Mr. Collins was a gifted Artist .This is thrilling ,exciting and skillful singing! He has some very impressive work on YT ! Check him out! His Australian Calaf in Turandot with Grace Bumbry is very exciting ! He had a terrific spinto voice! He was a gifted man. His name should be added To this post! To those who find fault with him all I can say is he puts many of today's bellowing strained Troubadors who are singing at The Met and getting plenty of publicity to shame!
As for the lead in Trovatore I also liked Dennis O'Neill he like Mr. Collins who here shows he is a great singer did not get much publicity or name recognition internationally but both men really deserve more attention and acclaim and both impressed me with their voices.The unfair criticism of Mr. Collins is inexplicable. Everyone has their right to an opinion but this is a splendid performance. and it is live no second rate tenor could hold his own opposite Dame Joan. Collins brings down the house!
Ken Collins used to be a regular soloist with the Wrekin Choral & Operatic Society in Shropshire. He sang the Verdi Requiem and it was beautiful. After the concert, we repaired to the pub and we asked him to sing for us. He did, Nessun Dorma. I was only a foot away and I have never been so thrilled by a sound in all my life. He was wonderful to hear and a sweet man, too! RIP Kenny! xxx
Amazing rendition of the cabaletta. The C sounds effortless and he doesn't skip the ornaments like the majority of tenors do (the ornaments are in the score).
Very beautiful voice and brilliant high register. He just could improve a little the Italian pronunciation, that also is a big help for emission. Anyway a very interesting singer who could sing in the major Theatres.
Not Really. His dynamic is lousy and almost no rubato. I can easily pass on it. Vittorio Grigolo's light tenor voice sounds more convincing. Ken is not bad but nothing Special.
It should be noted that Pavarotti only sang this transposed down after he was in his 50's. He sang it in the original key live on stage many times in his prime and no one ever sang it better
I met him in Sydney a brilliant tenor and he was English I was stunned a English man could do this I met a famous Polish Opera conductor also in Sydney he Praised him highly I stood ashamed and secretly begged forgiveness
Ken Collins can also be seen on YT singing in Verdi's Requiem with Rita Hunter performed St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney with Sydney Philharmonia Choir. Quality of recording slightly disappointing as it is taken from VHS tape but all 4 principals sign magnificently.
Bravo Kenneth Collins who I heard with both English National and Welsh Opera companies. He would have been 48 /49 years old here. One of the best on stage partnerships of tenor and soprano was that of Kenneth Collins and Elizabeth Vaughan. I heard them in an outstanding Madama Butterfly ( has anyone got a recording of that to post?) and you can also hear on you tube the final duet from Andrea Chenier taken from a live performance- again they sing in the original key with no transposition and they have such stamina against the huge volume created by the orchestra. There are lots of wonderful stage anecdotes about Kenneth Collins - including when he was singing Calaf in Llandudno on tour. He managed to mix up the answers in the riddle scene with Turandot which left the chorus wondering what to sing as they had to repeat the words after him. The show went on and nobody minded, but there was a lot of laughter back stage afterwards as Ken had almost rewritten the story by his mistake. When you consider that he never took formal technical singing lessons , but relied on his natural ability which he developed firstly through Chorus work at D'Oyly Carte and Royal Opera, Covent Garden taking coaching from repetiteurs / conductors such as James Lockhart. He made his way into the principal roles and sang successfully for many years in very good company. When I see folks on here saying that he should improve his phrasing, technique etc I am amused because I suspect that the writers would not be capable of sustaining a career like Kenneth Collins. He may not have been the world's greatest tenor but he was a fine one.
+Tenortalker Well said. I too remember Collins and Vaughan in Trovatore in the 70s for WNO. What great voices. Collins was a tenor worthy of more note. I wrote to the Guardian about his passing but it was too late for an obituary, though they acknowledged he merited one. His top C, as demonstrated here, was thrilling. He was such a modest man too. A live recording of this Australia Opera Trovatore is available on CD and worth having.
1982/3 was the year with The Australian Opera in Sydney. Ken settled in Australia and gave his golden years to The Australian Opera as Calaf, Alvaro and Manrico to name a couple of roles. He was a wonderful and generous person. He will never be forgotten.
