Medicine & Opera

I’ll get the easy ones out of the way right now. Beethoven, Debussy, and Bartók. Each completed only one opera – Fidelio, Pelléas et Mélisande, and Bluebeard’s Castle, respectively.

Fidelio gave Beethoven more trouble than any of his compositions. The opera went through three versions, in 1805, 1806, and 1814. After the final version he vowed never to compose another opera. The work has some glorious moments and some empty ones as well. The best thing that sprang from it was rejected from the final version. Of course, it’s the Leonora Overture No. 3. It’s so powerful that starting the opera with it would leave the work overpowered. Otto Nicolai (more about him below) started the practice of playing the overture before Act 2. Mahler continued the practice, but placing it before the final scene. It’s often done that way now. The last scene of the opera is set after all the important events have taken place. Everybody sings about how happy they are about the way things have worked out. Placing the overture here works.

Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts the Leonora No. 3. It’s a stupendous reading of perhaps the greatest overture ever written. It seems to contain the entire drama of Fidelio.

Debussy’s only opera is beloved by musicologists and critics. It has the approbation of a segment of the public, but bores another sizable fragment of operagoers. I confess to being part of the latter group. The Met has done it 119 times since its house premiere in 1925.

Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle has been performed 42 times by the Met since its first appearance at the company in 1974. At first it was done in English, but starting in 2015 the company has done it in the original Hungarian. Given that opera singers are not trained in Hungarian and that the singers in New York were not Hungarian, I suspect that the words would sound like gibberish to a native Hungarian speaker, but that’s just a guess. The two person opera is a masterpiece deserving more than the 42 times the Met has done it.

Fromental Halévy (1799–1862) wrote more than 30 operas, many of which were regularly performed during the mid-19th century. The only one which has endured is La Juive. It was a favorite of Caruso – it was the last opera he sang before his fatal illness. The opera was regularly done at the Met until 1936. It returned in 2003 as a vehicle for tenor Neil Shicoff. His singing of the opera’s most famous number “Rachel, quand du Seigneur” was the highlight of an otherwise laughable staging. I attended one of the eight 2003 performances. The opera has not returned to the Met since then. Richard Tucker’s great performance of the aria is on this site in several places. Below is a video of Shicoff singing the piece. It’s from the Vienna production that I saw when it was transplanted to the Met in 2003.

Otto Nicolai (1810–1849) was one of the co-founders of the Vienna Philharmonic in 1842. His opera The Merry Wives of Windsor premiered in Berlin just two months before his death from a stroke. His opera Il Templario, while not well known or often performed, deserves a better fate. The best known piece from Nicolai’s Merry Wives is the overture which is often played as a concert piece. The most familiar aria is Fenton’s lyrical tenor aria “Horch, die Lerche singt im Hain”—“Hark, the lark sings in the grove”—from Act II. Fritz Wunderlich is the tenor.

Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886) had a number of operas regularly performed while he was alive. But the only one that has lasted is La Gioconda, and even it shows signs of fatigue. The Met last did it in 2008. When Zinka Milanov, Richard Tucker, and Leonard Warren were around, it was sure to fill the house. The trick was getting all three of them into the same performance. Without their like, Gioconda is likely to remain on the shelf. The opera is one of just two written during the 50 years of Verdi’s dominance, not by Verdi, that made it to the standard repertory. The other is Boito’s Mefistofele – see below. Boito wrote the libretto for Gioconda using the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio.

The finale to Act 3 is a fine effort worthy of Verdi. The opera is remarkable for the tenor being in love with the mezzo rather than the soprano whose passion for the tenor is unrequited. The mezzo is unhappily married to the bass who aware of her desire for the tenor has her drink poison which the soprano exchanges for a draught that mimics death but allows eventual recovery. Don’t get too involved with the story; it’s best experienced with attention fixed on the music. The bass reveals the body of his “dead” wife to the consternation of everyone, especially the tenor. The finale depicts the variegated emotions of all the players with compelling effectiveness. The cast of the 1980 recording below includes Montserrat Caballé and Luciano Pavarotti.

La Gioconda Act 3 finale

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) wrote 12 operas, but only one is regularly performed – Samson et Dalila. It’s a static piece that has fine parts for a mezzo-soprano and spinto tenor. The Met is doing it this season in a dreadful production. Here’s what I said about it after it was telecast in 2018. I had just written that the opera was a mixture of beautiful music with patches of kitsch. “The Met’s new production, directed by Darko Tresnjak, is strong on the kitsch. The sets look like an amalgam of Buster Crabbe’s Flash Gordon and The Wizard of Oz. The choreography of the famous bacchanale was embarrassingly bad even by the standards of the opera house …. The destruction of the temple by the divinely inspired Samson was merely a flash of white light followed  by the curtain.”

But if you have the right tenor and mezzom the opera can be quite effective. The Met is doing the work starting in November with Aigul Akhmetshina as Dalila and Clay Hilley making his Met debut in the role of Samson. The excerpt below, “Arrêtez, ô mes frères !” features Mario Del Monaco as Samson. He had enough voice for two Samsons. Samson rouses the oppressed Hebrew people to stand up against their Philistine rulers, inspiring them with faith and courage. The Met is doing the opera on December 5 as part of this season’s HD series. If you go, bring a blindfold.

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) wrote Boris Godunov between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky’s only completed opera. It has as complicated a history as does Verdi’s Don Carlos. The composer created two versions-the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the revised version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in Saint Petersburg. The opera has often been subjected to cuts, recomposition, re-orchestration, transposition of scenes, or conflation of the original and revised versions. In the modern era most performances use Mussorgsky’s original orchestration which was thought poor until it wasn’t. Mussorgsky never completed another opera; he drank himself to death at age 42.

The death of Boris is sung by the great Bulgarian bass Boris Christoff. Tormented by guilt over the murder of the young Tsarevich Dmitri, Boris collapses after hearing of a miracle at the boy’s tomb. Sensing death, he summons his son Fyodor, counsels him on ruling Russia, bids him farewell, and dies as monks chant prayers.

Arrigo Boito (1842–1918) was an Italian polymath whose career clearly shows the difference between talent and genius. He is best knowns for his opera Mefistofele, the only one he completed, and the librettos for Verdi’s two final masterpieces – Otello and Falstaff. Mefistofele underwent numerous revisions over the the decade following its first performance at La Scala in 1868. It took a while to break into the standard operatic repertory where it now stands. In one of the world’s most severe cases of writer’s block he worked he worked on his opera Nerone for the last 30 years of his life never writing the music for the libretto’s fifth act.

The conclusion of Mefistofele is below. Sam Ramey is the devil and Dennis O’Neill is Faust.

Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) was a German composer best known for his fairy-tale opera Hänsel und Gretel. Born in Siegburg, near Bonn, he studied at the Cologne Conservatory and later in Munich, where he came under the influence of Wagner. Humperdinck became closely associated with Wagner at Bayreuth, assisting him during preparations for the first production of Parsifal and even composing some additional music for rehearsals. Although strongly influenced by Wagner’s harmony, orchestration, and use of leitmotifs, Humperdinck developed a gentler and more lyrical style of his own, often incorporating the character of German folk song. Hänsel und Gretel, first performed in Weimar in 1893 under Richard Strauss, brought him international fame. He wrote several other operas, including Königskinder, but none approached the lasting popularity of his masterpiece. Humperdinck later taught composition in Frankfurt and Berlin and remained an important figure in German musical life until his death in 1921.

