When Tucker sings it, there is emotion, eloquence, chiaroscuro--like a great soliloquy. When most tenors sing it, it's a pretty tune with effective high notes.
Boy does that sound right. Nessun dorma needs a big rich colorful voice like Tucker's. The only bone I have to pick with Tucker was that he so seldom came West. I missed hearing him sing Chenier with Bastianini. I thought I could catch them next season. But Tucker never came back and Bastianini died. More fool I.
The first time I heard him,I went,Wow,I thought I'd heard the best,but he's my favourite.Hihh notes fabulous,but it's the sheer joy in his voice that I love most.
Wow..what a magnificent rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone, for years one of my favorite tunes. It touches the heart and almost blows you out of your chair. Mr. Tucker stands above some of the overpraised tenors of recent times (L.P.)
Tucker thrived at the Met for 30 years, sharing the limelight with two other great tenors, in Corelli and Del Monaco. All three tenors successfully represented the spinto dramatic repertory to the delight of their audiences, bringing down the house with great performances and applause.
@@KajiVocals The categorizations of the tenor voice often produces differences of opinions. Some posters regard MDM as a'' lirico pieno'' Volpi a lyric spinto or lyric dramatic. Tamagno, Escalais and Paoli were described as dramatic tenor's but today I think they would be considered Spinto dramatic, which is another sort of confusing title. Lauri Volpi told Tucker that he had a Caruso'' type'' voice, but strangely enough Volpi does not categorize the tenor voice in his book '' Voci Parallele'' Not to be argumentative, but perhaps Tucker was a natural lyric tenor, but with the ability to sing the heavier roles with much success. However, there have been many lyric tenors not suitable for the heavier roles.
He made one of the most difficult arias in all of bel canto opera sound effortless!!! Amazing and wonderful! Leaves you feeling breathless with excitement and awe. I so appreciate whoever posted this. Thank you with all my heart.
IMO he was better than any of the 3 Tenors! There could have been a fantastic 3 Tenors concert in the 60's with Tucker, Corelli, Bergonzi! Now that would have been the concert of a lifetime!
That is one memorable performance. He is in such sublime control of his throat and his phrasing is unique. The tone and power of his voice are truly remarkable. He must have possessed a supremely well oiled machine, that is a real horsepower engine supporting that beautiful voice.
Rarely do singers today have a technique like this. They're singing the big roles well before they're ready and ruining voices. That's my opinion folks -- and I did study music, piano, organ and voice in college and grad school.
less and less, almost no more... and opera houses assign singers according to their LOOKS... expensive dramatic production with stunning lightings and costumes, but empty feelings, cause no voices there!!!
we live in a sad era of quick fame....its not always the students fault...its the system that is competitive...if u can do asap...then good..or else ur behind...its pretty sad...no one has the time to hone their craft.
@@Shamsithaca It's the agents, they control the system and few if any know anything about the develpoment of the voice. As Kraftpr said young singers getting big roles to soon. voice done in under a decade.
He is missed. Tucker was a hugely exciting singer and a fine artist. I regret never having had the opportunity to hear him live, as I did with Merrill, Vickers, Milnes, McCracken, Margaret Price -- also Hampson, a suberb lyric baritone and recitalist, but no way a Verdi baritone --
This is the type of television show that I was accustomed to seeing when I was growing up. It was not unusual to have great opera singers like Richard Tucker performing on the various networks. Tuckers greatest asset was voice, voice, and more voice.
Yes, I checked and realized it must be 1963. During the show, he talks about singing Trovatore the next season. As for Peerce, he sang the B when he had the B- which is when he was quite a bit younger. On his commercial recording of this aria, he sings the B, but I believe such B's were long since past him by 1963-64. He might be able to reach the note, but it would be a sort of on pitch shout. And, btw, I loved Peerce, too, but Tucker had the vastly superior voice.
Tucker sounds much better here than on his studio recordings, for me at least. I doubt that the contemporary studio recording processes did full justice to Tucker's voice, because it was both big and finely focused. He sounds a little rough and even throaty on some studio records. Whereas here and in most live recordings, the live acoustic filters out the harsh sounds and we are left with this splendid voice in its full glory --
+Zriter59 Escritor: As his biographer, I interviewed the engineers who recorded him at both Columbia and RCA, and they all said that his was a voice that needed space around it and was never captured adequately in a studio environment.
