How marvelous to hear AND see the legendary tenor singing via AI software. This was the second of four of McCormack's first electrical recordings, made in Victor's Camden, NJ studios on Friday, April 24, 1925. Note that the label appears to be Victor's familiar acoustic Red Seal rather than the Orthophonic label designed for Victor's electrical recordings. As Allan Sutton writes in his book "Recording the 'Twenties," Victor waited more than a year to acknowledge the new technology in order to "dispose of obsolete acoustic [discs] while building new catalogs from scratch."
@@RobertFells Lou was indeed a nice Guy. He once invited Me to Hillcrest Country Club for Lunch. George Burns (holding a super long unlit Cigar) stoped by the Table and said hello. Lou had a great Memory and knew so many jokes from the Vaudeville days, Show Biz stories and old time songs. He lived across the Street from Hillcrest and His exercise consisted of running across the street to the Club than running back across the Street later in the day. He lived on Hillgreen Drive. I have not been in California since 1996. The place is unrecognisable to Me now.
From the memoirs of (Sir) Landon Ronald, her accompanist for all her disc recordings, on Patti's reaction to hearing a playback of this disc: "When the little [gramophone] trumpet gave forth the beautiful tones, she went into ecstasies! She threw kisses into the trumpet and kept saying [in French], 'Ah! Mon Dieu! Now I understand why I am Patti! Oh yes! What a voice! What an artist! I understand everything!' Her enthusiasm was so naïve and genuine that the fact that she was praising her own voice seemed to us all to be right and proper."
Alma Rubens, a troubled soul ! (In the 1920s she developed a drug addiction that eventually ended her career. She died of lobar pneumonia and bronchitis shortly after being arrested for cocaine possession in January 1931.)
Although "Martha" was on the Met roster in 1918, the discerning critic Pitts Sanborn cautioned that the young Lazaro did not yet have the stylistic requirements for the role of Lionel. He praised the young tenor's voice ("his high notes--the highest I am sure I have ever heard a tenor sing--were in their power and quality, as well as their dizzy altitude, simply electrifying") and went on to suggest how Lazaro could acquire the proper style. "I fancy he will learn it quickly if he listens attentively to Mr. Caruso, his admitted elder and therefore in no sense a rival, every time the incomparable Italian sings in 'L'Elisir d'Amore,' 'Martha,' or any other of the bel canto operas."
Listened to all these great tenors past and present, Caruso sings with such amazing tones hurtful true voice 🎉unique greatest ever in my opinion - jussi bjorling - Benjamin gigli my number 2 and 3…
Very interesting testimony !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The French pronunciation is perfect !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At times I feel like I'm hearing Rosa Ponselle. I guess Geraldine Farrar must have been an inspiration to her. Thank you so much !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How marvelous to hear AND see the legendary Geraldine Farrar via this AI video. According to Milton Cross, announcer of the Met's Saturday matinee broadcasts for nearly fifty years, Farrar usually spoke about the opera being performed that afternoon (in this case, "Aida" with Giovanni Martinelli as Radames, Elisabeth Rethberg as Aida, Carmela Ponselle as Amneris, and Armando Borgioli as Amonasro) but on this occasion chose to talk and sing excerpts from the "four Marguerites," all of which she had sung at the Met and the major opera houses throughout Europe. She had been retired for thirteen years when this broadcast took place.
Excerpts from critic W. J. Henderson's review of Lazaro's Met debut (31 Jan 1918): "Fifteen curtain calls at the end of the last act was only the final token of the large audience which, at first sight of him, clapped a hospitable hand. Tenors are not indulged with the high pandemonium that greets your new sopranos, but there were many from the top gallery down, who cheered the young tenor ... One thing is sure, that he knows how to sing 'La Donna e Mobile.' Every other tenor does too, of course, but not many of them can go off stage with as easy and fine a high B, and as much applause at their heels ... He is a little fellow, this Lazaro, and, he looks his youth ... but he has plenty of dash, a straight, jaunty carriage, and he moves about briskly."
Who could be any better, or with any more original or interesting interpretation and singing with extended pauses or held notes which otherwise are difficult as a pell mell race to the end.
Dear Mr Fells many thanks for this work! I'm the biographer of the tenor Hipolito Lázaro. Would it be possible at some point to make a video of Lazaro in AI? THANKS
I'll process it and see what it sounds like cleaned up. I'll need a good frontal photo of Lazaro's head and shoulders. I'll lookbut if you can suggest anything I'd appreciate it.
Pairing Evan Williams' recording of Paolo Tosti's popular song with Bert Williams' parody is more than a double treat because Bert Williams had co-written and produced the first all-Black musical hit on Broadway years before he became the first Black comedian hired by Florenz Ziegfeld for his annual "Follies" extravaganzas. When white comedians demanded that Ziegfeld dismiss Williams, the impresario replied that he could readily dismiss all of them, but that Bert Williams was indispensable. Bert Williams died in 1922, four years after the passing of Evan Williams.
This AI creation is astonishing in more ways than I can count! No film footage exists of Evan Williams, the Welsh-American tenor whose oratorio performances had made him a star in the U.S. and U.K. in 1894. His popularity on Victor Red Seal recordings was on a par with John McCormack's until Williams' sudden death in 1918. Not only to hear but also "see" him in color singing Tosti's "Goodbye" is a unique experience that can only be gotten here.
There was a medieval order of St George and the Dragon. _The Dragon_ is _Draco Ille_ in Latin, or Dracul in Romanian. Bram Stoker rendered it as Dracula, but there is nothing sinister about the name at this stage.
What an absolutely stunning AI creation of the baritone whose voice Rosa Ponselle described as "a shower of diamonds," adding that "he was as gorgeous to look at as he was to sing with." He was in the 31st year of an international career when the Columbia company persuaded him to make complete recordings of "Rigoletto" and "Barber of Seville," which he had sung more than 900 and 1,100 times when those recordings were made.
I love this piece. The singers are quite dramatic, but the German makes it awkward in places. Slezak comes across more clearly than Bland in this ancient artifact, but I'll bet they both wowed 'em in the theater.
I prefer to comment on the video as a whole, which I regard as a stunning achievement. Farrar's speaking voice was well-recorded in the 1930s, and her "cloned voice" conveys her well-documented assertiveness. She also looks as she did during the years in which she was doing intermission commentaries during Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. When the image changes to one taken and AI-animated from a photograph from the period in which she recorded "Serenata," we hear AND see her singing. The fact that the software is still under refinement and momentarily exaggerates mouth movements is for me a minor issue in the context of the entire video.
The program is labeled "Beta" meaning "don't expect perfection." When I realize the technology that made even this level possible I find it remarkable.