The Evening Prayer (“Abends, wenn ich schlafen geh”) from Act II is probably the opera’s most famous passage and an excellent miniature of Humperdinck’s style: simple, folk-like melodic writing surrounded by rich Wagnerian harmony and orchestration. The duet is sung by the children just before they fall asleep in the forest. Elisabeth Grümmer and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf are the singers. Herbert von Karajan conducted.

Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) was an Italian composer and librettist whose career was dominated by the extraordinary success of Pagliacci. Born in Naples and trained at its conservatory, he spent years earning a living as a pianist and teacher before achieving international fame following that opera’s Milan premiere in 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. He wrote both its words and music, combining theatrical realism, passionate melody, and explosive violence in a defining work of Italian verismo. His subsequent operas included La bohème (1897), overshadowed by Puccini’s treatment of the same subject, and Zazà (1900), which enjoyed considerable success but never matched Pagliacci‘s enduring popularity. He also composed operettas, orchestral works, and songs, notably “Mattinata,” recorded by Enrico Caruso with the composer at the piano. Despite continued activity, he never escaped the shadow of the opera that had made him famous.

Everyone knows the great aria that concludes the first act of Pagliacci. Below is Richard Tucker and Teresa Stratas in the second and final act. Tucker declaims the final words “La commedia è finita” though they belong to the baritone.

Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956) was a French composer whose reputation rests chiefly on Louise (1900), an opera depicting working-class life in Paris. A pupil of Massenet at the Paris Conservatoire and winner of the Prix de Rome, he wrote both its music and libretto, blending lyrical warmth with social realism. Louise achieved international success, and its soprano aria “Depuis le jour” remains popular. His sequel, Julien (1913), failed to establish itself, and he composed little thereafter, although he lived to ninety-five. He also founded the Conservatoire Populaire Mimi Pinson to provide free musical education for working women. I saw a performance of the Opera decades ago at the New York City Opera, Its a very uneven work,

Montserrat Caballé  Depuis le jour

Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) was an Italian composer and conductor who achieved sudden international fame at twenty-six with Cavalleria rusticana (1890). Born in Livorno, he studied at the Milan Conservatory before working as a conductor and music teacher. His prizewinning one-act opera, depicting jealousy and revenge in a Sicilian village, became a landmark of Italian verismo. Although he continued composing for decades, none of his subsequent operas matched its lasting popularity; L’amico Fritz (1891) and Iris (1898) are the best remembered. He also maintained an active conducting career, recording Cavalleria rusticana in 1940 for its fiftieth anniversary. His reputation remains inseparable from the youthful triumph whose success he spent the rest of his life trying to equal. I attended performances with Jussi Björling and Richard Tucker as Turiddu and Zinka Milanov and Giulietta Simionato as Santuzza. Tucker and Simionato were beyond outstanding

Introduction and Siciliana – Giuseppe Di Stefano is the tenor, Tullio Serafin conducts.

Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) was an Italian composer whose reputation rests principally on Adriana Lecouvreur (1902), a drama about the celebrated French actress, first performed in Milan with Enrico Caruso as Maurizio. Born in Palmi, Calabria, and educated at the Naples Conservatory, Cilea developed a style distinguished by lyrical grace, expressive vocal writing, and delicate orchestration. His earlier opera L’arlesiana (1897), also premiered with Caruso, survives chiefly through the tenor aria known as Federico’s Lament. Although usually grouped with the verismo composers, Cilea was especially sensitive to tenderness and melancholy. Following Gloria (1907), his final staged opera, he increasingly devoted himself to musical education, eventually directing the Naples Conservatory.

“La dolcissima effigie” and the music that follows it from Act1 of Adrianna is sung by Mario Del Monaco and Renata Tebaldi.

Umberto Giordano (1867-1948) was an Italian composer whose reputation rests chiefly on Andrea Chénier (1896), a passionate drama of love and political upheaval during the French Revolution. Born in Foggia and trained at the Naples Conservatory, he achieved international fame when the opera premiered at La Scala. Its soaring melodies, powerful theatrical effects, and demanding principal roles made it an enduring vehicle for outstanding singers. Fedora (1898), whose first cast included Enrico Caruso, also enjoyed considerable success, though it never attained Chénier‘s lasting prominence. Associated with the Italian verismo movement, Giordano combined direct emotional expression with a strong instinct for dramatic confrontation, qualities most fully realized in his finest opera. Mario Del Monaco Placido Domingo, and Richard Tucker were the best Chenier I ever heard in performance.

Chénier has four arias for the tenor. The Act 1 Improvviso is the the most famous and demanding. The tenor in the excerpt below is Galliano Masini.

A final word. Writing even one opera that survives is a major accomplishment. I wish that some of the gentlemen above were around today and at the start of their careers.

Paris was the center of Western Culture in the 19th century. It was for this reason that Italian composers were eager to write new works for the city’s major theaters. Many of the important composers of that era were fluent in French making the task of writing a “French” opera relatively easy. Here are four operas by four Italian composers written for Paris.

Gaspare Spontini (1774-1851) composed La Vestale during his early years in Paris, setting a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy. This three-act tragédie lyrique brought together religious ritual, military spectacle, and a heroine torn between sacred duty and human love. Although Spontini had completed the score by the summer of 1805, opposition within the Paris Opéra delayed its production. The support of his patron, Empress Joséphine, helped overcome these obstacles.

The premiere took place on December 15, 1807, at the Paris Opéra, then housed in the Salle Montansier on the rue de Richelieu. Caroline Branchu sang Julia, the title character, opposite Étienne Lainez as the Roman general Licinius; Jean-Baptiste Rey conducted. The opera was an enormous success, establishing Spontini’s reputation and receiving more than two hundred performances in Paris by 1830.

Performances dwindled as the century advanced. Its last nineteenth-century appearances at the Paris Opéra were in 1854. A reasonable explanation is that its classical austerity and ceremonial pacing increasingly seemed remote beside the newer operas of Meyerbeer, Verdi, and Wagner. By the century’s end, it was chiefly an admired historical masterpiece, occasionally revived, rather than a living staple of the theater. Its later rediscovery would depend heavily on exceptional sopranos, notably Rosa Ponselle and Maria Callas.

Recent staged performances of Spontini’s La Vestale were at Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, Italy, on February 28 and March 2, 2025. Carmela Remigio sang Julia, Alessandro Benigni conducted, and Gianluca Falaschi directed. A forthcoming production opens at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden on September 26, 2026, starring Sonya Yoncheva and directed by Lydia Steier.

Dedicated to Joséphine, La Vestale suited the grandeur and Roman imagery of Napoleon’s Empire. Its triumphal processions and solemn ceremonies provided an imposing public setting for an intensely personal drama. The music preserves Gluck’s seriousness and dramatic concentration while expanding the expressive possibilities of the orchestra and the sustained lyrical line. Berlioz admired the score, which helped prepare the way for nineteenth-century French grand opera.

