Baritone and Bass Pappano's Classical Voices

We are now in a man's world -

that of the baritone and the bass,

and the bass-baritone.

These are the authority figures, the politicians, the father figures.

The villains, of course.

Baritones and basses have been a great gift to composers of opera,

now creating a balance in the world previously run

by tenors and sopranos.

The greater warmth of the voices was also exploited in movies,

and musical theatre.

I'll be talking to some of the great singers of today,

'working with them, in fact,

'to find out some of the tricks of the trade.'

-Sing a bit.

-Get off!

'How does the breathing work,'

the body...the soul?

COFFEE MACHINE HUMS

In this programme, I'm going to be exploring

the lowest male voice, in its three main registers.

On the higher end of this vocal spectrum is the baritone,

a manly, virile quality that is also warm and paternal.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

On the other end is the bass, the rolling thunder,

the grainy, chocolate-y colour.

HE SINGS IN SLAVIC LANGUAGE

And in between sits the fascinating combination of the two -

the bass-baritone,

having qualities of the baritone and the bass, as the name suggests.

This voice is incredibly imposing,

because it can go high, it can go low,

and in the middle has a tremendous power and authority.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

To sing these thunderous roles,

the bass-baritone needs power, training and technique.

He often portrays extreme emotions,

somehow keeping his own in check.

Here's Bryn Terfel as the brutal Scarpia.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

All the roles that you sing are very, very demanding,

I mean Scarpia...

If you're singing roles like Scarpia

or Sweeney Todd, for instance,

the misfits, the malcontents of our stage,

then you do tend to really go into those characters,

and I'm sure every other bass-baritone would say as well.

And it can come back and bite you in the bum

if you throw yourself too much into this demonic aspect of a portrayal,

of acting on the stage.

'Sometimes it's better just to take a step back,

'not to dive too much into creating a persona on the stage.'

# Who, sir? You, sir

# No-one's in the chair Come on! Come on!

# Sweeney's waiting!

# I want you bleeders

# You, sir! Anybody!

# Gentlemen, now don't be shy!

# Not one man, no... #

Some people would call you also a crossover artist.

Do you sing differently?

No, not at all.

I'd love to hear anybody call me crossover,

because I would say to them that those people that sang

these original musicals would have had no amplification at all,

so they would have been trained,

either operatically or, you know, trained vocally.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

The term bass-baritone emerged in the late 19th century

when Wagner demanded a higher kind of bass voice

to sing his stentorian roles.

Bass-baritones can sing baritone parts, and vice versa.

So let's meet one of the all-time great baritones,

who could sing everything, and in a highly individual way.

A well-known Italian opera and film star is visiting London.

And here he is, Tito Gobbi.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Tito Gobbi made his debut in 1935 when he was just 22.

Over the next 44 years he built up an international reputation

in almost 100 roles.

He made feature films, he directed operas and he gave master classes.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

When you're studying a role,

which comes first, the music or the character?

-I think I leave the music last.

-Yes.

Because when...

When you know the character of the personage,

the musical interpretation will be much easier after that.

Here's Gobbi as Figaro, the irrepressible handyman and barber.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Little wonder that Gobbi's nickname was "the Acting Voice."

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Where did your father get this instinct for character?

It has to be an obsession, it's a continuous search.

He was always curious to find out,

before the story, the plot of the opera starts,

where was that character -

where was he born, what had he done before, and what would he do after?

Unless he died, of course, on stage!

-Tito Gobbi

-is

-Baron Scarpia.

One of his signature roles, he sang it nearly 1,000 times.

You are truly in a story,

you are in the theatre to watch a story.

He gives you that narrative through every twitch,

every colour in his voice, and every thrust.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Here, Scarpia looks forward to having his wicked way with Tosca,

the opera's heroine.

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

He makes his voice ugly, dark, cutting.

It's like a knife.

He can sing beautifully, but only when the text asks him to.

So it's not beauty for beauty's sake.

This is the consummate singing actor.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

He was always looking for the soul of the man within the character.

Because only if you get to that level,

then you will do things which people will get passionate about -

will suffer, cry, laugh.

