"Above all,
a voice of thunder and lightning, fire and blood." - Herbert von
Karajan |
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FRANCO
CORELLI
1921 - 2003Combine matinee-idol, drop-dead gorgeous looks with a voice that will curl your
toes... well, it's no wonder Franco Corelli was the tenor sensation of the '50s and '60s.
Born in Ancona, Italy, Corelli made his debut in 1951 as
Don José, and rapidly set the opera world on fire, appearing in several world premieres
within his first three years as a professional singer. The public dubbed him "the
Sputnik tenor" for the speed of his ascent. During the second half of the 1950s
decade, he appeared all over Europe in the widest possible variety of roles. Several of
those performances are available
on film. His career was probably shorter than it needed to have been. Corelli was
neurotic, suffering from all kinds of performance-nerves, and it finally drove him off the
stage.
| In the early '50s, Corelli, well on the way to
becoming a legend himself, sang with legendary ladies: Maria Callas, first in 1953; Zinka
Milanov for his Covent Garden debut in 1957; and in 1961, Corelli and Leontyne Price both
made their debuts at the Met in Il Trovatore - the ovations at the end of the
performance carried on for nearly an hour. |
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| The '60s became (among other
things) the Corelli decade at the Met - Italian operas were staged specifically to
showcase his spinto voice. |
Franco Corelli sang the ultra-romantic roles
of the tenor repertoire, especially those by Puccini and Verdi. His Cavaradossi and Calaf
are probably at the top of the list (with Giordano's Andrea Chénier), but he was highly
acclaimed for Manrico, Radames, and Des Grieux. In other Italian and French roles, he was
best known as Turridu, Faust, Roméo, Werther, and Don José: "To succeed in Carmen,
he said, "you need temperament and the right
impulses." But don't forget the bel canto side of his voice - he
excelled in roles by Donizetti, Bellini, and Handel.
Clearly his voice was flexible enough to handle the
challenges of those different roles, but he had worked very hard on building up the top
notes, which were not at all natural for him. (As is true for most every tenor - it isn't
a "natural" voice.) Corelli himself said “The voice is a mystery. You
can form and mold it, but only up to a point.”
Corelli added another Verdi role - Macduff - to his
repertoire in the early 1970s as his onstage appearances were slowing down. And at the
Farewell Gala for Rudolf Bing's retirement, he and Teresa Zylis-Gara sang "Già
nella notte densa," the love duet from Otello, fueling wild speculation
about his taking on the role of the jealous Moor. Corelli too was contemplating the
idea... but it never happened.
Even without Otello, his repertoire was impressive. There
are quite a few recordings available, and some video as well. There are dozens of stories
in a variety of operatic biographies, too, notably clashes with the Rudolf Bing regime at
the Met (and what artist worth anything didn't clash with Bing?) Partnered as he
was with the finest sopranos of his day, the collaborations (or wars) with Birgit Nisson
are particularly memorable, as are his many performances, onstage and in the studio, with
Maria Callas.
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In ML Hart's new book, PASSION & GLORY
AT THE OPERA - The Tenor Book, there are stories of Franco Corelli as an artist, a
colleague, and as inspiration. The fine American tenor Neil Rosenshein says when he was
studying Roméo, a role that would become his favorite, he listened to the recording with
Alfredo Kraus for how to sing it correctly... but for the passion in the
role, he turned to the recording by Corelli. Decades
after his retirement, it's often Corelli's voice that is first associated with the word
"tenor." Intense, handsome, sometimes musically sloppy, thrilling... what a
tenor! |
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