The story takes place in ancient Rome. Returning from a victorious campaign, Licinius discovers that his beloved Julia has become a Vestal Virgin, bound to chastity and charged with tending Vesta’s sacred fire. During his triumphal celebration, she must crown him with a wreath. He arranges to meet her secretly that night. When the lovers reunite in the temple, their absorption in one another allows the sacred flame to expire. Licinius escapes, but Julia refuses to identify him and is condemned to be buried alive.

Licinius’s pleas and confession fail to persuade the religious authorities to spare her. As the sentence is being carried out, a thunderstorm erupts. Lightning ignites Julia’s veil and rekindles the sacred fire. The priests recognize the miracle as Vesta’s forgiveness: Julia is rescued, released from her vows, and permitted to marry Licinius.

“O nume tutelar,” Julia’s prayer in Act II of La Vestale, known in the original French as “Ô des infortunés, déesse tutélaire”-“O guardian goddess of the unfortunate” is the opera’s best-known aria. After the sacred flame has gone out, Julia appeals to Latona for mercy. Rosa Ponselle gives a stuningly beautiful rendition of the aria

Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) composed Médée in 1796-97, when he was already established in Paris. François-Benoît Hoffman supplied a French libretto drawing on the Medea legend, particularly its treatment by Euripides and Pierre Corneille. The three-act work belongs to the opéra-comique tradition because it combines musical numbers with spoken dialogue. Cherubini brought to this form the dramatic intensity associated with Gluck, supported by orchestral writing that gives extraordinary force to the heroine’s emotional upheavals.

The first performance took place at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris on March 13, 1797, with Julie-Angélique Scio as Médée and Pierre Gaveaux as Jason. It attracted a large audience and considerable enthusiasm for the music, acting, and spectacular scenery. Critics nevertheless objected to the first act’s length and the combination of spoken tragedy with opera; cuts began with the second performance. The work received 39 performances before disappearing from the Paris repertory in 1799.

Médée subsequently found a stronger foothold in German-speaking countries. In 1855, Franz Lachner replaced the spoken dialogue with recitatives. Carlo Zangarini’s Italian translation of this version reached La Scala in 1909. Maria Callas’s Florence revival in 1953 restored the opera to international attention and made Medea one of her defining roles. The Met performed the Italian version of the opera for the first time in 2022 with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role.

The story unfolds in ancient Corinth. Médée has betrayed her family to help Jason obtain the Golden Fleece and has borne him two children. He now abandons her to marry Dircé-called Glauce in the Italian version-the daughter of King Créon. Médée’s appeals fail, and Créon orders her into exile. She obtains one final day in the city and uses the delay to prepare her revenge.

Pretending to accept the marriage, Médée sends Dircé poisoned wedding gifts. Her rival dies, but Médée seeks a still more terrible revenge. Torn between maternal love and hatred of Jason, she finally murders their children inside the temple. She confronts their father with her bloodstained dagger and vanishes as the temple is consumed by flames.

The opera’s central dramatic challenge is to make Médée’s suffering comprehensible while preserving the horror of what she does. Its greatest opportunities for a singing actress lie in the passage from wounded tenderness through humiliation and fury to an act that destroys her own happiness along with Jason’s.

In Médée’s Act I aria “Vous voyez de vos fils la mère infortunée,” better known in Italian as “Dei tuoi figli la madre,” she appeals to Jason as the mother of his children, reminding him of everything she has sacrificed for him and begging him to return. Maria Callas performed the role at La Scala in 1953 under Leonard Bernstein’s direction.

Completed in 1843, Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal By Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) was his last completed opera and one of his most ambitious undertakings. Written in French for the Paris Opéra, it combines Italian lyricism with the elaborate machinery of French grand opera: five acts, ballet, massed choruses, and spectacular historical scenes. With a libretto by Eugène Scribe, premiered at the Paris Opéra on November 13, 1843. After this opera tertiary syphilis gradually destroyed his body and mind.

The story begins in Lisbon, where Sébastien saves Zayda, a Muslim captive, from execution by the Inquisition before departing on his African campaign. She falls in love with him. After the Portuguese army is defeated, she finds the wounded king and saves his life by promising to marry the victorious commander, Abayaldos. Sébastien remains alone on the battlefield, where he sings the opera’s celebrated tenor romance, “Seul sur la terre.” The British-American Alfred Piccaver sings the aria in its Italian version.

Les vêpres siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers) is a grand opera in five acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier. Verdi’s main reason for writing the opera was to achieve a major original success at the Paris Opéra, which offered international prestige and artistic opportunities beyond those available in Italy. It is now most often performed in its Italian version I vespri siciliani, that is when it’s performed at all.

The work is the orphan of Verdi’s mature works. Why it is so infrequently staged is a mystery as the opera is a masterpiece. Berlioz, as fine a music critic as he was a composer, said “Verdi has risen very high in this new work.” He praised its melodic intensity, spacious ensembles, orchestral color, and its skillful orchestral restraint. He also admired Verdi’s passionate power that unfolds gradually. His admiration encompasses the music’s control and breadth as well as its emotional force. Yet the opera remins at the frontier of the standard operatic repertory.

The opera requires a first rate soprano, tenor, baritone, and bass. It is full of great arias and ensembles. It has perhaps the finest tenor-baritone duet the composer ever wrote – Quando al mio. The singers are Plácido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes. The duet has appeared here before, but it is so good that it deserves a reprise.

“Monforte [baritone] reveals to Arrigo [tenor] that he is his son. Arrigo is torn three ways. First, he fears he will lose Elena [his fiancée] because he promised her he would kill Monforte who now turns out to be his father. Then he doesn’t know how to treat his newfound father. And finally, he recalls how badly his mother was treated by his father. At the end of this duet, he’s an emotional chimera. The skill with which Verdi handles this situation is Olympian. The main theme first sung by the baritone and later by the tenor is part of the overture, which incidentally is probably the finest Verdi ever wrote. Equally impressive is the dramatic tension that builds throughout the duet. Verdi was the master of the tenor-baritone duet and even by his lofty standard, this number stands alone. A work of genius.” This quotation is taken from my review of the complete opera as performed by the Teatro Regio di Parma.

Why are many French operas by Italian composers performed in an Italian translation? I think Italian composers subconsciously write as if the text were in Italian such that the stresses and accents work better in Italian than they do in French. The music just sounds better in Italian. A composer can set French words consciously while still imagining melody through habits formed in Italian. The instinct for where a phrase should expand, where its emotional weight should fall, and how a sustained vowel should carry it need not change completely with the language of the libretto.

Italian’s clear vowels, frequent vowel endings, and strongly marked word stresses can give a lyrical phrase a particularly satisfying shape. An Italian translation may therefore bring out something already implicit in the music-even when the notes were originally composed to French words. The original language has historical authority; it does not automatically have the greatest expressive effect for every listener. Preferring Don Carlo or La Vestale in Italian need not be merely a matter of familiarity.

My subject is operas that are known almost entirely because of one hit aria. Without the tune, they would be virtually invisible. Below are 15 arias that I think fit the description just given.

