I want to find a ''DVD'' of ''Serenade''!! Is it available anywhere? Why don't they make them?

Yep, I agree. Lanza's "exhaust notes are always Ferrari sounding..."? Well, I can't say I ever heard it described quite like that before but it is as good a description as any!

I would imagine, in the current climate, that architects are given a ' lego ' set, when they first attend university, such is the nature of constructing buildings today. So with singers. Who wants to spend several years studying the art of opera, with very little financial opportunities, and possible failure at the end ? Better to play safe and be managed by the ' new model ' agents, who can market people with little or even no talent on the 'pop conveyor belt', get in quick, make a few million, and get out quicker before anyone notices. The elitism of opera has now shifted somewhat, where at the turn of the century it was a 'philip' to be seen at the opera and to exchange notice of the various scandals of the day. Now, it is more showing off as to who can afford the best seats ! lj.

Oh dear ! I KNEW this would start to get complicated ! Let us take Lanza as the model. His speaking voice is very easy on the ear and incorporates ( dare I say ), a sexual quality about it. It is also very gentle and is the opposite of stentorian,To which one could associate with a singer ' belting out ' a song. This is Lanza in 'cruise ' mode, where romantic ballads are best interpreted. Shift up a gear and Lanzas resonance, terrific lung capacity comes into the fore, where notes of depth and subdued power can seemingly be effortlessly produced. Then we find there is yet another gear which I can best describe as ' sports mode ', this is where the voice ' takes off ', with a wonderful blend of chest and head sound, The exhaust notes are always Farrari sounding, always sexy, always a delight to the ear. There are great tenors that have some of these qualities, but none that have all. ( Sorry David, not even Fritz Wunderlich ) lj.

Another take on this pop vs classical singing from a recent post at one of my opera forums. The poster addresses the question of why there are not the numbers of truly great opera singers today that there were even just 50 years ago:

"On the one hand you get more and more demand and so product (this
means singers) get churned out with less and less attention to
quality. You begin to 'mass produce' singers, the same way that you
take a visual or plastic art or craft, find a demand for it, and then
find your self making version 3, 4, or 5 on the assembly line. "It"
looks like version 1, the original, but it's not and the mass need for
such 'products' mean that you ramp up production no matter what.

The opposite force is the more interesting to me, and maybe more
significant. People keep saying "Opera is dead" (meaning 'dying') and
less creative and to some extent I believe that to be true. Fifty
years or a hundred years ago, it was not so much a money-making thing,
but a social value. You wanted your son or daughter to be an opera
singer or a classical pianist (rather than a rag time pianist) and
people thought it was swanky to 'go to the opera'. Opera represented
the aspiration of middle class (and maybe more) cultural values. I
will always remember a letter in a really old (1950s) Opera News, with
a cute little line drawing, where this old lady talked about being
bed-ridden, but every Saturday she would get her best dress on, 'dress
her hair' (that's the phrase she used) and listen to the opera,
pretending she was one of the social set.

Not true anymore. I think that it is likely that there are artists,
and (not) just voices, who might have gone into opera who now go into things that we probably don't think are all that important - popular singing, rap, hip-hop and so on. Writers go into film, and even more into video and internet. How many singers have you heard on interviews who say,
"I went to music school and thought I would sing jazz or pop, and then
my teacher said to me, 'No, you should sing opera.' " I believe that
your very favorite singer may ( not)be in that group <g>, but many are. The
fact that a good teacher reorients students doesn't mean the urge to
go elsewhere isn't there.

And obviously, for all but a very few singers, you have a much better
chance at having a living in popular music than in opera.

So, I think that though there are great singers out there, the culture
has changed. On the one hand, the 'demand' is broader, maybe, but on
the other hand people of talent, or who might have had vocal talent
like the people on your list, may be more likely to go into other
areas, not just for the money, but because those kinds of arts now
flourish and mean much more to them".

Rob, If you imagine Rod Stewart with a very heavy cold, then that's somewhere near to Michael Boltons. To be fair to Mr. Bolton, he does have a healthy respect for the art of opera, so much so, that he took the recordings of operatic arias very seriously, unlike, ( in my opinion ) PSTOS. LJ.

