Falling out of Love

When I was a teenager, the talk of the town, at least in the opera house in Philadelphia, was the tenor Franco Corelli. Franco charmed the women with his dashing good looks and great legs; and impressed almost everyone with his beautiful voice and thrilling high notes. Of course, since his manager was the impresario and wrestling promoter Ray Fabiani, he sang frequently in Philadelphia. I heard Corelli several times in my youth and was certainly primed to like him and like him I did in both La Boheme and with the Met in Turandot, but something has changed over the years: I've fallen out of love with Mr. Corelli's Art. I think the final straw was the re-release of a Met Tosca on Sony with Leontyne Price. Diction is usually indistinct, (and he's Italian) and notes incessantly slid into one another, plus everything is sung forte. In short, everything seemed to be done in the service and comfort of his voice, not in the service of the composer or the role he is playing. I also found his acting rather stiff and he seemed to be thinking "When is my next high note". The Opera Co. of Philadelphia is staging Carmen now so I listened to the Van Karajan recording with Franco and heard that the usual problems were all in place, and his French was-"Mon Deiu". I also listened to a Met broadcast from the 50's with Mario Del Monaco conducted by Dimitri Metropoulos. Del Monaco and Corelli's voices were similar, they were both Spinto or Dramatic tenors but Del Monaco's singing in this performance was more musical and accurate. Yes, he could be be very loud but in this recording he was engaging and dramatic. But of course his legs weren't as nice.