Catalani’s Ebben? Ne andrò lontana from the first act of La Wally is probably the supreme example of the one-aria opera. Countless people know the aria who have never heard – or even encountered – the complete opera. Ordered by her father to marry a man she does not love, Wally chooses exile instead and imagines herself going far away into the snowy mountains, where only the sound of church bells will remind her of home. The haunting pathos of the aria is perfect for Maria Callas’ unique ability to reveal the emotional center of the music she sings.


In Mascagni’s Iris, “Apri la tua finestra” is Osaka’s seductive serenade to the innocent heroine. Its graceful vocal line conceals Osaka’s selfish intentions, making the music alluring yet dramatically unsettling. The opera’s story is repellent. I won’t go into the details. The tenor is Giuseppe Di Stefano.

Cilea’s “È la solita storia del pastore,” commonly known as Federico’s Lament, is the emotional centerpiece of L’Arlesiana. Federico sings of his hopeless love for the unseen woman from Arles, comparing his suffering to the familiar tale of a shepherd abandoned by his beloved. Its haunting melody and sense of desolation have made it far better known than the opera itself. Salvatore Fisichella is the tenor.

Giordano’s Amor ti vieta from Fedora is a remarkably brief yet intensely passionate declaration of love. Loris sings it to Fedora after she has confessed her feelings. Lasting barely two minutes, the aria achieves its effect through directness and warmth. Its emotional power has made it far more famous than the opera from which it comes. This recording was made by Enrico Caruso in 1902. He was the tenor lead in the opera’s world premiere in 1898. Caruso was still a lyric tenor at the time of this recording. The stentorian tones that were to characterize his singing were still ahead of him. The composer was the pianist.

Massenet’s Ô souverain, ô juge, ô père, from Le Cid, is Rodrigue’s prayer for divine guidance as he prepares for battle. Although Le Cid is rarely staged, this magnificent prayer remains one of Massenet’s best-known tenor arias. Every prominent spinto tenor includes it on his recording or recital programs. Franco Corelli’s voice was ideal for this “big” aria.

Lalo’s Vainement, ma bien-aimée, from Le roi d’Ys, is a graceful aubade. Though brief, the aria requires an effortless upper register and refined legato singing, and it has remained a favorite of lyric tenors even as the opera itself has largely disappeared from the repertory. The tenor in this recording is Henri Legay, in my opinion, the greatest French lyric tenor of the last century.

Meyerbeer’s “Ombre légère,” the celebrated Shadow Song from Dinorah, is a brilliant coloratura aria in which the mentally disturbed heroine playfully addresses and dances with her own shadow. The aria’s combination of charm, technical difficulty, and theatrical imagination has allowed it to survive as a soprano showpiece long after the opera itself disappeared from the regular repertory. The soprano is Natalie Dessay.

Adam’s Mes amis, écoutez l’histoire from Le postillon de Lonjumeau, is a brilliant tenor showpiece. Its buoyant rhythm, rapid phrasing, and spectacular climactic high D demand exceptional agility and ease in the upper register. The aria’s cheerful theatricality and formidable vocal challenge have made it far more famous than the opera itself. Legay again is the tenor.

Gounod’s “Inspirez-moi, race divine,” from La reine de Saba, is a grand heroic aria in which Adoniram, architect of Solomon’s Temple, invokes his ancestor Tubal-cain for inspiration before undertaking the casting of the immense “sea of bronze.” Although the opera is rarely performed, this stirring hymn to artistic creation remains its best-known vocal excerpt. The tenor is Roberto Alagna.

Gounod’s “Source délicieuse,” from Polyeucte, is a noble, deeply spiritual aria sung by the imprisoned martyr Saint Polyeuctus as he rejects worldly pleasures and prepares to die for his Christian faith. Although the opera is seldom performed, this moving meditation has survived as its best-known excerpt. Rolando Villazón is the tenor.

Mascagni’s “Flammen, perdonami,” from Lodoletta, is the heroine’s extended final scene. Exhausted and freezing outside Flammen’s house on New Year’s Eve, Lodoletta becomes delirious, imagines that he is kissing her, and begs his forgiveness as she dies in the snow. It has survived as the rarely performed opera’s best-known excerpt. Renata Tebaldi is the soprano.

Goldmark’s “Magische Töne,” from Die Königin von Saba, is an ardent tenor aria in which Assad recalls the mysterious voice and irresistible beauty of the Queen of Sheba. Its flowing, sensuous melody and exotic orchestral coloring create an atmosphere of enchantment and longing, while the vocal line rises to an impassioned climax. Although Goldmark’s opera is now rarely staged, this lyrical and demanding aria remains its best-known excerpt. Leo Slezak who could sing anything from Mozart to Verdi’s Otello with Wagner in between, is the tenor

Korngold’s Ich ging zu ihm from Das Wunder der Heliane, is the heroine’s great Act II monologue as she defends her visit to an imprisoned stranger and insists that she gave herself to him (while standing naked in front of him) only in spirit. Korngold surrounds her confession with sumptuous late-Romantic orchestration and a soaring vocal line that moves from quiet introspection to ecstatic affirmation. Requiring immense range, power, and expressive control, the aria has become the opera’s best-known excerpt and one of Korngold’s most magnificent creations for the soprano voice. Renée Fleming is the soprano.

Boieldieu’s Viens, gentille dame from La dame blanche, is a graceful tenor cavatina in which Georges Brown invokes the mysterious White Lady associated with the castle of Avenel. Its elegant melody, delicate ornamentation, and lightly supernatural atmosphere exemplify the charm and refinement of French opéra-comique. Once part of an enormously popular opera, the aria now survives chiefly as a demanding showcase for a lyric tenor’s flexibility, legato, and ease in the upper register. For a third time, the tenor is Henri Legay.

Wilhelm Kienzl (1857–1941) was an Austrian composer, conductor, pianist, musicologist, critic, and librettist. Educated in Graz, Prague, Leipzig, and Vienna, he belonged to the generation immediately following Wagner. Kienzl’s “Selig sind, die Verfolgung leiden,” from Der Evangelimann, is a simple, deeply affecting song in which Matthias, now a wandering preacher after years of unjust imprisonment, teaches Christ’s words from the Beatitudes to a group of children. The children’s chorus answers his tender, hymnlike melody, giving the scene an unusual purity and poignancy. Its blend of spiritual consolation and quiet personal suffering has made it by far the best-known excerpt from Kienzl’s opera. Fritz Wunderlich is the tenor.

The prelude to the beginning of an opera or to one of its acts differs from an overture in several ways. A prelude is usually, though not always, shorter. It is not a compendium of the work’s hit tunes. It tends to be less formal and more atmospheric. It typically runs directly into the action without a pause. Its structure leaves virtually no room or need for applause. The grand overtures to operas like those that start The Marriage of Figaro, William Tell, or La Forza del Destino are often received by audiences with rapturous applause – if well performed.

The two greatest preludes, in my opinion, are both from the same opera – Verdi’s La Traviata. The prelude to Act 1 is one of the miracles of nineteenth-century opera. Instead of excitement or spectacle, Verdi gives us fragility. The hushed violins seem to portray Violetta’s fading life before she even appears on stage. The love theme that follows is exquisitely tender, yet already tinged with loss. Few operatic openings are so economical or so emotionally devastating. Verdi’s ability to combine simplicity with profound expression ranks this prelude at the top of the genre were it not for the prelude to the opera’s third act.