I cannot think of anything worse than Michael Bolton murdering "Nessum dorma". Mario was not a pop singer in my opinion, but an interpreter in the same vein as Jane Froman and a very small handful of others. Some years ago, Montserrat Caballé played me the tapes of Freddie Mercury singing opera. I shuddered when she told me that he had taped "Vissi d'arte", singing this in the soprano voice. Yet it was amazing--far better than anything I've heard so far on our trashy programme. They also recorded "Dite alla giovine" from La Traviata, which sounded just as good, though I doubt this will ever see the light of day.

You bring up an interesting point in saying that the "pop" singer uses his singing voice more as an extension of his speaking voice. I am sure there are and have been "pop" singers who are firmly convinced their voice is an "instrument" and every bit as much of an instrument as the opera singer's voice - only different in style, in technique and the kind of music sung. Just as surely as a piano is considered an instrument no matter if it used for jazz or for Liszt. I could go either way with the argument but I too believe that the opera singer uses his voice more as an "instrument" than does the average "pop" singer. But if Como or Sinatra or Streisand said to me they also possessed an "instrument" in their throat, I would not argue very much with them.

It is interesting in the respect that Lanza gained his greatest fame as a "pop" singer rather than a classical singer. Quite an example of cross purpose, considering he had one of the finest operatic style voices of all time. The key to his highly unusual "cross over" success may have come, in part, from his using his singing voice as an extension of his speaking voice when singing "pop" music and "fine tuning" the technique, style and artistry when he sang classical music as any classical instrumentalist would do with his instrument. There is artistry involved in singing any kind of music but Lanza hid it so well, especially in popular music, that his singing sounded as natural as if he were speaking the words to you.

I have often referred to Mario as the greatest singer of words the world has ever known. That encompasses not only diction and phrasing but feeling and conveying those words and by so doing connecting with the audience, as well as combining God-given musicality with his taught technique. The end result being that unlike most opera singers when singing "pop" music, Lanza never sounded like an opera singer singing that kind of music. He sounded like a great "pop" and romantic tenor because he sang that music just like he spoke it. If he had not and used the opera singer's "technique" to sing popular music I am sure he would not nearly have been as successful as he was. And when he sang classical music, he sounded like you would expect a great opera tenor to sound like, often times even better. This is a most unlikely combination that no one has ever pulled off as well as did Mario Lanza.

Edited by author 02-08-2010 08:54 PM
Michael Bolton? I've read and heard the name mentioned, but as far as I know have never heard his voice. From what you say his voice might not be the ideal one for opera. That can and often does happen when crossover is attempted from either direction.

I suppose that, with training and application, most voices are capable of making more or less musical and pleasing sounds even in material to which the voice and singer's temperament might not be suited (my voice was the exception that proved this rule, and it was known, loathed and feared by family and friends during forty years of terrorising audiences with amateur performances of very amateurish singing - mercifully, this ended a few years ago by increasingly overwhelming demand).

You and I would probably agree that it is not a bad idea for singers to stick with what they do best and leave crossover to the relatively rare birds who can manage to tweet about from genre to genre with ease and with pleasant outcomes.

Rob, I respect your right to disagree, that's what makes forums less than boring, However, in retaliation, I will just say two things..... Michael Bolton. lj.

Incidently, I would imagine Miss Streisand and Miss Bassey would have made it in opera, given the desire. lj.

 One of course could write reams on the technical aspect of operatic versus pop voices. However, my humble take on the matter is simple. A pop or ballad singer uses an extension of his speaking voice.....musically, whereas an operatic performer uses their voice as an instrument ( one is hoped a finely tuned one ! ) and confined to the wind section of course. David, I have'nt been brave enough to watch PSTOS., Other than the first ' show '. you are obviously made of stronger' stuff than myself ! lj.

Allan Jones gave a concert in the Count Basie, Redbank, NJ theater in 1989 which I attended. He sang some classical songs and popular songs. He sounded like he could have sung opera, but did not actually sing any at the concert.

You are so right when you say a singer has difficulty going from loud to soft. This practice requires a great deal of control. It can be aligned with a long distance runner ( steeplechase ) running up hill, then running downhill, the transition can and does, take it's toll. lj.

"Alone" (from "A Night At The Opera") as introduced by Allan Jones, certainly would have been a superb song for Lanza to interpret, in the Coke Show period, but, sadly, he never sang it. However, David Whitfield recorded it some years later, and very nicely. Ciao.