Gobbi excelled in Verdi's multilayered

Shakespearean characters.

As Falstaff, here he is at the peak of his powers.

He colours both voice and the acting,

to convey an obese old man who thinks he's a slim young seducer.

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

This is fat singing now.

Now he'll go to skinny singing.

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

Gobbi, with just the raising of an eyebrow,

can also portray the pathos of old age.

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

Falstaff is tragi-comic.

We pity an old man ultimately disappointed with his life.

The ghastly old codgers of early 19th century comic opera,

on the other hand, deserve everything that life throws at them,

and they're a gift for the comic singer.

When you walk on the stage,

I mean, I just start laughing before you even open your mouth.

You have a repertoire...

It's not the repertoire - it comes from the intention.

It's the situation that makes the character comic.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Comic opera emerged as opera for the masses.

Instead of kings and queens, we have more domestic situations,

such as finding that a younger woman really isn't that keen.

And these ridiculously colourful characters

need ridiculously colourful singing.

HE SINGS RAPIDLY IN ITALIAN

I've seen you perform so many times in the buffo repertoire,

the comic repertoire,

and it seems to me that rhythm, pronunciation, articulation,

are the principal things.

So how do you train your mouth, how do you train here,

-and your throat, to go...

-HE MUMBLES RAPIDLY

..in the Barbiere di Siviglia, I can't even do it myself!

You have to practise.

Sometimes I do this exercise -

with my mouth, my teeth really closed,

just to make my lips work, and my tongue work.

Like, Bartolo for example...

HE SINGS QUICKLY IN ITALIAN

The "R" is particularly difficult.

HE SINGS RAPIDLY IN ITALIAN

To negotiate such fast tongue-twisting show-pieces,

the singer not only needs diamond-sharp diction,

he has to get through it without passing out.

A lot of the music in the comic operas

is obviously quick and sparkling.

That's why, also, the breath has to be very well-placed.

But you can't stop - the music is always going, so...

So you have to steal the breath.

HE SINGS RAPIDLY IN ITALIAN

If you keep stealing the air...

..you reach a point where you cannot sing any more, yes?

Exactly. If you're not used to breathing calmly,

it doesn't work.

HE SINGS RAPIDLY IN ITALIAN

As Rossini was writing his crowd-pleasers,

in Germany and Austria a new form of music was being born

in which the sweet, higher register of the baritone

could come into its own.

BARITONE SINGS IN GERMAN, PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT

In the late 18th century, the piano was revolutionizing music,

so too the Romantic movement.

Lieder, or German song, combined these two elements.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

Poems and folk tales were set to music

and performed in the intimate setting of a home or salon.

The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

made the art of Lieder his life's work.

DIETRICH SPEAKS IN GERMAN:

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

Fischer-Dieskau also sang opera,

but his greatest legacy are his recordings of Lieder -

almost 600 of Schubert's songs alone.

These are benchmark interpretations,

an encyclopaedia of how a baritone might sing, and express.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

Fischer-Dieskau was a master of vocal control.

Singing softly is really more difficult than you think,

because singing softly doesn't just mean to whisper

and to pull the voice back,

but it means that the soft sound must be a projected soft sound.

HE SINGS SOFTLY IN GERMAN

But, wait a minute, he, when necessary,

could really clobber you over the head with a mighty sound.

HE SINGS FORCEFULLY IN GERMAN

What made Fischer-Dieskau so special

was the way he could summon up a whole world

from just notes and words on a page.

It's almost impossible for a composer to put down on paper,

in black and white, exactly what he wants.

Therefore I wouldn't hesitate to say that, in my opinion,

he is a genius when it comes to interpretation,

because I think he can see further into the mind

of some of the composers that he sings

than anyone I've ever worked with.

He can read between the lines.

This Schubert song tells of an encounter

by a father and son with the evil Erlking,

that only the boy can see.

Fischer-Dieskau acts four separate characters,

using just the colour of his voice,

starting with the narrator.

SINGING IN GERMAN:

First colour change now.

Now from father, to son.

And back to father.

The beguiling Erlking.

