Conversations With Corelli (5-12-1990)
From: $6.95
“Opera Fanatic,” May 12, 1990
Franco Corelli, guest
Stefan Zucker, host
Total time: 3 hours, 4 minutes
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#M43
Downloadable .M4A or .MP3 files. Total size: approx. 345 MB.
or Webcast: $6.95
1. Corelli a no-show?
2. Poliuto, Maria Callas, Ettore Bastianini
3. Gino Penno
4. Giangiacomo Guelfi, Robert Merrill, Leonard Warren, Gino Bechi
5. Caterina Mancini and Maria Caniglia
6. Luigi Infantino
7. How Anita Cerquetti lost her voice (As will be seen in a newsletter
in some months, she disputes the claim that she lost her voice; see also #700,
Opera Fanatic: Stefan and the Divas)
8. Tenors who darken their voices
9. Birgit Nilsson
10. Franco Bonisolli
11. What Corelli sacrificed
12. Neil Shicoff (Corelli counterattacks him)
13. The Met’s performance practices versus Italian tradition
14. The C in “Salut! demeure” vs. the Cs in “Di quella pira”
15. The vocal characteristics of Don José and Manrico
16. Shicoff is darkening his voice
17. Corelli’s interpolation of a high D-flat into each of 80 performances of Trovatore
and why he now thinks that, from a vocal point of view, it was a mistake
18. Why he transposed the “Pira”
19.Voice teachers Douglas Stanley and Thomas LoMonaco
20. Corelli sings a commercial
21. The risks of Corelli’s own vocal technique, involving lowering the larynx
22. Giacomo Lauri Volpi and his “unstable first octave” and pitch problems
23. Corelli is against mask placement
24. Del Monaco’s squillo despite his darkened center
25. What Corelli liked about Del Monaco’s singing
26. The location of Corelli’s own passaggio
27. What Corelli didn’t like about Del Monaco’s singing
28. Muscularity in singing leads to problems with sweet passages and diminuendos
29. The laryngeal method produces singers who have difficulty singing mezza voce
30. Kurt Baum’s use of the laryngeal method on high notes only
31. Were Corelli and Del Monaco friendly?
32. What Corelli liked and didn’t like in Giuseppe Di Stefano’s singing
33. Why Di Stefano’s voice declined
34. Ferruccio Tagliavini
35. All singers want to have big voices
36. Caruso and vocal volume
37. Alfredo Kraus, and why Corelli, having studied the same vocal technique,
abandoned it
38. Plácido Domingo’s development
39. José Carreras
40. Ring vs resonance
41. Giacomo Aragall
42. Miguel Fleta’s “abuse of mezza voce”
43. Losing your voice in bed
44. Francesco Merli and sex
45. The lowered-larynx technique is limiting
46. How Pavarotti is changing his sound
47. Beniamino Gigli
48. Some differences between publics
49. Aureliano Pertile
50. You can’t really divorce what a singer sounds like from the space in
which you hear him
51. Corelli’s preference for the Rome Opera acoustic and his preference for the Scala
acoustic over that of the San Carlo or of Palermo
52. The lowered-larynx technique vs. legato
53. The way Del Monaco conceived of his voice
54. Luciano Pavarotti’s rounding of his first octave
55. Gigli’s lack of squillo
56. Enrico Caruso
57. Breath control
58. The booing of Chris Merritt and Cheryl Studer at La Scala (with recorded examples). Was it justified?
59. From Tancredi: “Oddio! – Crudel!….Sì, virtù trionfi omai:….Perdonate questo pianto”
60. From I vespri siciliani: “Mercé, dilette amiche….La brezza aleggia intorno….Tu m’ami!”
61. Corelli tends to feel the booing was justified
62. Cheryl Studer
63. Does Chris Merritt have temperament?
64. What Corelli would change if he could re-do his career
65. Lawrence Tibbett’s unsuccessful comeback; Corelli’s own fears about making one
66. Gianni Raimondi and Mario Filippeschi
67. Jussi Björling
68. Leonard Warren
69. Jon Vickers, Richard Tucker, James McCracken and Ferruccio Tagliavini
70. Singers come in two varieties
71. When Corelli first heard himself on records
72. Douglas Stanley and the LoMonaco brothers
73. Tito Schipa
74. Are there any more great tenors?
75. The Einstein of tenors
76. Corelli’s breathing technique
77. Del Monaco is the greatest Otello; his scatto
This program will be a bonus on a DVD of Corelli in Tosca (#D540), forthcoming.
Please note: These interview video cassettes have an audio track only, no picture of any kind. You can hear us speak and sing, but you don’t see us.
CZ3V May 12, 1990 (5 hrs.) 2 video cassettes. NTSC or PAL VHS. This tape has a few moments of crackle owing to poor FM reception.
This title does not count as a free selection in the 6-for-5 offer. However, it does count as 1 paid tape toward the 5 paid tapes, DVDs or CDs in the offer.
A broad range of subjects is discussed: Callas; Bastianini; Penno; Guelfi; Mancini; Caniglia; Infantino; how Cerquetti lost her voice; Nilsson; Shicoff (he counterattacks him); the Met’s performance practices versus Italian tradition; tenors who darken their voices; the vocal characteristics of Don José and Manrico; his interpolation of a high D-flat into each of 80 performances of Trovatore and why he now thinks that, from a vocal point of view, it was a mistake; why he transposed “Di quella pira”; voice teachers Douglas Stanley and Thomas Lo Monaco; the risks of Corelli’s own vocal technique, involving lowering the larynx; breathing technique; Lauri Volpi and his “unstable first octave” and pitch problems; the location of his own passaggio.
Del Monaco based his singing on the heroic rather than the romantic; what he liked and what he didn’t like about Del Monaco’s singing; Del Monaco’s Otello; muscularity in singing leads to problems with sweet passages and diminuendos; the laryngeal method produces singers who have difficulty singing mezza voce; Baum’s use of the laryngeal method on high notes only; what he, Corelli, liked and didn’t like in Di Stefano’s singing and a particularly interesting discussion of why his voice declined; Tagliavini; Kraus, and why Corelli, having studied the same vocal technique, abandoned it; Domingo’s development; Ruffo; Carreras; ring versus resonance; Aragall; Fleta’s “abuse of mezza voce”; losing your voice in bed; Merli and sex; Gigli; Pertile; you can’t really divorce what a singer sounds like from the space in which you hear him–his preference for the Rome Opera acoustic and his preference for the Scala acoustic over that of the San Carlo or of Palermo; “voices can expand in particular spaces”; how Pavarotti is changing his sound; Caruso.
The booing of Chris Merritt and Studer at La Scala (with recorded examples), was it justified? he tends to feel that it was; what he would do differently if he had it to do all over again (“sing with less force and with more variety of dynamics and more passion, with more heart–like Gigli”); Tibbett’s unsuccessful comeback; his own fears about making one; Filippeschi; G. Raimondi; Schipa.
Recorded examples include Corelli in arias from Chénier and Norma.
Press coverage of Corelli’s appearances on “Opera Fanatic.”
About the guests on “Opera Fanatic.”