Extraordinario, el mejor tenor spinto que ha dado los estados unidos, para uno de los cuatro mejores de todos los tiempos, en cualquier idioma, y el No: 1 en lengua inglesa.
As Tucker's biographer, having interviewed nearly every singer, conductor, coach, et al., who was associated with him, I can tell you that his "ego" was a part of his public personality that he began to accentuate in interviews after his second publicist, Thea Dispeker, told him that self-inflating comments were "good press." He knew that he was not very good in interviews (he was sensitive about his limited vocabulary, a product of his limited schooling), and he needed a "hook" to stand out. Thea Dispeker conceived the "American Caruso" tag and urged him to back it up with (as she put it) braggadocio. He flatly rejected her strategy, especially the "American Caruso" part-but she reminded him that he had told his bride that one day he would be "a big opera star," and that if he didn't believe he could live up to the "American Caruso" PR line, then his self-confidence was a mask for self-doubt. He wanted time to think about it, and she said no, that the campaign would start soon, and he had to decide then and there. She told me he lowered his head and was silent for a moment, and then said, "Okay, I'm in. I can do it." There were times and incidents where he carried it too far in public-but among his circle of lifelong friends (almost none of whom were singers or musicians) he was (as his best friend Ben Herschaft said) "a sweet, generous, unpretentious guy, a real mensch."
Jim Drake The story here about buying his son a car with his gambling winnings makes me think he must have been a very sweet and generous person. 😊 Jan
+jan wintz: He was very good-natured as a parent, unless any of his sons was even slightly disrespectful to their mother. When that happened, his explosive temper would rival Mt. Vesuvius. Neighbors and friends recounted scenes of one or the other teenage boys being chased down the street, luckily for them several lengths ahead of their enraged father. Two hours later, when he had cooled down, he might be playing basketball or swimming with them in the community pool down the street from their home.
@@jimdrake-writer One comment here by "Ransom Coates" said it sounded not "live" but dubbed in here , I doubt it, another asks if Bjoerling live in the aria had as big a voice, the answer is no, Jussi is best compared with Lyric tenors like Gigli or Pavarotti but as for size it wasn't in house the size of Tucker's if you saw both men in house.
As I’m sure you know, many other tenors of the “Golden Age” of the early-1900s could be added, including the stentorian Leo Slezak who was as great a lieder singer as he was a master of the Italian, French, and German repertoire. But the Metropolitan Opera of the Caruso-Slezak era was not the Met of Rudolf Bing’s era, when Tucker was a superstar.
@@jimdrake-writer Yes, long before our times (and Tucker's) you had tenors singing a wide variety of roles like the mentioned (Slezak) and also tenor Jadlowker singing everything from Lyric roles, like Mozart and dramatic roles like Otello.
@@shicoff1398: And as you know, Jadlowker was also the cantor of the synagogue in Riga after he retired from opera. Tucker’s inspiration as a cantor, Mordecai Hershmann, could have sung any spinto role if he had chosen to. Even the lyric tenor Jose Mojica sang what are now considered spinto roles.
+darklord220 Not Lanza, IMO, though he did have a beautiful voice. I don't think anyone can be compared to Caruso who never sang complete operas. I believe that Lanza sang exactly 1. Tucker sang almost 800 at the Met alone!!
SHICOFF1 Leonard Bernstein was a gifted teacher, too. To bring music to its simplest terms for youngsters (or ANYONE) is, in itself, pretty genius.. ☺ Jan
The problem I have with calling Tucker the American Caruso was that Caruso was the American Caruso. He was a guy of Italian extraction who sang mostly at the Met - a premiere American venue. If he had sung mostly in Italy I would have considered him an Italian singer. But if you live in America and sing in America at some point you are an American. Not trying to start a fight. I considered Giorgio Tozzi for example an American singer. Most of us as Americans are immigrants.