The Act I prelude is prophetic. It tells us from the beginning that Violetta’s story will end in tragedy. The Act III prelude, by contrast, is not prophecy – it is the tragedy itself. By the time it begins, everything has happened. Alfredo has returned too late, Germont has realized his mistake, and Violetta is dying.

What makes the music extraordinary is its utter simplicity. Verdi strips away almost everything. The orchestra seems reduced to a whisper. The fragile string writing conveys physical exhaustion and emotional resignation better than any words could. Unlike Wagner, who often builds vast musical structures, Verdi here achieves his effect through economy; every note matters. The Act III prelude is more emotionally devastating than the famous Act I prelude because there is no longer any uncertainty. In Act I, Violetta’s fate lies in the future. In Act III, it is present reality. Violetta is minutes away from death. The brief prelude played as she is dying is so poignant because it is transmitted without words. It’s an emotionally overwhelming experience that only music of the highest order can convey. Death suffuses the entire piece, especially the dying away of the last few notes. Verdi’s music conveys Violetta’s voluntary sacrifice of the only chance at happiness that passed through her brief life like a supernova of the senses.

Combined, the two preludes stand at the pinnacle of art. They cannot be bettered.

Verdi was one of the few great artists who was granted a long life, which he used to improve his craft, such that at its end he had reached the sublime. His setting of Shakespeare’s Othello is arguably the greatest tragic opera ever composed. It has no prelude, but the storm scene that precedes Otello’s entrance functions as one. The orchestral introduction that opens the opera is among the most thrilling beginnings in all music. The tempest is not merely meteorological – it embodies the emotional violence that will destroy the characters.

The storm functions exactly as a prelude should, but in dramatic rather than decorative form. It establishes the opera’s world before the protagonist appears. The first sound is not courtly, lyrical, or ceremonial; it is elemental violence. That matters because Otello is an opera about forces barely held under control: jealousy, racial and military insecurity, erotic possession, religious terror, political instability, and Iago’s nihilism. The opening tempest is therefore not just weather. It is the opera’s moral climate.

The prelude to Act I of Tristan und Isolde occupies a unique place in music history. It is one of the few pieces that can legitimately be called both a masterpiece and a turning point. The famous opening phrase is among the most consequential in Western music. A solitary cello line rises yearningly and incompletely, as though reaching toward something unattainable. The phrase culminates in the sonority known as the “Tristan chord,” which refuses to resolve in the expected manner.

But its historical impact on music is a century and a half in the past. What sounded harmonically unique and of uncertain tonality is now commonplace. The listener can judge it solely on its artistic quality without the technical baggage it once carried.

The orchestration is remarkably restrained by Wagnerian standards. The strings dominate much of the texture. Woodwinds emerge briefly before fading back into the orchestral milieu. The prelude is constructed as a series of increasingly intense waves. Each crest reaches higher than the previous one, only to collapse before achieving complete fulfillment. The final climax is overwhelming. The orchestra rises to a passionate outcry and then withdraws. Yet, Wagner denies complete satisfaction. The tension remains unresolved. True resolution will not arrive until the very end of the opera, in Isolde’s ‘Liebestod’.

Only Wagner could have written this prelude. One has to concede its brilliance and its emotional properties. Despite all these, at least in my estimation, it does not touch the heart with the intensity of the brief Verdi pieces just presented above. Yet some find its power overwhelming. There’s no accounting for taste.

Another Wagner tour de force is the opening of his first Ring opera – Das Rheingold. Over the course of 136 bars, Wagner musically depicts the dawn of creation, the timeless depths of the Rhine, and the birth of the Ring cycle’s entire sonic universe – all built entirely on a single, unchanging E-flat major chord.

What makes this prelude revolutionary is its total rejection of traditional harmonic tension and resolution. There are no modulations, no minor chords, and no dissonances for over four minutes. The opening of the opera is something the listener can admire with awe. But this admiration is all in the head. Its brilliance is dazzling. A genius with much brain power, much to say, but little to weep over. The excerpt below stops just before the Rhein Maidens enter.

Jerome Hines was one of the towering figures of twentieth-century American opera – literally and artistically. Standing more than six and a half feet tall, with a sonorous bass voice of exceptional power and clarity, Hines enjoyed one of the longest and most distinguished careers in the history of the Metropolitan Opera.

Yet he was also an unusual intellectual among singers: a trained mathematician and chemist who published articles in mathematical journals and maintained a lifelong interest in philosophy and science.

He was born Jerome Albert Link Heinz on November 8, 1921, in Hollywood, California. During his studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, he pursued mathematics and chemistry while simultaneously studying voice. Because anti-German sentiment was widespread during World War II, the young singer altered his surname from Heinz to Hines at the suggestion of his manager, the famous impresario Sol Hurok. During the war, he worked for an oil company after being rejected for military service because of his height.

Hines made his operatic debut in 1941 at the San Francisco Opera as Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto. Five years later, he debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as the Officer in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. That appearance began an extraordinary association with the company that lasted from 1946 until 1987 – a record 41 consecutive seasons.

At the Met, he became celebrated for roles demanding authority, spiritual gravity, or demonic force. His greatest portrayals included Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust, Ramfis in Verdi’s Aida, King Marke in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and the title role in Boris Godunov – first in English and then in Russian. In 1954, he became the first American-born singer to perform Boris at the Met, a landmark achievement at a time when the great Russian bass repertory was still dominated by Europeans.

Internationally, Hines sang at the Bayreuth Festival, La Scala, Glyndebourne, and even the Bolshoi Theatre, where he performed Boris Godunov in 1962 during the tense days surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis. He spent a year learning the role in Russian preparatory to his appearance in Moscow. His imposing presence and immense vocal resources made him especially admired in Wagner and the great Slavic bass repertoire.

Hines was more than an opera star. In the 1950s, he published scholarly papers in Mathematics Magazine on operator theory and numerical methods, an almost unprecedented accomplishment for an active international singer. He also remained deeply interested in the philosophy of mathematics throughout his life.

A devout Christian, Hines composed an opera on the life of Jesus titled I Am the Way and frequently performed sacred music and religious programs. He also wrote several books, including his autobiography This Is My Story and the influential Great Singers on Great Singing, based on interviews with important vocal artists.

Jerome Hines died in New York on February 4, 2003, at the age of 81. He remains remembered not only as one of America’s greatest basses, but also as a rare combination of artist, scholar, teacher, and intellectual.

Hines sang both the King and the Grand Inquisitor in Verdi’s Don Carlo. First, the King’s great aria ‘Ella giammai m’amo’ from a Met performance in 1961. Then a video from another Met performance in 1980. Paul Plishka is the King. Hines is in such stupendous voice that, even at age 59, he dominates the scene.

Next ‘Mentre gonfiarsi l’anima… Oltre quel limite’ from Verdi’s Attila. In this dramatic scene from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Attila (Act I, Scene 6), the ruthless Hun king awakens from a horrifying nightmare and defiantly rejects the supernatural warning. The Met never staged this opera during Hines 41 years with the company. He would have been terrific in the title role.

