Apollo Granforte makes me want to fly to the moon in the most positive and euphoric possible. His virility of tone and sturdiness in technique are the stuff of legends.
@@draganvidic2039 Real tenors sound like Luciano Pavarotti, Franco Corelli etc. They sound some what clean, but not operatic. They are too nasal and squeaky, the way tenors should not been in the first place. I know the origins of this; it is to avoid the swallowed throat-sound that Kaufmann etc have
Well I can live with the so called "bad" Leo Nucci. If all the problems of Opera were this one. And there are many things to be said about the "great" ones. For instance Merril yes he's a great singer but his characterization and his coloratura are a hot mess.
I must be the biggest Merrill fan, but you're right, he was never an actor. And he took flack for it since the beginning of his career, as did his friend Richard Tucker. But as Pavarotti once said, 'it is not necessary to be Laurence Olivier'.
Leonard Warren, Robert Merrill, Apollo Grandforte, Rolando Panerai,Cornell Mcneil, Titta Ruffo, they are AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING OPERATIC BARITONE LEGENDS👌👌👌👌👌👌👌❤❤❤❤❤❤❤👏👏👏👏👏
@@adafelatenciorincon3522 it’s not about range, it’s about timbre. Some of baritones have high Cs. It’s just there every day. Some of these “baritones “ are just lazy tenors (Hampson for one!)
Once again, you chose Warren (for me the best sounding baritone ever) and Merrill, second best I’ve heard, to compare them with contemporary baritones. (By the way, in this aria Warren sings a high A effortlessly twice and nobody seems to notice that Merrill doesn’t.) Warren had an incredible NATURAL resonance in his voice that no school will ever produce in a man with lesser gifts. I am proof of that. The only singer that could achieve that feat was Caruso and he did it at the expense of long training and longer chest exercises which made him expand it 12 inches. Nobody wants to achieve this goal these days, that’s why we don’t have great opera singers as there were in past times. When I lived in Italy, I was shocked by the fact that they didn’t understand the lyrics of the few arias I sang in that household in Turin. But what really depressed me was realizing that they love soccer above all things and ignore absolutely everything about the image of Italy throughout the world as the country where opera was born. So, it’s no surprise that we lack great singers these days for opera is irrelevant in the modern world. People don’t enjoy anymore the prowesses of the great singers. They were fed on a lesser school that praises the mediocre singers and their intolerable music.
As an Italian I couldn't agree more. We got used to mediocrity, and that's a shame. Do you want an example? Everybody here thinks singers as Bocelli or the guys from 'il Volo' are great...
you probably dont care at all but does anybody know of a tool to get back into an Instagram account..? I stupidly forgot my login password. I would love any tips you can offer me!
@Kylen Cannon Thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site thru google and im in the hacking process atm. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
To me nobody can come close to Bastianini as a baritone except for Granforte. They are both in a class of their own. They have it all, voice technique, resonance, diction and interpretation. Figaro was perhaps not Bastianini’s best role but nobody could come close to him as Rigoletto or Posa or di Luna. What a voice, what a singer.
Maybe because the old-schoolers really enjoy what they are doing, they smile and even laugh but for modern singers it's just a means of making money, their face expressions are so tense and tight that it hurts to watch them.
You need to study or define what is old school. Artificially darkening the voice is not part of the ancient Italian technique. Pure vowels and no actions in the throat. Read the old treatises, Caruso, Lehmann, Tetrazzini, G. Lamperti. What you're selling originated in the scientist school of Louis Mandl and Curtis. Personal taste is different from tradition.
La mejor manera de darse cuenta de la pésima calidad de los cantantes actuales es escucharlos en vivo. Bueno, o intentar escucharlos, porque no se oyen casi. Creo haber escuchado prácticamente a todas las grandes estrellas de los últimos años, y no se le oye a ninguno.
@@EliominDZ Si a usted reclama por los efectos de una mala praxis quirúrgica y el cirujano le responde "¿Usted habría operado mejor?", ¿le da la razón o piensa que es un crápula ridículo? Pues eso.
@DiomedesDioscuro :: The patient does not claim to be a surgeon ; however, they have every right to complain about "malpractice" when their heart was accidentally punctured.
@@cliffgaither Yes, I did notice a voice coming from the scene... In some cases I was even able to find a place in the first row and understand what they were singing.
Thomas Hampson has to be the most overhyped singer of the century. At best a passable lieder singer, pushing is thin voice (what I call a "no-toni"). I once saw on a playbill in Zurich that he was scheduled to sing the lead in Macbeth. When I expressed my shock and horror to a friend (also a lover of old school opera), he said, "He can sing anything he wants. But it doesn't mean you can hear him."