Fischer-Dieskau had a remarkable quality,

in that he could reinvent himself on the spot,

forming a myriad colours in the voice,

but also as an actor.

Did you see the variety in his face?

SINGING IN GERMAN:

Taking Lieder from the salon to a cavernous concert hall

presents a considerable challenge for any baritone,

even more so if he's singing Mahler,

who, at the end of the 19th century,

arranged his highly personal songs for a full symphony orchestra.

Here's the Bavarian baritone Christian Gerhaher

singing a song from one of Mahler's great cycles.

Intimacy can't be sold.

You can't go on stage and say, "I am very intimate",

or something like that, with a big gesture.

It must remain inside itself a little bit, yes.

SINGING IN GERMAN:

In German, the main role is the right colourisation of the vowels.

Every "E" is different, every "A" is different, every "Ah" is different.

SINGING IN GERMAN:

Only then, when the authentic colour of vowel is delivered,

you can start to colour the voice, in order to make some interpretation.

That means, I am singing the normal vowel "Ah",

but I can sing it very bright - LIGHTLY: # Ah. # -

and I can sing it very dark - DEEPLY: # Ah. # -

and it's the same vowel.

SINGING IN GERMAN:

You deliver maybe in the end a kind of coffee,

because the water goes through the coffee but it has no grains,

and it is coloured - it is coloured by your own personality,

what you're delivering,

but in terms of colour, bringing a kind of enlightenment to singing.

SINGING IN GERMAN:

South of the Alps, in the mid-1800s, the Verdi baritone is invited

to take all the subtle colouring demanded by Lieder

and use it in the service of full-blown drama.

Verdi was to push the baritone voice to new extremes.

His baritones had to sing several notes higher,

and with greater thrust.

This new top of the range made the baritone even more expressive.

But, what is it that he demands from his baritones?

Well, first of all,

the sheer size of the voice has to be imposing.

It has to make its effect directly and right at the outset.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

The singer must also be able to declaim -

to act through the words, and to hurl those words

into the theatre,

so projection is incredibly important.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Ettore Bastianini was the quintessential Verdi baritone.

He had the most incredibly exciting high notes -

he could go higher and higher and higher,

seemingly endless for a baritone.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Bastianini was the archetypal Italian alpha male.

Born in Tuscany, he had good looks,

he had charisma and he loved fast cars...

and women.

In the 1950s, so commanding was his voice

that he could hold his own on stage with star sopranos,

such as Maria Callas,

and give the tenors a run for their money.

The richness of that sound, the warmth of that sound,

the strength of that sound, the masculinity of that sound

now gave the tenor competition.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

That's the distinctive colour of the Verdi baritone.

Warm but with a core of steel,

Bastianini's voice cuts through the orchestra.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

His acting is perhaps more traditional,

less detailed than a Gobbi,

but the compensation is this quality of sound -

burnished, masculine.

My, I wish Verdi could have heard him.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

While the baritone is the most common male voice,

the bass is rare.

It's been a gift to composers ever since opera began,

a vital colour in the musical palette.

The bass voice is a sound that somehow affects us deeply...

and it's meant to.

The bass voice is instantly recognisable.

It is most often the voice of evil in the operatic world,

but it is also the voice of the father figure.

So you have this...

..dichotomy of menace and warmth,

evil and pathos,

and composers have played with these two colours,

if you like, for centuries.

HE SINGS IN FRENCH

If we're talking menace, look no further than Mephistopheles,

the personification of evil, and temptation,

sung here by Nicolai Ghiaurov.

SINGING IN FRENCH:

Moving a big voice like this is not so easy!

HE SINGS IN FRENCH:

The bass voice is very rarely put in the romantic situation.

Are basses not inclined to romantic experiences?

Yes, they are, but...

So the idea of a certain power, commanding energy,

is very often given to the bass voice.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

The low notes of the bass, it's like sitting back in an armchair,

and being totally relaxed

and hope that that sound will be like the wonderful bass note

from an organ pipe or a beautiful cello.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

The vibration of the low notes

would not have the thrill of the tenor singing his highest note.