@@jeremycouplan3526 A late reply to your post of 5 years ago! I saw them at The Grand Theatre in Leeds too. I agree, they were compelling. I also remember seeing Rita Hunter and Charles Craig in Trovatore in Leeds, in the mid 1970s, before Opera North was established, so it would probably have been a tour by either English National Opera (ENO) or Welsh National Opera (WNO). Poor Rita (who was a large lady) had badly hurt her back but was strapped up and gallantly went on stage to sing Leonora; she was (understandably) fairly static as she was obviously in agony when she moved. However, what a dedicated artist and trooper! I once saw Giacomini sing Manrico - that was very special singing - if not the greatest acting! I also recall going to Liverpool to see Kenneth Collins, on tour with WNO, sing a magnificent Andrea Chenier, circa 1981. I have adored that Opera ever since and other than Corelli's definitive rendition, the Kenneth Collins live performance still lives with me.
Thank you for this posting. We often forget that Verdi wrote this part and certain others for what might be called a Bel Canto DRAMATIC tenor. The singer of this role should have the firm, full, resonant upper register displayed here with the squillo that allows the voice to ride over the orchestration. I would like to hear more of him, particularly in more florid passages of this work. If he has that ability as well as what he demonstrates here then he is a worthy successor to Corelli.
senti come la canta Nikola Nikolov e mi dici cosa pensi. dal vivo Nikolov aveva un colore di voce scuro e molto morbido. da ogni tasca durante le sue recite usciva un colore di voce differente. il suo Rodolfo era dolce e poetico. la sera dopo dal suo ''esultate'' tremavano i muri del teatro. aveva 82 anni quando durante la sua celebrazione cantò ''la stretta'' 3 volte nella tonalità originale con l'orchestra. il pubblico di questo i fatto ha impazzito . ciao.
I never heard Collins sing live but I did here Pavarotti sing the whole role of Manrico in the theater. The 'King of the High C' stuff was just publicity. He was a great tenor of course but he wasn't a 'High Note Tenor'. The greatest High Note Tenors around my time have been Gregory Kunde, Franco Bonisolli, and Salvatore Fisichella. Remember all of them would have sung higher than Caruso. The role of Manrico is not particularly high. It sits in Domingo voice very well although he never had the C. Collins is damn impressive here.
+Patrick Boyle Don't you ever get tired of posting a negative comment about Pavarotti below the performances of every other tenor? Are you going to start doing them in the soprano and basso recordings next? Give me a break already!
+Leo Smart Well I'm not tired yet. Maybe some day in the far future when Pavarotti has been forgotten I unlike most of the people who post about famous tenors know something about singing and I have heard most of the famous tenors of the last few decades live in their best roles. Pavarotti was a wonderful vocalist and he could sing many parts very well. All three of the Thee Tenors had very beautiful voices and all three had limitations. I was for many years a fan of the serious Rossini operas. Domingo, who sang a lot of parts, never sang any of those for the simple reason that they were too high for him. Carreras who in his rather short prime had the loveliest voice of the three, but foolishly allowed himself to be talked into singing in Aida and Turandot. I liked James King in the theater very much but I wouldn't want to hear him sing Almaviva. Anymore than I would want to hear Leopold Simoneau sing Siegfried. What gets me tired is that so many people miss the similarity of Pavarotti and Lanza. Both had great tenor voices suitable for the core tenor roles in opera but both chose to sing not in the opera house but in another more popular venue. Pavarotti sang in Vegas, on TV, and in various stadia. Lanza sang in movies. Both reached more people that way. Both were to become very famous. I liked Pavarotti in appropriate roles. But I liked other tenors more. I really liked Jon Vickers. I liked Corelli a lot. I liked Domingo and Carreras a great deal. In Pavarotti's core Puccini repertoire I preferred Aragal. In the heavier parts I also liked James King, Nicola Martinucci, and James McCracken. There was not then nor there is not now a shortage of tenors who want to sing Cavaradossi or Rodolfo. I heard Tosca live many, many times and I had sung in Boheme regularly . I always wanted to hear tenors in the Wagnerian or Rossini parts and of course Mozart.
***** I have no doubt about what you say. I am not famous and I will soon die. Opera itself is also dying but Pavarotti will be famous for a long time. However his influence is mostly on the public not on the institution of opera. When Corelli was voted the best tenor of all time in the Opera Fanatic poll he said, "So soon they forget Gigli". There will be a time when Pavarotti is no more well known than Gigli is now known - hard as that is to believe. The only lasting influence I can think of that he's had on opera practice has been on casting heavier tenors in the tenor part in Daughter. Maria Callas changed opera practice as did Sam Ramey. But not Pavarotti. He brought opera music to the general public but had little or no effect on the repertoire or performance practice. I don't know why you call me a troll. I always write comments that are to the point. Trolls are usually defined as person who write anonymously and intrude themselves into other conversations. I was answering a specific attack on me. I write under my real name and I don't insult others gratuitously. You might want to consider your own behavior. And you might want to use language more carefully.