Okay, guys. Here's what I have to say. Leo Nucci used to have good technique. If you watch his performance of this aria in 1980, the sound quality is much more like the old-school bel canto masters. Thomas Hampson is just too funny in this video. Opera should not have sing-speaking because it is NOT musical theater. Also, his larynx is too high and he is projecting much of his sound backward instead of forward. It's a total bummer because he has a great voice that is worth being trained in the old bel canto way. Florian Sempey is totally overdoing it. Not only that; but, did you notice that he is singing the name "Figaro" indifferent mouth positions on the "Fi-"? His sound is woofy and darkened too much. It is a shame because he really has a great voice and personality for this character; but, because people tell today's opera singers to overact, much of it is spoiled. Cheers to Italian bel canto!
@@oliverdelica2289 Maybe he does sound the same as he did in the 1980s. But, the one difference between his version now and the one from 1980 is that he doesn't sound breathy during the first phrase or two. He also doesn't shout.
C'est comme comparer de vrais travailleurs manuels et des bricoleurs du dimanche. Le problème c'est qu'aujourd'hui nous n'avons que des bricoleurs du dimanche, ils intellectualisent, ils font du raffiner, du classieux... Mais ça n'a aucun intérêt, aucune passion, le public se désintéresse et dira que c'est beau pour ne pas passer pour des idiots.
Anyone trying this aria should be given due respect ! They all add their individuality. Rossini was a sadistic composer ! Hampson had a great technical skill. (He shows-off too much.) His voice may not have been as rich & resonant as Warren's, but that's not his fault. An intergalactic vocabulary is needed to describe Warren. I won't even try ❗️
Gobbi is excellent. So annoyed when people said his voice wasn’t as good as his acting just because he didn’t have the fake swallowed sounds of many baritones
It is clearly perceptible that Thomas Hampson is a lazy TENOR. Just listen to his high register. Much brighter than the low register of the voice. Hahahaha' With a development of vocal technique, he could be a great dramatic tenor or even a spinto, but he preferred to try to deceive as a baritone for having a facility for low notes a little superior to tenors in general. Who knows, maybe even a Wagnerian tenor?! Of course, with proper development.
It does not really work like that. Thomas Hampson obviously has a lyrical voice. Dramatic tenors and even real spinto tenors have big voices with a lot of weight, they are not good at singing coloratura like Hampson. These are two very different types of voices. A lyric baritone would be more comparable to a lyric tenor, since these are lyrical voices with the same characteristics. Listen to Mario Del Monaco singing Largo Al Factotum, he struggles with the coloratura and runs out of breath, because his voice has too much weight to sing with that agility.
Bueno Nucci no me parece tan nueva escuela. Tal vez no tiene la calidad de voz de Warren pero no me parece que cante mal. Además era un extraordinario intérprete. Hoy ni siquiera hay un barítono de la calidad de Nucci
Nice old school baritones! Love them! But that's unfair of you to compare two differents recordings made decades apart, as the techniques have evolved. The rendition cannot be the same, and the singers today are asked to sing in way bigger halls than in the 50s or 60s. Also, anyone who has ever heard Florian Sempey live can tell that his definitely has a huge voice. Big singing is clearly not his problem. Vocalizations are. Please be honest with the singers you are crictising.
@@sananton2821 are they absolutly all quieter? Or do we remember those who were actually better among the old ones, forgetting the weakest ones? Halls are getting bigger as you say (for example Garnier vs Bastille in Paris, where I live), so is it fair to make the comparison? Also Sempey is still quite a young singer, although his voice is quite big as I told in my previous comment. Remerber also that singers today are pushed to sing lot of big repertoire very early, even if they're not ready yet, and get tired much more, compared to lots of old ones who made they carreer with 4-5 roles only, which is easier and more comfortable.
90% of the new singers have terrible chest voice development and thus lack of squillo. Doesn't lower their larynx and create mpre pharyngeal space and thus Chiaroscuro. You expect us to believe that the problem is halls getting bigger?
@@takemyhand1988 that’s not what I said. I agree with you on technical matter (although I can’t tell if it’s 90%, more or less) I’m just saying it’s unfair to critisise today’s « weak voices » because of bigger concert halls, different recording conditions, and on top of it it’s absolutely false as far as Mr Sempey is concerned.
@@gangflow9139 what different conditions though? Even if they sang in smaller venues, their voice remains the same. It's not unfair to criticize weak voices because of larger halls. If you have good vocal development, a voice can fill out large halls, especially since opera halls are bulit to increase the sound.
The old technology wasn't picking up much bass, that's why they sound so resonant and loud. I think it's an unfair comparison. Add the lower frequencies to the last clip and he will not sound that strong.
in theory yes, but we have recordings of many old great singers who were recorded with both old and modern technology and the voice sounded just as big in the modern tech as with the old tech, technique and musicality remains
Hahaha! The old ones have also much more core and low sound in their voices! The modern ones dont have developped chest voices and their larynxes are high that s why they have no sound. Listen to how they speak, NO VOICE. and than listen to the old ones how they spoke!