It has a wonderful satisfaction, a comfort, an ease,

but it's a different thrill,

because the vibrations are much slower with the low notes.

# Wondrous

# Wondrous

# Wondrous

# Wondrous machine... #

To sing you need strong muscles in the lower stomach

and a flexible diaphragm.

These give you the physical support that the voice needs,

and especially for a bass.

# Must be forced, must be forced

# Must be forced to yield

# Must be forced, must be forced

# Must be forced to yield... #

You know, with singing, the basic, as we say, "support", from here,

the work done below this level

has always got to be quite intense.

It's always working very hard.

That's where the control comes from, that's where the power comes from,

that's where the flow of air, that goes over the vocal cords...

Can I see? Sing a bit.

Get off!

No, sing a bit, let me hear.

Well, breathing in, all this works - the abdominals and the diaphragm.

-Yeah, but sing.

-And then when you start singing...

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

So there's like a counterweight underpinning the sound.

Yes, this is absolutely crucial to the control and power.

If you're just sort of breathing...

HE INHALES AND EXHALES RAPIDLY

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

..the sounds comes out a bit like that.

Wagner's five-hour epics stretch the bass voice to the limit,

demanding granitic tone, stamina, and the ability, of course,

to project your voice over a huge orchestra.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

HE CONTINUES SINGING IN GERMAN

Wow, that's all one note

and yet it has a power.

You were projecting that voice

and I could just sense it was going out

to the back wall of the theatre.

We don't have microphones in the opera house and...

# So every phrase that we sing

# Has to be projected... #

..and that is a natural thing,

as a bird would sing.

# Except the path

# That leads to the world outside... #

Bird or beast, modern or classic,

all bass repertoire draws on the same core techniques.

The Minotaur was a role written specially for John Tomlinson

in 2008.

# In dreams I seem to remember

# Sunlight glossing the sea... #

Diction by itself is dry.

The text is to be used, not just to be...

-ENUNCIATING RIGIDLY:

-..enunciated correctly at all times...

-ENUNCIATING EXPRESSIVELY:

-..it has to be enunciated and used,

and the words have to be expressed and be vivid.

SINGING IN RUSSIAN:

I think you just broke the microphone, John!

Oh, yes, Russian's important for the bass voice, of course.

Of course it is.

There's a wonderful depth. I think for the bass voice it's fantastic.

OKTAVIST SINGS IN SLAVIC LANGUAGE

Russia, more than any other country, is the spiritual home of the bass.

The shudderingly low tones of the basso profondo -

the very deep bass -

resonate throughout Russian music,

a crucial part of its cultural identity.

The most extreme and astonishing evidence

of Russia's affinity with the bass is that of the oktavists,

so called because they sing a whole octave below

the normal bass register.

Now, that's low.

CHOIR SINGS IN SLAVIC LANGUAGE

The oktavist has the lowest singing voice there is.

Russian cathedrals didn't have organs,

so this deep bass voice sang the very lowest notes instead.

Vladimir Miller is one of the very few living oktavists.

I must say this is the first time I've heard a singer

with this extraordinary low range.

When did you discover these low notes?

IN RUSSIAN:

IN DEEP VOICE:

But there is metal in that sound.

And I tell you that from the back of the church,

it was exactly the same as from the front.

The projection was remarkable.

IN RUSSIAN:

HE SINGS IN SLAVIC LANGUAGE

IN DEEP RUSSIAN VOICE:

HE SINGS IN SLAVIC LANGUAGE

The oktavist sound is almost only ever heard in church,

but Russian operatic basses also have a distinctive character.

MAN SINGS IN RUSSIAN

This is the Song Of The Volga Boatmen,

sung by one of the greatest opera stars of the 20th century -

Feodor Chaliapin.

Chaliapin was in every way a presence.

In Italian we say a "personaggio."

He was entertaining and terrifying.

But what about his voice?

Well, the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein said this -

that "Chaliapin had a unique quality.

"Powerful and caressing, soft as a baritone's

"and flexible as a tenor's.

"It sounded as natural as a speaking voice."