+Veritas Vos Liberabit Sorry, but you're wrong and way off. You clearly disagree with his analysis, as it's you right to do, (not just yours, btw, but EVERYONE's right), but you certainly cant accuse him of being ignorant and misinformed. Quite the opposite: his accurate, knowledgeble and motivates his opinions, without being insulting.
I regret not recognising Ken Collins as I heard him often enough in Cardiff . He was a great favourite, & sang in such rarely performed Verdi operas as I Masnadieri. Henry Webb
Perhaps the author of this posting would be so kind as to alter the title, so that the incomparable Kenneth Collins can now gain worthy recognition?! I saw him at the Royal Albert Hall, in La Forza del Destino, of which I have a prized recording. A truly great Tenor.
Bueno, este tio con esta interpretación no va ha entrar en la lista de mis tenores favoritos pero eso es una cosa y otra que no pueda tomarse alguna licencia. Yo creo que ya está bien con cantar un do que no está escrito y además hacerlo mas de medio tono mas alto que el original de Verdi, que es lo que ha subido el diapasón desde entonces, si sigue subiendo así acabaran cantando Il trovatore los tenores ligeros.
This is the English tenor Kenneth Collins performing with Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House. Ken was a wonderful tenor with an absolutely secure high register.
this is great!!! i love the tempo, it's not stressed and hysterical like most performances and he sings it with a great legato. maybe not as powerful and dramatic as others but great singing nonetheless
Dude, there are recordings here on RU-vid where Pavarotti does sing this aria with high C's, and also you can hardly say others transposed this down since the original doesn't call for a high C at the end.
At the end of “Di quella pira”, the tenor has to sing TWO consecutive high C’s at the end of “all’armi”: one on “Ar” and then a short pause for the “Mi”. It is very difficult to hit the high C twice. I don’t hear Ken Collins make the pause: he sings one high C.
Verdi did not compose a high C at this place. However, one of the first tenors of this opera explicitly asked Verdi for permission. Verdi expressly permitted this, provided that the C was sung beautifully. So this convention has prevailed and most listeners know the aria exactly this way, so following the original score would cause irritation, if not disappointment, among the audience. Even Toscanini, who banned all freedoms taken by singers in the 19th century, accepted the convention.
JAJAJA muy bueno. Y ademas no estaria mal que lo hicieran ya que parece que hoy dia "TODO VALE". Y como ejemplo Rolando Villazon cantando Mozart...Pero claro...siendo su padrino Domingo que se podia esperar...Vaya legado que ha dejado este señor por querer pasar a la Historia (como el tenor con mayor repertorio...pero eso no significa que lo cante todo bien. Bueno...quiza bien si pero MAGNIFICAMENTE muy pocas cosas).
Ermanno Mauro sang it in the original key, as well as Enrico Di Giuseppe. Sometime is better to hear a very good Bb than not so good high C. Bonisolli was another one to do it in original key; not to mention a very famous one that have to do it transpose one full step down....and still was so, so !.
@MrSammyscroll i love Lanza so this is no dig on him. however, singing the C in a concert and singing within the context of the entire role are 2 different things. again, i adore Lanza. how big do you think Lanza would be today amongst the current crop of tenors? do you think they would have taken him more seriously in an actual opera stage? my opinion? he's far and away better than any tenor today and yes they would. you?
with all due respect to Lanza's talent(Voice and musicality) I agree. But today opera houses mike some singers like Cecilia Bartoli, Dimitri Khvorostovskij, Jonnas Kaufmann. If Lanza lived today, he would be instead of Kaufmann:)
Wow, if he can sing it in C, why can't everyone else? But someone needs to light a fire under that chorus. Talk about stiff. They just stand there as if waiting for a bus instead of creating a rousing chorus of men eager to fight and free Azucena. I've been an opera fan since I was 12, and my chief complaint has always been a chorus who performs as if they're in the recording studio rather than onstage. Although I must confess there are a substantial number of soloists who do the same.
