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Times Online, January 16, 2005 |
Hugh Canning |
They could be contenders
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Who will eventually replace Pavarotti,
Domingo and Carreras? Hugh Canning on the rising — and fading — stars |
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It is now almost 15 years since the Three Tenors
phenomenon hit the headlines and first topped the record charts. It began
with the live open-air arena appearance of Luciano Pavarotti, Placido
Domingo and José Carreras, at the Roman baths of Caracalla, near Rome, to
co- incide with the 1990 World Cup. Overnight, the astonishing success of
the live television broadcast, and unprecedented sales (for classical
singers) of compact discs, turned these three already famous opera stars
into household names. Pavarotti and his record company, Decca, made millions
in royalties. None of the repeat concerts and their offshoots ever quite
matched the money-making bonanza of the original item but, ever since, the
search has been on for the successors to the tenorial triple crown.
A week tomorrow, a likely candidate for tenor superstardom, the 27-year-old
Maltese Joseph Calleja, returns to Covent Garden as the lovelorn Alfredo
Germont in Verdi’s La traviata. Calleja is the Benjamin of a youthful trio
of tenor totty — the others are the Mexican Rolando Villazon, 32, and the
German Jonas Kaufmann, 35 — who seem predestined to shine in the age of DVD
opera recordings. All are young, good-looking and more than presentable
actors, with voices of distinctive, lyrical timbres.
It would, of course, be wrong to predict that these singers will “replace”
Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras in the affections of the wider popera public
— for a start, they are achieving international prominence at an age when
their seniors regarded themselves as apprentices — but they all have
heart-throb potential for an audience younger than the ageing matrons
(“Domingo Crazies”) and Italian-mamma types who formed the hard core of the
Three Tenors’ fan base. Sorry, ladies, they are all married with one child.
Inevitably, there is a downside to fast-tracked singing careers. Voices are
not machines, or even as robust as musical instruments. I’ve lost count of
the number of young wannabes promoted as the so-called Fourth Tenor, but
already, with the hindsight of a decade and a half, it is clear that few
singers have emerged with the charisma, musicianship, technique or sheer
staying power to match Pavarotti and Domingo in their prime — or the young
Carreras.
Several have established considerable careers in the opera house, where the
older tenors spent the best part of 30 years prior to their Roman
intergalactic launch and continue to do so. The Franco-Sicilian Roberto
Alagna was the first contender for the crown, especially when he teamed up,
in real life and on record, with the glamorous Romanian soprano, Angela
Gheorghiu. Although he has a loyal fan base, Alagna’s push into more
dramatic roles has robbed his lightish voice of its early bloom.
For a time, his nearest rival was the hunky, machismo-oozing Argentinian
José Cura, who, 10 years ago, displayed the potential to fill Domingo’s
shoes; however, his recent appearances at the ROH and with the LSO, as
Otello and Samson, were tragic to witness. Neither Cura nor Alagna is
appearing with the Royal Opera this season.
Among the younger tenors who are, both the Peruvian Juan Diego Florez and
Cura’s countryman Marcelo Alvarez are already well into their flourishing
careers.
Florez has been marketed by Decca as the tenor equivalent of the same
company’s flamboyant Italian mezzo, Cecilia Bartoli (classical music’s best
seller after Pavarotti), but his delicate tenore di grazia has always been a
specialist voice, and he is unlikely to pitch himself at the Nessun dorma
market. Alvarez is a good singer but, as his recent Royal Opera Werther
betrayed, lacks something extra in the acting and charisma departments.
Of the Three Tenorinos — as we might call them while the ori-ginal trio can
still sing — Calleja is perhaps the dodgiest bet. I first encountered him at
the Wexford Festival in 1999, in a tiny role in I Cavalieri di Ekebu (The
Knights of Ekebu) by Riccardo Zandonai, a bit of an also-ran contemporary of
Puccini. Even in a supporting part, Calleja garnered glowing notices, and
they were even better when he re-turned to the tiny Irish theatre to sing
the tenor lead in Adolphe Adam’s Si j’étais roi (If Only I Were King).
Subsequently, apart from landing a record contract with Decca (who picture
him as a chunky mafioso bodyguard type, with shaved head and “cool” shades,
on his debut album, Tenor Arias), he has sung the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s
Rigoletto — one of Pavarotti’s early sensations — for Welsh National and the
Royal Opera (2002) and Alfredo, two years ago, at Covent Garden. In
Cardiff’s 1,000-seat New Theatre, his Duke recalled the bel canto lyric
tenors of the early recording era, with its quick vibrato, elegance and
agility, but his RO Alfredo was underpowered. Ears will surely be pricked to
see if this appealing young voice has developed since last time round. He
gives a song recital at St John’s, Smith Square, on February 16 and has been
signed up to play Macduff in Verdi’s Macbeth at Covent Garden.
Kaufmann made his London operatic debut last November, surprisingly, for
a German tenor, in a revival of Puccini’s La rondine opposite Gheorghiu. He
has been a fixture, in concerts and recitals, at the Edinburgh Festival,
where I have heard him give wonderfully mature and beautifully sung accounts
of Schumann’s Dichterliebe (Poet’s Love) and Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin
(The Beautiful Mill-Girl). He has a romantic stage presence, hardly looking
German at all with his black, tousled locks and Mediterranean features and
complexion. I caught him in Berlioz’s Damnation de Faust in Brussels and as
Belmonte in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio at the Salzburg Festival,
both performances suggesting immense promise. I only attended the dress
rehearsal of La rondine, but the reviews suggested that he held his own
against Gheorghiu and looked the lovesick toy boy to perfection. Kaufmann
doesn ’t have a record contract, but he can be seen and heard on DVDs of
Paisiello’s Nina and Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses from the Zurich
Opera. With the same company, he appears at the Royal Festival Hall twice
this season as two troubled Roman emperors, Nero and Titus, in concert
performances of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (March 3) and
Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito (May 1).
The tenor with the greatest potential to match and perhaps rival the Big
Three, is, I think, Villazon. His debut at Covent Garden, exactly a year
ago, was one of the most exciting I have witnessed in more than 30 years of
attending the theatre. The audience roared their approval on the first night
— Villazon jumped up and down like a delighted child winning the sack race —
and the critics were close to unanimity in their acclaim for his vocal and
physical performance. One distinguished reviewer called him “a shining new
star” whose “voice has a baritonal timbre and firm heroic ring — at times
(sounding) like ... Domingo.”
Villazon’s Domingo-like timbre was apparent as the Steersman in Daniel
Barenboim’s recording of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, but in the flesh, the
voice has nothing like the volume of the Spaniard’s. That was confirmed when
Villazon sang a slightly overstretched Don Carlo — one of Domingo’s great
Verdi parts — in Amsterdam last June, and it’s slightly worrying to read
that he has already taken Don José, in Bizet’s Carmen, into his repertoire,
an unquestion-ably dramatic and emotionally exhausting role. In Barcelona’s
Gran Liceu and London’s Royal Opera House, he is tackling lighter weights
this year: Donizetti’s Nemorino and Verdi’s Duke of Mantua. His new album,
just out on Virgin, concentrates on the lyric French heroes of Massenet and
Gounod, particularly the latter’s Romeo and Faust, which he is singing in
many different places this year. If he sticks to this kind of repertoire,
Villazon should be around for a long time to come. Fingers crossed. |
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