Chaliapin was born in 1873 of a peasant family,

and I think you can hear that in his voice -

there is something of the landscape,

a yearning and a melancholy that is Russian through and through.

MUSIC: Farewell, Prayer And Death by Feodor Chaliapin

There's a force of nature there that I think is

perhaps the essence of every great artist.

BORIS CHRISTOFF SINGS IN RUSSIAN

Chaliapin established a template for singing in Russian.

This is the Bulgarian Boris Christoff.

What unites the two singers is this distinctive Slavic sound.

We tend to think of the Slavic sound being deep, dark,

but it has also something to do with the way the language brings

so many of the sounds back into the throat.

HE SINGS IN RUSSIAN

So "oorr-oorr", like almost a swallowed sound,

but how right it sounds when somebody like Boris Christoff

sings quintessentially Russian music.

SINGING IN RUSSIAN:

Mussorgsky gives the dying Boris Godunov

a moving paternal moment with his son.

Through the music in opera,

a composer can uncover the vulnerable, self-doubting side

of such authority figures.

This is Philip II of Spain,

the most powerful man on Earth in the 16th century,

reflecting on his old age

and the realisation that his young wife doesn't love him.

The Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto

has shaped this role for over 35 years.

The introduction of the cello starts.

The voice of the cello and the voice of the bass

are one unique thing,

with this natural vibrato that the cello has,

which should be also in the voice.

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

'We have the chance to see a human side of King Philip.'

The risk is to get too much involved emotionally in this.

And in every single moment, in every single bar,

you need to have this control of yourself.

'These beautiful, long phrases,

'where you have to be very careful in the breath.'

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

'We have in Italian what we call "linea di canto",

'the line of singing,'

which is the distribution of breath, intention,

from A to Z during a phrase.

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

'The wave of sound should be controlled

'in order to arrive to Z healthy, not...

HE PANTS ..like that, you know?!

And doing that, you give Philip the sadness,

the disappointment, the disillusion, all these parts.

SINGING IN ITALIAN:

'Every time, you can find something that you never thought before -'

inflections that you can find in the voice, the colours,

every time there is some discovery.

Therefore I think that it will be never finished.

It was unforgettable conducting him in that aria.

We don't tend to think of a voice like that

as an instrument for popular music.

20TH CENTURY FOX THEME SONG PLAYS

Oh, but wait!

From when it first started,

Hollywood had lured great opera stars to appear in the movies.

Some became just as celebrated on screen as on stage.

His starring role in Tonight We Sing wins Ezio Pinza immortality

in the cement of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

The Italian bass Ezio Pinza became a Hollywood star

when he was almost 60.

Pinza had established his career in Italy

and then was one of the biggest names

at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for 20 years.

He sang all the classic bass roles,

but one role was to change everything.

It wasn't until Mozart's Don Giovanni

that his career sky-rocketed,

and that's quite unusual, because the role of Don Giovanni

is written for a baritone, not a bass.

It's quite high, but he had tremendous flexibility in his voice.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

He had an ability also to bring it way down, to get quiet,

making him the ideal seducer.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

SHE SINGS IN ITALIAN

THEY SING IN ITALIAN

He was also a natural theatre beast, someone who had charisma to burn,

but despite the glories of his operatic career,

Ezio Pinza is perhaps best known today for having sung one number,

one number in particular.

It was especially written for him

and it wasn't an operatic aria at all,

but a song from a musical - South Pacific.

# Across a crowded room

# And somehow you know... #

Rodgers and Hammerstein gave Pinza a gift of a song.

# You know even then... #

Some Enchanted Evening is one of the most popular

and recorded show tunes ever,

and every nuance, every phrase, was designed for Ezio Pinza's voice.

# Some enchanted evening... #

And what an accent!

# Someone may be laughing

# You may hear her laughing

# Across a crowded room

# And night after night

# As strange as it seems

# The sound of her laughter

# Will sing in your dreams... #

All the elements of his operatic voice are there -

the legato, the beautiful, perfect singing, the diction.

It's honey in voice.