Di quella pira l'orrendo foco tutte le fibre m'arse, avvampò! Empi, spegnetela, o ch'io fra poco col sangue vostro la spegnerò! Era già figlio prima d'amarti, non può frenarmi il tuo martir... Madre infelice, corro a salvarti, o teco almeno corro a morir! o teco almeno corro a morir! o teco almeno o teco almeno corro a Non reggo a colpi tanto funesti... Oh quanto meglio sarìa morir! Oh quanto meglio sarìa morir! Di quella pira l'orrendo foco tutte le fibre m'arse, avvampò! Empi, spegnetela, o ch'io fra poco col sangue vostro la spegnerò! Era già figlio prima d'amarti, non può frenarmi il tuo martir... Madre infelice, corro a salvarti, o teco almeno corro a morir! o teco almeno corro a morir! o teco almeno o teco almeno corro a morir! All'armi! all'armi!... Madre infelice, corro a salvarti, o teco almeno o teco almeno corro a morir! Madre infelice, corro a salvarti, o teco almeno o teco almeno corro a morir! All'armi! all'armi! Read more: Andrea Bocelli - Di Quella Pira Lyrics | MetroLyrics
@ellicantropo Yo es que lo escuche ayer noche a altas horas y mis oidos no estaban tan afinados como ahora. Ayer pense que escuchaba un Do sostenido sobreagudo y la verdad...siendo asi hasta se le podria perdonar la diccion ( la falta de la silaba MI). Pero esta mañana estoy mas afinado de oido y he podido comprobar que este señor canta un Do sobreagudo natural (no sostenido como nos estan vendiendo el video) y en este caso SI DEBERIA DECIR EL "MI" porque la supuesta hazaña ya no estal...
People, Verdi didn't even write the high C at the end of the Aria. It was only put in later by artists. A lot of Arias get this same treatment and yes, it does make it very exciting, but not expected by the composer. Verdi sounds so much like later Rossini (Tell) that you wonder if Verdi was not plagiarizing at times... in fact, it has been said that he did in some instances from Rossini's disasters.
El que hace el comentario en el vídeo bien poco de ópera sabe. Se baja medio tono para que suene mejor en ciertas voces. Corelli con D natural fácil la cantaba medio tono bajo entre otros y es debido al color de la voz entre otras cosas. Además que el señor es un tenor lírico con un agudo maullado....
Try listening to Franco Corelli's recording with the Roman Orchestra studio version and tell me that it is not a true High C........ Franco Bonisolli was usually a true C and Mario Lanza was reported to be at C# or above..
Are you a singer? To sing that in C is a LOT easier said than done. The kind of voice that usually gets cast as Manrico is huge, and the majority of the role sits lower. Not all tenors have a good C, and many don't even have one at all. Verdi also never wrote those high Cs; they're just traditionally interpolated. Pretty soon, though, it got to a point where nobody wanted to hear the aria without the high notes, and it's easier to transpose it than to find a tenor who can sing it in C.
There is a famous LP from TAP records sometimes called "25 Tenors sing 50 High Cs". It starts before Caruso and goes up to about Filipeschi. The majority of the 25 tenors do not sing a C. As I remember Caruso sang a B or B Flat. Bjoerling sang a C. BTW I heard Pavarotti sing this in a complete performance. Not too good. The top was thin.
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT OPERA SINGERS STILL ARE HUMAN and as everybody else WE ARE NOT PERFECT, and all the singers I knew had a bad day. A very famous Italian soprano once told me: WE, SINGERS HAVE ONLY ONE DAY IN THE MONTH THaT WE ARE PERFECT, and if that day we don't perform, we have to wait for next month. But we still have to keep a very high level the other 29 days. Those very famous singers they are always under great pressure, because the audience don't know if that night is the good day of the month.
Right. But there is a trick, you can hear that the majority of tenors sings all'armi without R to secure the larynx position - alla...miiiii". Moreover, I have found out that only Italians can make a clear and ringing I when singing high notes, slavic and anglo-saxon tenors face difficulties. Even Del Monaco sings "I" making it too nasal (like some slavic tenors do) in order to produce more or less adequate sound.
Sorry, Spanish and Latinos tenors can also sing high notes with the vowel i, but because singing a high Bb witha pure i can sound little nasty, we modify and ad a little e vowel so that i havea much pleasant sound, (Unless your soprano has a hug voice and will cover you, so then you go for the cutting pure i ).