Hine’s singing of Mephisto’s serenade is from a TV broadcast. It’s a role he often sang at the Met. He was the first of Gounod’s devil that I heard at the Met – Dec 17, 1955. Giuseppe Di Stefano sang the title role.

‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. Hines gives a performance so good you could wonder why anyone else would try to match him. Note he changes ‘hope’ to ‘God’.

His rendition of Ol’ Man River is from a concert in 1984. The voice is still in marvellous condition.

Hines appeared at the Met when there was a plethora of great basses. He was surpassed by none of them. He seems to have been somewhat forgotten with the passage of time. He did not leave a lot of studio recordings. What we have shows what a fine artist he was. From what I can tell, he was an equally fine human being.

I’ve previously written about both Renato Capecchi and Ford’s aria from Verdi’s Falstaff. But I came across some material that was so good that I decided to revisit both the baritone and the aria.

In 1961, he appeared as Ford in a Naples production of Verdi’s valedictory opera. The cast was remarkable for its all-around excellence. Tito Gobbi sang the title role. In addition to the two baritones, Renata Tebaldi, Mirella Freni, and Fedora Barbieri also appeared.

Capecchi’s interpretation of Ford’s aria is notable for the intensity with which he depicts Ford’s belief that his wife has succumbed to Falstaff’s ardor and betrayed him. Of course, the audience knows this is not true, but Ford is convinced of his wife’s unfaithfulness. It is the only serious moment in Verdi’s comedy. In style and emotional impact, it harkens back to the Verdi of Rigoletto. Capecchi’s performance is the best I’ve heard of this aria. The excerpt below continues after the aria with the reappearance of Falstaff (Gobbi) and lasts until the make their joint exit to conclude the scene.

Now jump ahead 31 years, and Capechhi has become a basso buffo. He’s still as effective as ever, but in a different category. ‘A un dottor della mia sorte’ is Dr Bartolo’s great patter song from Act 1 of Rossini’s Barber. Capecchi was an artist whose greatness was not as fully recognized as his talent deserved.

I’ve been writing a lot about great baritones of the past century, while I’ve mentioned him a few times, this is the first post devoted exclusively to Tito Gobbi (1913-1984).

A major figure of 20th-century opera, Gobbi combined vocal distinction with an acting ability rarely equaled among singers of any vocal category. His career, which spanned the late 1930s through the 1960s, included numerous recordings that, along with his stagecraft, have ensured his reputation endures.

Born in Bassano del Grappa in 1913, Gobbi did not initially train as a singer; he studied law at the University of Padua before turning to music. He enrolled at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he studied with Giulio Crimi. He made his stage debut in 1935 in Gubbio as Count Rodolfo in Bellini’s La sonnambula, and within a few years, he had established himself in Italian houses, including La Scala, where he first appeared in 1942.

From the outset, Gobbi’s artistry was marked less by sheer vocal opulence than by a penetrating intelligence. His baritone was not conventionally “beautiful” in the plush, velvety sense associated with singers like Ettore Bastianini; instead, it was a highly malleable instrument capable of a wide range of color and inflection. What distinguished him was his ability to inhabit a role completely – through diction, phrasing, and physical gesture, creating fully realized dramatic portraits.

This quality made him an ideal interpreter of the great Verdi and Puccini roles. His Rigoletto was a landmark portrayal, notable for its tragic inwardness and sharply etched characterization. In Tosca, his Baron Scarpia became perhaps the definitive modern interpretation: urbane, sadistic, and chillingly controlled. His association with Maria Callas – particularly in the famous 1953 and 1964 recordings of Tosca – produced performances of extraordinary dramatic intensity, with Gobbi’s Scarpia providing a perfect foil to Callas’s volatile heroine.

Gobbi’s repertoire focused on Verdi and Puccini. He was an outstanding Falstaff, capturing both the comedy and pathos of Shakespeare’s knight, and a compelling Simon Boccanegra, where his gift for portraying inner conflict found ideal expression. In Mozart, he brought unusual dramatic specificity to roles such as Don Giovanni, emphasizing the character’s aristocratic menace rather than mere charm.

International recognition followed the Second World War. Gobbi became a regular presence at the Royal Opera House, where he was particularly admired for his acting, and he appeared sporadically at the Metropolitan Opera. However, his greatest triumphs were in Europe. His collaborations with conductors such as Victor de Sabata and Herbert von Karajan yielded recordings that remain benchmarks.

Gobbi’s recorded legacy is central to any assessment of his career. The 1953 EMI recording of Tosca under de Sabata alongside Callas and Di Stefano is often cited as one of the greatest opera recordings ever made, with Gobbi’s Scarpia a masterclass in vocal acting. Equally notable are his recordings of Rigoletto, Falstaff, and Otello (as Iago), in which he demonstrates an unmatched ability to color the voice to reflect shifting emotional states. His Iago, in particular, avoids caricature, presenting instead a chillingly rational embodiment of evil. And, as you’ll hear below, he doesn’t laugh at the end of the Credo. The laughter typically heard is an invention of baritones and is at odds with Verdi’s instructions that, after the final words, he shrugs his shoulders, turns away, and moves upstage.

In later years, Gobbi turned increasingly to stage direction, bringing the same dramatic insight to his productions that had characterized his singing. He also wrote an autobiography, My Life, which offers valuable insight into his artistic philosophy – especially his conviction that opera is, above all, a form of theater.

If Gobbi had a limitation, it lay in the relative lack of sheer tonal luxury compared with some contemporaries. Yet this was ultimately secondary to his interpretive gifts. He was not merely a singer of roles but a creator of characters, and his performances often give the impression of spoken drama heightened by music rather than singing adorned by acting.

Today, Tito Gobbi stands as one of the supreme singing actors of the recorded era. His legacy resides not only in the notes he sang but in the meanings he uncovered within them – meanings preserved in recordings that continue to define how these roles are understood and performed.

Below are examples of his singing that show both his dramatic excellence and the unique sound that characterized his singing.

I’ll start with the role that was as close to him as a tattoo – Baron Scarpia, the fiendish embodiment of evil in Puccini’s Tosca. He made his Met debut in that role. I was at that performance (January 13, 1956). Zinka Milanov was Tosca, and Giuseppe Di Stefano was Cavaradossi. It was the only time I heard Gobbi in performance. He was darkness personified. The excerpt below is the conclusion of Act 1. It’s the part where Scarpia claims that Tosca makes him forget God – as if he had any relationship with the deity.

Next two Rossini arias. Largo al factotum (from The Barber) needs no further details. Everyone knows it.

Resta immobile (in the Italian version of William Tell) occurs just before Tell shoots the apple off his son’s head. In it he tells him to be still and confident in his father’s skill at archery.

Another Puccini gem – Nulla silenzio comes near the end of Il Tabarro. Michele knows his wife has a lover, but lacks his identity. In it, he tries to deduce who it might be. Events just after the aria reveal that it’s Luigi, a young stevadore.