@premiereopera1 Tucker says he sang "Turandot" on a Saturday. The only Saturday he sang this was on February 2, 1963 so the video must be from 1963, not 1964. He never even sang the opera in 1964. Of course Peerce would of sang that aria with no high B. He was the kind of artist who sang arias as they were written without adding random and unnecessary high notes.
I see the writer of both Tucker and Ponselle books, Mr. James Drake ( a very in the know gentleman) has taken time to make some excellent recent comments here, all very interesting and of course your accurate comments also. I recently answered a Bjoerling fan about his voice type, great sensational artist of perfection but more a lyric or Lyric spinto type voice, then Spinto Tucker and Corelli Etc. MDM was surely a dramatic tenor as you and I both saw him in house.
Well, just think- now we have a bunch of tatooed, pierced, screaming, drugged out performers that command tickets up to $1000 a performance. And- a country fulla askhyoles willing to pay to those prices. THIS is culture.This is America- this is "the world". Cheerio
@premiereopera1 His commercial recording does have the B but it was only a few years before this. Peerce had his full scale until he was no longer able to sing; he just rarely used it in performances even in his younger days. It's called being smart and is one of the reasons he was able to sing fine into his 80s.
Skitch Henderson? Wow! It's been decades since I watched him on TV. A+ Tucker at his finest, old enough to have perfected his voice and young enough not to be losing it to time's degradations.
What rich tone across the whole range.. and great dictionary!!! Hugely under rated. For me one of the all time greats. But being American obviously he can't be great, just like Lanza.
This recording is much better than the 1967 clip on you Tube. If you can find the Tucker 25th Anniversary at the Met album every track is a great experience! He is the standard other are judged by according to Domingo and Pavorratti.
En esas fechas yo tenía unos diez u once pirulines. Se vé que a través de alguien lo escuché. Obligada seguro ya que en esas fechas estaba obligada todo. Era muy chica.
@@annaruocco8097 I said, "...of his era," not all time. Lanza was great; I love his singing, but for whatever reason, Tucker has this sound that is his, and I love it. He dominated the Met in a similar way to Il Mistro, so that has to say something...unless you tell me the Met was on a low point or something.
@@paladin313 True, he sang over 750 times at the Met. and hundreds of times in other cities and also sang many times in South America, Italy and in the 1950's toured several countries in Asia. The Italians had great respect for him and gave him the "Commendatore" award, their high cultural award and in the 1960's, when in his prime and shortly before she died, Mrs. Dorothy Caruso said Tucker's tone was most like her husbands, that is quoted in the excellent Andrew Farkas "Jussi Bjoerling" Biography book, but before that she said in 1951, (before Tucker's Spinto prime) Mrs. Caruso said Jussi Bjoerling was the closest artist to her late husband, but for voice tone later she mentioned Tucker's voice..
The television show “Camera 3” from which these excerpts are taken was hosted by the Broadway baritone Earl Wrightson and, like Leonard Bernstein’s programs for young people, often had young musicians in the studio audience.
Love Earl Wrightson. His voice was beautiful and virile. Very different than popular baritone Gordon Macrae. Maybe not as large or as high.. But thrilling.
I believe this show (as the camera 3 show in 1970) was "live" with Tucker singing it then and there. The few young people there seem impressed, must have been something to remember for them! BTW where was this taped?
In the 1960s with Wrightson as host, “Camera 3” was taped rather than “live.” This particular one was recorded in late-February 1963 (not 1970 as the title reads), and Tucker’s sequence of the three operas he mentions (Turandot, Ballo, and Andrea Chenier) aligns with the late-February taping date. The show was recorded at the CBS television studios in Manhattan.
Lo vi en el Colón a mediados de los 60, en dos óperas de Verdi, una de ellas con Cornel Mc PNeil y Jerome Hines...qué lujo...fue Un Ballo in maschera...un torneo de canto...Para mí, junto a Franco Corelli y John Vickers integran la trilogía de los mejores tenores en el escenario. El Colón temblaba entero con Tucker, cosa que no ocurrió con Pavarotti que fue también un gran tenor pero con mucho menor caudal de voz.