I like your comment,are you familiar with the Italian language?Collins sings a a good clean C,at the ALLARMI ,but the difficulty with that is to pronounce the last 2 letters MI,he does not make it , many famous tenors omit that, very difficult to sustain the note,Collins should and could improve his phrasing and diction in order to give a more distinct sound to his good voice,Regarding the chorus i thought i was watching La Fanciulla del West ,they are dressed up like COWBOYS Regards Gino
Tenor igual a esse encontro aos monte pela avenida São João aqui em São Paulo. Voz comum. Alem do que ele cantou a cabaleta meio tom abaixo, ou seja apenas emitiu um Si natural. Outra coisa o bel canto é cheio de ornamentos, mas essa forma de cantar é bastante antiga, dos tempos dos castrados. De qualquer maneira tem tenor de voz clara ou escura, esse tenor não tem voz.
Pedro Lavirgen a GREAT tenor, unfortunately underrated. He was a favorite at the Arena di Verona, his Don José by many people was the best. I had the pleasure of hearing in a role that was not quite for him, but still did a great performance, Othello.
He did a “la” only, as did Pavarotti in his studio recording with Sutherland, on “a l’armi” for the sake of smoothing out the sustained C. I don’t like it. Oddly, the best I’ve heard from studio recording is Bocelli’s rendition. He holds “a l’armi” flawlessly all the way to the orchestra’s final downbeat.
Oscar Menoyo, Pavarotti did sing consecutive high Cs (one for each syllable, "lar" and "mi") on his wonderful 1971 studio recording of the complete scena from which 'Di quella pira' forms the cabaletta. Absolutely thrilling! He also does the same in every live recording I've seen of him in this role, whether singing in the original key or transposed a tone downwards in his later performances. The studio recording with Sutherland is a curious exception.
Sorry you sounded as someone that never sang on stage, but learn what ever from books. If you ask some of the REAL great singers, -still some alive- they never mention larynx position odor tongue placement, THEY JUST SING !
Pavarotti 1/2 step? I don't think so. In his early career, Pavarotti blew the roof off with this aria, especially in 1978...in the original key. Pavarotti also sang both high C's at the end, not one like Collins. Match it up with this performance. It's the same key. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pNYGv7zxhT4.html
i just listened and watched the video thank you friend you are right. unsurpassed was our Luciano. But I would still like to mention some of his masters: Salvatore Fisichella, Alfredo Kraus, Bergonci, Raimondi, Jusi Borning, Nicolai Gedda, Mario Lanza, Franco Coreli, Mario del Monaco, Tito Schipa, Placido Domingo, Jose Careras, Angelo Loforese, Arigo Pola who was also a teacher from Pavarotti. This is an all old generation of tenors. As the two kings of their time, they are as the greatest each in their time period: Enrico Caruso and Luciano Pavarotti
I find it weird that so many people still OCD over a C that Verdi did not write. This is just about showing off and it doesn't serve the aria or the opera. It's bad policy to let the loggionisti re-write Verdi --Verdi!-- for their infantile thrill seeking. It reduces the entire aria to foreplay. Someone else here notes that lyric tenors can bring the high C easily--but that's all. This role requires a lot more than a screaming boy sound.
sul mercato accanto à Bonisolli e Corelli esistevano anche dei tenori tipo Nikola Nikolov .... lo stesso Nikola Nikolov per ogni personaggio usciva della sua tasca un colore differente... di più era il Re del registro acuto. dal vivo aveva una voce deliziosa,à volte drammatica e scura,à volte dolce e poetica. questo era Nikola Nikolov il più grande rivale di Del Monaco e Corelli negli anni 47-77 ... ha cantato sul palco quasi 60 anni... quando aveva 82 anni durante la sua celebrazione cantò ''la pira'' 3 volte in do con l'orchestra. il pubblico era impazzito di questo fatto. ciao
Manrico (tenor) Di quella pira l'orrendo foco Tutte le fibre m'arse avvampò!... Empi spegnetela, o ch'io tra poco Col sangue vostro la spegnerò... Era già figlio prima d'amarti Non può frenarmi il tuo martir. Madre infelice, corro a salvarti, O teco almeno corro a morir! Leonora (soprano): Non reggo a colpi tanto funesti... Oh quanto meglio sarìa morir! Ruiz (tenor), Chorus of soldiers: All'armi, all'armi! eccone presti A pugnar teco, teco a morir. Of that dark scaffold, those flames ascending, Thrill thro' each fibre with madd'ning glow! Quench them, ye monsters vile or, still offending, To stay their fury, your blood shall flow! I was her offspring, ere love I gave thee, I vain, to hold me, thy griefs would try. Mother unhappy! I fly to save thee, Or, all else failing, with thee to die! Such heavy sorrows my heart o'erpow'ring. Oh! better far would it be to die! Arouse ye to arms now!
