society, an organization of and for hard-core opera lovers, has discovered a happy hunting ground for its archaeology: old movies that feature opera singers, and particularly old movie versions of operas.

“I have viewed more than a dozen Bel Canto Society tapes and find that they have two things in common.

First, all have some special quality to recommend them—they are chosen with a connoisseur’s knowledge and taste, and will be appreciated by other connoisseurs. Second, the average music-lover, to enjoy them, must be willing to make allowances. Compared with the all-digital, six-camera opera videos now being produced, these tapes are decidedly low-tech, [many are] in black-and-white, most of them lack subtitles, and they frequently involve singers who had little idea how to play to the cameras.

“The Traviata (a 1954 film for Italian television) and Pagliacci (a 1951 movie with Gina Lollobrigida miming the recorded voice of Onelia Fineschi) lack the razzle-dazzle impact of Franco Zeffirelli’s later big-screen spectaculars. But other values, emotional and vocal, are richly served—by Tito Gobbi as Silvio and Tonio in Pagliacci, and by Rosanna Carteri, Nicola Filacuridi and Carlo Tagliabue in Traviata.

“One more general remark: The blurbs on the packages are remarkably honest about the weaknesses as well as the strengths of these tapes.”