Muy buen Tenor, no lo habia escuchado Nunca, mi voz es muy parecida a la de el, y , otra cosa, no es una persona ALTA, yo? tampoco, es bueno ver a alguien como yo, eso me hace el seguir adelante, con mi ULTIMO proyecto de VIDA, yo soy bueno? creo que si, segun mi maestra de canto, soy un tenor SPINTO? bueno segun mi maestra, soy bueno? yo creo que si, seguire con mi ultimo DESEO DE MI VIDA, el penultimo? mi DIETA, que ei funciona es de AUTOCONSUMO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
robust, virile, effortless. even better than I remember him, from my youth, his recital mexico city, bellas artes, 1964. and red grape skins is so o o o o right. the folks he stayed with down in mexico city, his host and hostess, told my mom that mr tucker was VERY disappointed when some dip stick turned up the house lights at 10 pm closing time ... the crowd was on its feet, he did encore after encore .. the told his hosts he'da sung for another hour if they wanted him to.
+John Leddy It's been a year John but I came back to tell you a little story of the great Tucker. My father, RIP, loved going to Vegas on occasion to shot dice. That was before there were casinos all over the country. Seems that Tucker spent a lot of time at the dice tables too and made way more deposits than withdrawals. Dad got to know him. While gambling their asses off they were just 2 Jews throwing money away. Tucker could afford it, not dad.
+John Leddy: After one sojourn to Vegas in 1954, he handed his oldest son (Barry Tucker, long-time President of the RT Music Foundation) the keys to a brand-new Ford convertible, which he had bought with his winnings.
@premiereopera1 Haha quite so :) is it just me or does Tucker seem a bit subdued or uncomfortable here? The singing is glorious but I've seen/heard other recitals where he was a lot more lively, seemed to be having more fun. Maybe he wasn't too thrilled with the audience either hehe.
Agree about Earl W. An utterly wonderful vocal artist. Had a perfectly balanced tone and ease of singing. Not sure if Opera would have been his lane, although the production was correct. He fit the classical musicals of the era as well or better than any!!
One of his better performances of this aria and the other songs were fantastic as well. Looks like Skitch Henderson is conducting. He conducted on Tucker's fantastic pop album mentioned here "The Fabulous Voice of Richard Tucker." Very happy to see this with excellent picture and sound quality and I'll be interested in obtaining the DVD it's from. I believe it also includes Peerce performing on the same show.
Tucker sounds like a million bucks, both stentorian and mellifluous! It's a shame he didn't sing Calaf more, although I am happy that I did get to see him do it when I was a kid. I didn't know at the time what a rarity that performance would be.
Tucker sang Calaf 7 times at the Met. Six times in the early 1960s and once in 1974. However it was Corelli's signature role and he sang Calaf 54 times starting in 1961 through 1974. Corelli sang 19 different roles at the Met in a 15 year period. Tucker sang 34 roles in a 30 year period.
@@sugarbist I know. I saw Tucker as Calaf once at the Old Met when I was a kid. The 1974 performance was a Met in the Parks concert in Queens. I was there. Tucker could still sing it beautifully only a few months before his death. But of course, it was Corelli’s role! Corelli had the looks, that voice, and the spectacular high Cs. But I honor what Tucker had too.
I have the great DVD that this was taken from. There are two shows form about a year apart. The first has Peerce, singing a rather "tight" Lamento di Federico, with no high note at the end. The second is this great show with Tucker. He just seems so casual, talking, laughing, and getting up and singing as only he could. And he usually didn't like to talk before he sang. Each show is about a half hour in length, and both are on the same DVD Ed
If memory does not deceive me, some years ago when Mrs. Caruso was asked which voice came closest to that of her husband's, well, she said, it was Richard Tucker's.
@tenorman1971 If you look further into the conversation you'll find we're not referring to Peerce singing "Nessun Dorma" but rather "Lamento di Federico."
@VinylToVideo Tucker, Wrightson, and Henderson were all on The Tonight Show around this time. Is it possible Carson was away for a night and Wrightson was hosting? This doesn't really seem like the format of that show though; I don't ever recall an artist singing 3 items to a full orchestra. Again, no idea.
Tucker, Peerce, Merrill - nothing like a trained cantorial voice to show off technique. Tucker had a voice for a big auditorium - not pleasant up close and in a small space, but in a large hall that mellowed out the nasality, wonderful.