Next, a few Verismo standards. Nemico dell Patria is in Act 3 of Giordano’s Andrea Chenier. Carlo Gerard muses on how the French Revolution went wrong.

The Prologue to Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci is the reason leading baritones sing the role of Tonio, who doesn’t have much to do after the famous introduction to the opera.

The same composer’s Zazà is rarely done. Its baritone aria Zazà, piccola zingara is often done as a recital piece. It’s a fine number.

Gobbi often appeared in the title role of Don Giovanni. Leporello, posing as Don Giovanni (Act 2), leads Elvira away to keep her occupied while Don Giovanni serenades her maid with his mandolin. Deh, vieni alla finestra – (Ah, come to the window).

Despite Gobbi’s identification with Baron Scarpia, he was really a Verdi specialist – to the extent that a singer with such a vast repertoire could be said to specialize in anything.

Pieta, rispetto, amore is sung by Macbeth just before he is killed by Macduff. It’s another example of Verdi having his villains sing like angels. The melody is so beautiful that one can’t help feeling pity for the benighted Macbeth.

Eri tu is sung by Renato, who is convinced he has been betrayed by his best friend Riccardo; he thinks the tenor has seduced his wife. The recitative is better than most arias. This piece is one of Verdi’s great creations.

Verdi’s Rigoletto is the baritone’s summa. The deformed jester’s two arias are below. First Pari siamo, then Cortigiani, a scene of such dramatic impact that it stands at the summit of Italian opera. Gobbi’s acting skills were so nuanced that his Rigoletto was one of the best of the last century.

Gobbi was a renowned Falstaff. Here is the Honor Monologue that conludes the opera’s first scene.

Finally, opera’s acme of villainy – Iago. In performance, Gobbi, at the conclusion of the Credo, followed Verdi’s instructions exactly.

Tito Gobbi was the embodiment of the singing actor. He is to baritones what Maria Callas was to sopranos.

There are several operas in which the organ has a prominent role. It is the reason that many major opera houses have organs built into their architecture. Examples include the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Palais Garnier, the Royal Opera House London, and the Rome Opera.

Here are several scenes in which the organ plays an important role. They are presented in no particular order. First, the Te Deum that concludes Act 1 of Puccini’s Tosca. The prominent organ part is no surprise, as the scene takes place in a church during a religious service. Bryn Terfel is a scruffy and villainous Baron Scarpia. The production is from the Royal Opera in London.

The Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana has a prominent organ part. The scene features Eva-Maria Westbroek and The Royal Opera Chorus.

The Church Scene from Gounod’s Faust, where Mephisto and a chorus of devils torment poor Marguerite, has a very prominent organ part. The scene is from a 1985 production at the Vienna State Opera. Gabriela Benackova is Marguerite and Ruggero Raimondi is Méphistophélès.

Busoni’s Doktor Faust is another opera more admired by scholars than by audiences. Doctor Faust, a brilliant but spiritually empty scholar, makes a pact with the devil’s agent Mephistopheles in exchange for knowledge, power, and worldly pleasures. Through a series of episodes – including seduction, deception, and the pursuit of magical power – Faust tries to transcend ordinary human limits. His schemes ultimately lead to tragedy, including the ruin of others. At the end, realizing the emptiness of his quest, Faust transfers his remaining life-force to a child and dies, suggesting a final, ambiguous act of redemption.

The opera’s organ solo occurs in the First Intermezzo set in a Catholic church. The organist plays an extended solo, one of the most striking instrumental episodes in the opera. The music is chromatic, dissonant, and harmonically restless; it’s very characteristic of Busoni’s late style. The passage functions almost like a concert interlude, standing apart from the surrounding vocal action.

The first scene of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg begins with a church service that is just ending with the singing of Da zu dir der Heiland kam (When the Saviour came to thee), an impressive pastiche of a Lutheran chorale. Of course, there’s an organ.

The scene at the monastery in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, often incorrectly dubbed the Convent Scene even by the Met, contains some of the most beautiful music Verdi ever composed. The monastery scene in Act II of La forza del destino takes place after Leonora has fled following the accidental killing of her father by Don Alvaro.

Leonora arrives exhausted at a remote monastery seeking refuge. She confesses to the monk Fra Melitone that she is a noblewoman who wishes to renounce the world and live in penitence. The monk brings her before the abbot, Padre Guardiano, who listens to her story with compassion.

Leonora asks to live as a hermit in a cave near the monastery, dedicating her life to prayer and repentance. Padre Guardiano agrees and instructs the monks never to disturb her. In a solemn ritual, the monks chant prayers while Leonora takes her vows and is symbolically sealed away from the world.

The scene ends with Leonora alone in her hermitage, praying for mercy and peace, marking her withdrawal from human life and setting up the tragic events that follow later in the opera.

The excerpt below is the encounter between Leonora and Padre Guardiano. The organ is heard at its start.

In Act I of Otello, during the famous storm scene that opens the opera, Giuseppe Verdi uses the organ in a highly unusual orchestral role. The organ enters almost immediately at the beginning of the storm music (around the second measure). It sustains a low dissonant cluster, usually described as C-C♯-D in the lowest register. This cluster is held continuously for a very long stretch of the storm scene – roughly the first 250–270 measures, depending on the edition. It acts as a deep sonic foundation beneath the orchestra. The sustained dissonance creates a rumbling, atmospheric vibration, imitating the subsonic roar of thunder and the sea. Rather than playing melodic lines, the organ serves as a massive pedal point that intensifies the orchestral turbulence above it. The orchestra produces the wind, lightning, and waves. The organ provides the continuous seismic undertone of the storm, making the entire opening feel physically overwhelming. When the storm subsides and Otello finally arrives safely, the disappearance of this drone helps mark the dramatic calming of the scene. Verdi’s use of a tone cluster anticipates by decades the 20th-century music’s use of such a device. The organ is felt more than heard.

Other operas with organ parts include I Puritani (Bellini), Mefistofele (Boito), La Gioconda (Ponchielli), Turandot (Puccini), Il Trovatore (Verdi), Salome (Strauss), Lohengrin (Wagner), and Peter Grimes (Britten).

I recently wrote that the title role in Verdi’s Otello was unique and so difficult to fully realize that it needed a tenor so gifted that the role might belong to a class of its own – The Otello Tenor. The role requires a tenor with the strength of an offensive tackle and the finesse of a fencer.

The opera begins with a terrifying entrance for the tenor. ‘Esultate’ is short, but is located in the tenor’s passagio, the most difficult part of his range, and has to compete with the full brass section at full emote.

Otello then has to stop a duel with commanding tones, followed by a lyrical love duet that lasts for more than 10 minutes. He sings an aria of outrage in Act 2; the act ends with a forceful duet. In Act 3, he literally loses his mind. At the opera’s end, he sings a mournful regret over the monstrous deed he has been duped into committing. In the middle of the dirge he stabs himself, dying at the music’s conclusion.

The role requires a singer of exceptional ability who has a clarion high B-flat (B4) and the sound of an heroic tenor mixed with that of a baritone. Fortunately for posterity, such a tenor was active in the middle of the last century, Mario Del Monaco. He has every vocal quality required for Verdi’s deluded Moor. He recorded the opera in the studio twice, and numerous recordings of him in the role were made during performances. There are some disputes as to the number of times he performed Otello; the number may be as high as 400. His identity with the role was so great that he was buried in his Otello costume.

I’ll present his performance of the key parts of Otello as the standard by which everyone else must be judged. I heard him do the role twice at the old Met. He was, both vocally and dramatically, the best Otello I have ever heard, either live or on recordings. I suspect his sound was similar to that of Francesco Tamagno, the great tenor who was the first Otello. He made a few recordings at the start of the 20th century when he was past his peak and suffering from the chronic heart disease that killed him a few years later. There’s no way to tell what he sounded like when he was at his best.

The performances that follow the Del Monaco selections are in no particular order. I picked them as they occurred to me.

Otello’s Esultate is from a 1958 Met performance. Del Monaco’s navigation through the passagio, which is where much of the role is placed, is perfect.

The extended duet that closes Act 1 is a sublime counterweight to the marital horror that follows. The kiss motive that appears near the end of the duet returns after Otello has realized his fatal error and is about to die from a self-inflicted wound. Renata Tebaldi is the soprano.

It doesn’t take much to make Otello suspicious of Desdemona’s fidelity. Just a hint sets him off -‘ Ora e per sempre addio sante memorie’ / ‘Now and forever farewell, holy memories’

‘Si pel ciel’ is the duet that closes Act 2. Otello is already out for blood – literally. Aldo Protti is the Iago.

Lauritz Melchior was the greatest heldentenor of the first half of the previous century. His many appearances at the Met were limited to Wagner.

He never gave a complete performance of Otello at the Met. He did appear once in the role, the last act only, in the farewell gala for Gatti-Casazza. His Italian colleagues had protested his appearance in the role, so Gatti could only schedule Melchior in the part as he (Gatti) was on the way out. Melchior did sing the role in Europe.

Lawrence Gilman in the New York Herald Tribune wrote: Mr. Melchior is a magnificent Otello. It is a pity that he has not sung the role before at the Metropolitan, for his performance last night brought down the house by its dignity, its passion, its restraint, its depth of feeling. Mr. Melchior as the tortured and terrible Moor captured the imagination from the moment when he loomed gigantically in Desdemona’s doorway to the moment when he was filling his dying utterances with a profundity of pathos that searched the heart and spirit. One will not soon forget his singing of the “E tu?come sei pal! E stanca, e muta, e bella?”

Here is Melchior’s reading of Esulate. New York missed a lot by never hearing Melchior perform the entire opera.

Francesco Merli was the leading dramatic tenor in Italy during the 1920s and 30s. He was particularly renowned for his portrayal of Otello. Below are his interpretations of ‘Esulatate’ and ‘Ora e per sempre’.

Leo Slezak sang for three seasons at the Met. The house could not afford two star tenors at the same time. He mostly sang roles that were not in Enrico Caruso’s repertoire. He sang Otello 31 times with the company, mostly under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. He received rave reviews. Slezak could sing just about anything from Mozart to Wagner to Verdi. His recording of Otello’s death scene is below

Jon Vickers was a Canadian tenor who was noted for both his portrayals of Verdi’s Otello and Britten’s Peter Grimes. Below are Esultate and Si pel ciel. Titto Gobbi is the baritone on the latter recording. The tenor was noted for his musicality and dramatic excellence.

Jonas Kaufmann added Otello in 2017 in London. He went on to perform the opera in Munich and Vienna. He was supposed to open the 2020-2021 season at La Scala in the opera, but the performance was cancelled due to the pandemic. Below are esultate, ‘Dio! mi potevi scagliar’, and the entire Act 3 finale,

Dio! mi potevi scagliar.

Placido Domingo sang Otello more than 200 times. It turned out to be among his most successful impersonations despite his voice being a little light for the role. Below are his versions of ‘Esultate’, followed by ‘Si pel ciel’ with Renato Bruson.

Aureliano Pertile was Toscanini’s favorite tenor when the Maestro was running La Scala in the 1920s. Below, he sings ‘Si pel ciel’ with baritone Benvenuto Franci.

Finally, Giuseppe Giacomini, who regularly sang Otello and made a studio recording of the opera. First, ‘Esultate’, followed by ‘Ora per sempre’, and then ‘Si pel ciel’ with Sherill Milnes.

That’s enough to allow valid comparisons. There are many other tenors I could have included had not sloth intruded. A few are listed below.

Bernardo Mauro
Giacomo Lauri-Volpi
Max Lorenz
Giovanni Martinelli
Ramon Vinay
James McCracken

“Ombra mai fu”, also known as “Largo from Xerxes” or “Handel’s Largo”, is the opening aria from the opera Serse (1738) by George Frideric Handel. Serse is an opera seria in three acts. It was first performed at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket on 15 April 1738. It was a complete failure lasting for only five performances. The opera was ignored until 1924 when it was revived in Göttingen. It has since become Handel’s most performed opera after Giulio Cesare.

Originally composed to be sung by a soprano castrato (and typically sung in modern performances of Serse by a countertenor, contralto or a mezzo-soprano; sometimes even by a tenor or high baritone an octave below), it has been arranged for other voice types and instruments, including solo organ, solo piano, violin or cello and piano, and string ensembles, often under the title “Largo from Xerxes“. The aria became popular as a recital piece in the 19th century. Today, singers of all flavors sing it in an arrangement suitable for their vocal type.

The aria has the distinction of being the only one, as far as I know, fondly devoted to a plant. The Italian and English words are at the end of this piece.

I’ll begin with the oldest recording of the piece in this collection. Enrico Caruso performed the aria in 1920, the last year of his career. He sounds like a fully developed dramatic tenor ready for Verdi’s Otello, though the singing is sensitive and subtle. Note that he has the trill that’s in the score. Some of the tenors below omit it. This recording probably comes closest to what the tenor sounded like in performance. Ombra mai fù.

Today’s countertenors likely sound nothing like the castrati of the 18th century whose sound was likely larger and better supported. Andreas Scholl does a reasonably good job with the aria.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky was only 26 when the video below was made. He sounds very good, but has not yet reached the zenith of his power.

Beniamino Gigli was 43 years old when the film of his singing of the aria in a recording studio was made. His lyric tenor is in fine form.

Cécilia Bartoli performs Handel’s aria as a stylized set piece.

Placido Domingo has recorded everything except the Beijing phone directory, and that omission is only because he couldn’t get a copy.

José Carreras had one of the most beautiful voices of the last century until leukemia and oversinging diminished it. This recording was made early in his career.

Finally, Franco Corelli gives a superb reading of Handel’s famous aria.

Frondi tenere e belle
del mio platano amato
per voi risplenda il fato.
Tuoni, lampi, e procelle
non v’oltraggino mai la cara pace,
né giunga a profanarvi austro rapace.

Ombra mai fu
di vegetabile,
cara ed amabile,
soave più.

Tender and beautiful fronds
of my beloved plane tree,
let Fate smile upon you.
May thunder, lightning, and storms
never disturb your dear peace,
nor may you by blowing winds be profaned.

Never was a shade
of any plant
dearer and more lovely,
or more sweet.