# Or all through your life

# You may dream

# All alone... #

The bass voice can be commanding, even ominous,

but Pinza proves that it can also be caressing.

# Once you have found her

# Never let her

# Go. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We've seen the bass voice as entertainer,

as the voice of authority,

as the voice to celebrate God -

but there was one singer who did all these things,

and his voice, speaking and singing, made him famous.

He also used it as a weapon of change.

His name, of course, was Paul Robeson.

# Oh, rockin' chair got me

# Cane by my side... #

'I sing where I speak.

'I'm not an opera singer that reaches for the notes, going up there

'and all around.'

So if I say, "Waterboy, where're you hiding?

"If you don't come, I'm gonna to tell your daddy",

then I sing it to you.

# Waterboy, where're you hiding?

# If you don't come, I'm gonna tell your daddy... #

# My rockin' chair... #

Paul Robeson's voice made a huge impact,

but it was not about high notes, it was about stature

and dignity and strength.

He was a big man, in fact he was a star athlete,

an American football player.

Somehow when you listen to his voice,

all those things come together -

that rolling bass voice, that manliness,

that honesty.

# Ol' man river

# That ol' man river

# He must know somethin'

# But don't say nothin'

# He just keeps rollin'

# He keeps on rollin' along... #

Robeson was already an admired actor in straight theatre,

when, in 1928, he landed the role of Joe

in the stage version of the musical, Showboat.

Ol' Man River made him a household name.

# But ol' man river

# He just keeps rollin' along... #

His singing is not overly emotional, it's not sentimental at all.

It retains a certain distance, magnificence,

majesty, even.

Robeson didn't just entertain, his was a voice of defiance.

He changed the words of his signature song

into a clarion call for social change.

# But I keeps laughin'

# Instead of cryin'

# I must keep fightin'

# Until I'm dyin'... #

Paul Robeson spent his life fighting,

putting his voice at the service of the struggle for civil rights.

# Rollin' along. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Modestly, I've struggled for the rights of my folk,

and I have accepted many personal insults.

But when the insult becomes an insult to my people as a whole,

then there's danger.

HE SINGS IN RUSSIAN

Robeson didn't flinch from danger, he courted it.

His often-stated support for the Soviet Union

put him on a collision course with America's Cold War warriors.

'I'm a believer in socialism.'

I believe that the socialist lands, in the sense of the Soviet Union,

China, and the people's democracies, are the hope -

can I repeat it? -

the hope of the future.

SINGING IN RUSSIAN:

This is a singer who's as famous for his speaking voice

as for his singing voice,

and I think that says a lot.

When he sang, there was a directness,

as if he were speaking to you.

Of the 24 films he made, Robeson thought this one

made in Wales was his most significant achievement.

One, two, three, four, one!

# Lord God of Abraham

# Isaac and Israel

# This day, let it be known... #

-Here, steady, mate, steady.

-# Thou art God

# And that I am thy servant... #

The Proud Valley tells the story of David -

a drifter taken into the hearts of a poor Welsh mining community,

not only as a fellow worker, not only as a fine singer,

but as an equal.

Now listen, lads. Dave here is more than a good singer,

he's as good a butty as ever worked down a pit with me.

Aye, and he's a decent chap into the bargain.

Here's Seth talking about him being black.

Why, damn and blast it, man, aren't we all black down that pit?

-LAUGHTER

-Aye, take a look at yourselves!

This fella's as good a pal as any of you!

Come on, David, man, give them a lead!

# Back to work with no repining

# All through the night

# Overhead the stars are shining

# All through the night... #

Basses, baritones, bass-baritones,

sopranos, tenors, mezzo-sopranos, contraltos,

it's been a revelation for me to see and marvel

at some of the wonderful archive,

and to meet and swap notes with their successors today.

I just wish I could have included more!

Each generation of singers brings new glory to the works of the past

and keeps them alive.

Each generation creates new roles

that contemporary composers have been inspired to fashion

specially for them.

Music can paint the world, and make us see it and us

through a different prism, in new colours.

This is what the very greatest singers

have helped us to do and continue to do.

MUSIC: The Barber Of Seville Act One by Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas