Habemus Tenorem!

Friends,

Opera, for me, has been one of the most bittersweet areas of my life. Some of my happiest moments have been spent listening to Caruso, Gigli, and the great singers of the 1950s – the "Second Golden Age."

Some of my life's unhappiest moments have been spent listening to singers of today.

I won't bore you with a long diatribe on the descent of singing technique – I got that out of my system in The Twilight of Belcanto. And I simply became resigned that great singing was like an old black-and-white photo on the wall: something beautiful and grand that you can look at anytime you want, but no matter what you do, you cannot enter into that photo – or make the people in the photo come out.

You'll forgive me, then, if I'm reluctant to hear new tenors. I won't name names of the tenors whom everyone said was "the next great tenor." One had less technique than the other. All I need to say is: if Andrea Bocelli is engaged to sing opera, that fact in itself depicts the short supply of good tenors.

Tonight, January 2, 2010, I heard for the first time a young Polish tenor named Piotr Beczala. The aria was Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali from Lucia, a live recording from the October 15, 2008, Met broadcast, posted on YouTube. I have to say, I was reluctant to hear it – not only because people say he is "the next great tenor," but because that aria – like Celeste Aïda, like Dai campi, dai prati, is an aria that exposes any and all defects in technique.

Well, I listened.

I was not prepared for what I heard.

As much as I detest comparisons like, "the Russian Caruso," or, "the Norwegian Gigli," or, "the Zimbabwean Schipa," I have to say that the first few notes reminded me of – dare I say it? – Jussi Björling. Before that first phrase was over, before Beczala even got to l'ali, I already knew that I had stumbled upon a great tenor. I looked again at the YouTube description, to make sure it really was a live recording. Part of me couldn't believe it.

For the first time in my entire life, the way I felt listening to this man sing was the same way I feel listening to recordings of the great tenors of the past. When you hear Gedda in his prime, for instance, you feel yourself almost being caressed, not by the instrument itself – because lots of people walking the street were given beautiful instruments – but by the seamless technique that only years of serious study with a great teacher can produce. The same when you hear Gigli in his prime, or Jan Peerce in his prime, or Björling or any of those greats. Nothing Pavarotti or Domingo ever recorded gives me that feeling. A few recordings of Carreras do. (If you don't believe me, listen to his La dolcissima effigie from Tokyo, 1976.) Shicoff has done it (hear his Pourquoi me réveiller from Aix-de-Provence, 1979). But here's a young man, in the prime of life and of voice at this very moment, singing the way the gods did in the 1950s!

I had to hear something else, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. I went to Beczala.com and downloaded Che gelida manina. Now I could see him as well as hear him. (The Lucia was audio only, with a still photo.) Again, the first couple of phrases recalled Björling, while the face – the natural smile and radiance – reminded me of Wunderlich. The clarity of his tones, linked by a faultless legato, were remarkable, giving the eerie impression not only that does he not crack, but that he cannot crack.

So, so many tenors were great but for only a few seasons. (Di Stefano's prime was no more than eight seasons.) There is something in Beczala's singing that tells me he is going to last. How could anyone who went through the trouble of learning to sing that beautifully ever choose the other pathway? If he continues to resist the temptations of bigger sounds and heavier repertoire – and I believe he's going to – I think it's safe to say: We have found the tenor!

Habemus Tenorem!

Photo of Mr. Beczala © Kurt Pinter

Tenor Extremes

Connoisseurs like to name Caruso, Gigli, and Schipa as their three tenors. For me, I need to regress even further. Alessandro Bonci, Fernando De Lucia, and Giuseppe Anselmi are the three tenors who take me back to an era where the worst singers sang better than the best singers of today. If that sounds like an extreme statement, you've evidently never heard Anselmi's 1907 recording of Quando le sere al placido, or De Lucia's 1904 Ecco ridente in cielo. This singing isn't just "a little bit better" than the singing on today's stage. It's the difference between Coq au Vin and chicken nuggets.

Last week I happened to hear Anselmi sing Tosti's once-famous song Vorrei (a recording I'd forgotten I had). Perfect vowels, perfectly coordinated with long, effortless breaths -- this is singing of a world other than ours (a nicer one).

I was broken from this spell today by a friend who e-mailed me a YouTube clip of one Stephen Costello, singing Tombe agl'avi miei. I was curious about this tenor who, someone claimed, recalls the "Golden Age." To me, it recalled something from the Bronze Age. The notes above the passaggio were wide open and scooped up to in José-Cura-esque fashion. How do singers like this find their way onto major operatic stages? And the answer is: because there's no one else.

Teaching voice is like building a Neogothic cathedral. The technology is out there, somewhere. And there must be people out there, somewhere, who know that technology. But good luck finding them. Good luck finding someone who could do what the architects of Ste. Clotilde in Paris did in the 1850s. And good luck finding a voice teacher who teaches something that bears even a passing resemblance to voice technique. One more generation of this and the singing industry is going to be like the washboard manufacturing industry.

And yet people ask me, "Why don't you go to the Met?" Because the singing is so horrible that if the very best singer at the Met called you on the telephone, the feet of the birds perched on the telephone wires would itch.

Paderewski plays Chopin's Mazurkas

About a month ago I was talking to Dr. Joseph Maneri. We agreed that Chopin was one of the most original composers who ever lived.

Not that that is the only benchmark. Many Brahms pieces sound like Schumann, Schubert, or Beethoven. Bach and Handel imitated everyone. So that is not the only criterion.

However, it's remarkable how little of Chopin sounds like anybody else. A critic once wrote shallowly that the Chopin Nocturne was "a Bellini melody over a John Field bass." Chopin sounds nothing like Bellini or John Field. In fact, Chopin completed both sets of etudes and both concerti by age 20. No other composer, not even Mozart, wrote music that was as original, plentiful, and good by age 20.

But how does one play Chopin? What should his music sound like?

And what about those Mazurkas?

Chopin died in 1849. His last students were dead before pianists started making 78 records. In short, we have no aural evidence of anyone who ever heard Chopin play.

Ten or fifteen years ago, I was on a mission: to figure out how to play Chopin's divine Mazurkas. I bought every recording I could find made by a Polish pianist born before 1900.

I did conclude that only the Poles can play that rhythm. But even among them, there was much variety. Rosenthal's sharp rhythm was more Rosenthalian then Chopinesque. At the opposite end of the spectrum was Arthur Rubinstein, whose rhythm was watered down enough not to offend or confuse the non-Poles.

But then you have Paderewski ...

Pederewski was and is a difficult musician to adjudge. Today the most famous musicians are the ones with the most skillful and aggressive managers. 75 or 100 years ago, the most famous musicians were the greatest by the common consent of their colleagues. Singers agreed that Caruso and Gigli were the greatest. String players agreed that Kreisler and Heifetz were the greatest.

No one agreed about Paderewski.

His pianist-colleagues were unanimous: he stunk. The public was unanimous: he was the greatest pianist in the world. Never the twain did meet.

Was it "A" or "B"? The answer is: "Yes."

That he was the most famous no one questions. Liberace in his prime created nothing like the Paderewski frenzy. Women would rush the stage to touch Paderewski -- and not all of them were paid to do so. In the era between Franz Liszt and Elvis Presley, Paderewski was the world's most hysterically adulated musician (pace Caruso).

Nor does anyone question that Paderewski had his technical defects at the keyboard. He didn't start lessons till age 12. Only by age 24 did he find a great teacher, Leschetitzky. Paderewski tried to compensate by practicing like a fiend -- up to 17 (!) hours a day for certain events. Then one day (so the rumor goes), something in his hand "snapped" during a concert. (A tendon?) He finished the performance anyway. His playing was never the same since.

But forget all that. Forget the hysterical fans. Forget the faulty technique. Just LISTEN.

Listen to Paderewski play Chopin. Who else had that nobility? Or that melting lyricism? Or that golden tone that comes through even the crackly 78s? And who could imbue this music with more patriotism than the future Prime Minister of Poland?

Paderewski was accused of infidelity to the printed score. Yet his Chopin was more Chopinesque than Rosenthal's, Friedman's, Rubinstein's, or that of most any other Pole.

I am grateful that Paderewski recorded much Chopin, including the Mazurkas. His rendering of the Mazurkas in Ab and F# minor from Op. 59 will perhaps never be surpassed.